Spoken plainly, Kweassa, I overreacted. I offer my apology, unencumbered by any "buts".
Don't worry Steve. I'm quite adept in being a sore thorn in someone else's butt, so I'm really used to being flamed at.
But let me try to explain my POV on this matter;
Certainly speed is the pony's primary asset. I don't know that you can consider its' views an asset in the same vein you would consider speed one. For the sake of this discussion, let's say it is more of a passive asset and we are talking about active assets, agreed?
The way you think how "speed" is a "passive" asset sort of proves my point.
For you, a very experienced and skilled player, SA comes almost mandatory, near levels of instinct, that your choice of engagements are never bothered by the actual possibility of being shot-down from the sky. But like I said, guys like you forget that the rest 70~80% of the MA population, the average guys of the world, cannot all be like you. For them, gaining victories and having fun in the air comes with a premise that
THEY HAVE TO SURVIVE THAT LONG TO BE ABLE TO HAVE ANY KIND OF FUN in the first place.
To them, speed (or rather, the ability to choose the engagements of their liking, and be able to disengage at will, that can be provided by being in speedy plane) is not a
passive factor. It is THE primary factor, and an absolutely most important factor that keeps them in the air.
Speed is one thing that opens up the door for another weapon; one that is not in many 51' pilot's repertoire. It's not that they couldn't use it, no doubt many could but I don't see many do it. In fact, very very few.
Many 51 pilots, huh? So who are they? I'll bet you can name a lot of them, those pilots who you can consider a '51 pilot'.
But how about the 'other' P-51 pilots? The
UNNAMED guys of the MA who you'd rarely ever remember or recognize, since none of them are ever really in a league where you'd be able to remember them for their exceptional performance in the MA. Are you aware of the fact that many, many such anonymous pilots in the MA, are also P-51 fans, and fly P-51s a lot? Are you aware they fly in a very different manner than you, or those who you consider to be P-51 pilots?
How about me?
I bet you may have seen me a few times in the MA, but never really remember how I fly the P-51s. Ofcourse, I'm not a big P-51 fan, so my experience in the plane, and the skills needed to fly it are quite minimal. It remains at a basic level BFM principles where all I can comfortably muster, is how I may be able to fly it to a certain principle. Should I throw away what I understand as the "speed" asset of the P-51, and try flying like you? It just won't work.
Most people don't really grow out of this phase. Average guys like us, have a different rule, a different set of necessities that keep us alive and faring well in the skies - and vets tend to forget that.
I'm talking about deceleration. Often, a guy bouncing a pony is balls to the wall because he hasn't given consideration to the fact that the pony may try something other than just running. With it's ability to drop flaps early, and a decent sized rudder surface, the pony decelerates pretty well.
What if there's another bogey around? Oh wait, is it one of those presuppositions that you are already in a situation where you have all the time in the world to try this stuff and that? Wow geez, how does one gain that sort of luxury? Most usually we fly in the skies and would meet more than one or two enemy planes around. What do you do in that situation, Steve? Engage all of them at that spot with flaps popping out, slowing in the presence of other enemies and intentionally make yourself vulnerable against enemy fire?
Come to think of it, how does one land in that kind of 1vs1 situation in the first place?
Speed! You fly around high and fast, look for opportunities, see multiple targets heading in your direction, and turn back. Fly a few miles, most of them bugger away and go elsewhere. Oh look, there's one guy left. Nobody else in the area. I now have time to fight him 1vs1. Would you have been able to do that if you were in a plane considerably slower than the P-51? Well may you would have, but I know for certain most average guys wouldn't be.
Yes, there are a couple of other planes that slow down faster but in my mind, this is an asset to the pony. Not only does it decelerate decently, but like I said, many opponents catch on to the deceleration late. I am convinced that this is, at least in part, due to the 51's reputation/ability to run.
What if that someone behind you already presupposes that you will try decceleration and overshoots, and makes enough preparations for it?
See, both are assumptions on what the enemy pilot might be thinking, and yet, your assumptions can lead to death, while my assumptions leave room for caution, and emergency run-away when things go bad. Like mentioned above, vets hardly ever do meet someone more skilled or sharp and tactful in the area of maneuvering that you guys just forget that for all the rest of the guys in the sky, every engagement comes at a considerable death risk they have to be carfeful about. Yes, everyone has to risk something if they are going to fight, but vets like you can put all the eggs in one basket and still emerge unscathed.
However, the "vet" POV is a quite narrow POV. The lesser, unnamed, unfamous, and not-so-skilled pilots around have a very different POV. You'll see where I'm getting at. There are a lot of people in the MA who need more than just one baskets to put their eggs in. Some of them may be able to grow out of that phase, but many of them, will not.
I'm not going to convince the experts of this, I mean, what do I know? But there is no way for anyone to convince me I'm wrong either. I've used this tool in the MA to my advantage many times and against experienced opponents. From my own experience, it works much more often that it fails. YMMV.
That's why people say you are skilled, and praise for you what you can do in the P-51. That is also why your line of advice, is like giving amateuer pitchers advice that they should be throwing the ball like Greg Maddox. Right and wrong is a relative term.
I admit your advice does rings true for people on your own league, Steve.
Unfortunately, most of the people aren't in your league.
They are in MY league.[/i]
