Pongo, I've tried the Alt-x to hold climb. It won't maintain a lock. I've tried re-calibrating my joystick 5 times and nothing has helped.
And, I thought this WAS a debate and I HAVE defended my position. It's clear to me few (if anyone) agrees with this suggestion. So, why beat myself up? I made a case (a pretty damn good one I thought) and defended it.
Sunchaser - please accept my apology for lumping you in with the "fighter jockeys". HOW could I be so inconsiderate :-)
My intention was that the majority of responses (I assumed) were from fighter drivers or at least from fighter points of view. I don't consider myself to be a fighter jockey OR bomber pilot. I'm just trying to make the game more playable from a bomber pilots position(IMHO) even though I'm only flying 1 of 10 missions in a bomber.
You almost HAVE to be an alt. monkey to survive in a B17 or Lancaster (a lanc especially with no ball turret and a pathetic amount of ammo in the tail gun). Otherwise you're just a big tastey treat to be mauled by multiple fighters over the target. The other day I climbed to 30K (that's a first for me) in a Lanc and STILL had 3 fighters chasing me!
And who CARES if we call bombers, BUFFS. It's just a common term for bomber. Everyone knows what we're talking about and it takes fewer letters to type...
