Fighting Spitfires

[Hoffman]

Just a few minutes ago I was happily playing about in my P-51, staying above 5K and really just flying it safe in order to get a feel for it.
I ran into a lower alt spitfire 5 and made a mistake on the merge. There were other cons in the area and there was a friendly close enough to me that I thought he was going to go after the spitfire, so I dodged his first attack and ignored him to look around the battlefield.  Only to spot the friendly diving off to go shoot at another P-51 3K distant, leaving me alone with a Spitfire 1.5 off my 6 and closing.

I immediately zoomed back up to alt, something close to 8-9K I don't recall exactly.  But the Spitfire followed me just enough to start tossing rounds over my nose.  I pulled into a right-hand climbing spiral figuring he's got to be at a lower E state than me and a right hand turn will bleed him faster than it will me and I'll be able to stall him out. Only he kept his spitfire 600-800 between my 4 and 5.  He couldn't out-climb me, but I couldn't pull sharp enough to stall him out.
Since everytime he tried to shoot at me he missed I figured I'll just keep him there and drag him up to 20,000 feet where he couldn't breathe, wait for him to flutter and then go after him.

Needless to say we get to 20,000 feet and he's still there.  Just close enough that I can't turn into him but just far enough away that he can't hit me.  I also notice there's a P-38 and 109 climbing up to join the fight against me.
Since I can't shake the spit I put my nose down and run away, easily outrunning him and the other pursuers at altitude.

I dislike having to run away like that, it leaves a bad taste in my mouth and now I'm wondering if there was anything I could have done.  If I hadn't been low on gas I probably would've stuck with it and kept climbing, and dodging until he ran out of gas.  I know enough about spits to know they eat gas like crazy.

Is there really anything else I could have done?

[abc123]

Although it's hard to tell without film, based on your description,  if you were in a climbing spiral with him and hes was about 600 below you, I would have gone nose low about 90 degrees off his front (just to his side) and at about 100 above him pulled up and looped over.  As you start to dive down, you're gaining E a lot faster then he does.  He probably would have gone pure pursuit and put his nose on you has he saw you coming down in front of him, and then depending on timing, right before he would have got a shot, you pull up and loop over as high as you can.  There really should be no way he could have followed you. 

Hopefully you can sort of understand what I'm explaining.  Take it FWIW though, some much better pilots will be in here soon enough.

Here's an example of what I was trying to say.  I got myself into a bad position against mntman, and you can see at about 2:00 in I'm at slow doing 80, and then swing around about 70-90 degrees and dive down a little bit, bringing myself up to about 120, and then I loop over.  I made a lot of mistakes, but that should give you an idea of what I'm talking about.   

http://www.mediafire.com/?sharekey=1501e21753648728312dbd5f2bdc5062b253edade8781c535be6ba49b5870170

[trotter]

I never go into a spiral climb after a zoom unless I know my plane has the edge in climb rate over my pursuer. Or unless I can already see the bandit wallowing and am sure of a stall. Why? By starting the spiral climb after the zoom you've negated your vertical advantage, and even if you have a slight IAS advantage at the onset of a spiral climb, the enemy plane with (in this case) a significant climb rate edge will always be able to keep the pressure on you, and keep getting shots on you.

This Spit 16 you were fighting (assuming a 16, since no other Spit holds E as well as you described) must have had a TON of smash to be able to immel 2k to your alt and then follow you another 4-5k vertical. Also, you must have only been around 300-325 mph. Assuming you are at full steam, no spit going less than 450 mph (after a dive) should be able to match what your defense was in this situation. Meaning your initial zoom was the right move. What I would have done differently, instead of the spiral climb after you saw he was keeping in the zoom, would be to go straight vertical and immel over the top. Let's face it, with both planes under 200mph and him holding constant ground, you're in no way going to outclimb in in a spiral climb. So might as well force his nose straight vertical if he wants to follow you, and hope his E state is such that a straight nose over top would force a stall.

[Anaxogoras]

Trotter, he said it was a Spitfire 5.  The P-51D outclimbs the Spit 5 below 10k ft, the Spit 5 is better between 10k and 15k ft, but the 51D is better again above 15k.

[TonyJoey]

I would simply have put a couple notches of flaps and made a slightly climbing turn to the right. Seeing as you were climbing, but closure was the same, you were higher and you could have utilized it by making the turn i explained. He would have had to climb the 600 ft or so just to get equal with ya, and by that time your wheeling around on his nice and slow spitty, which would pretty much hang there by this point. Have done this many tmes in jug and pony, they think they can turn inside of ya, but forget they still have to get there nose up pretty high, and will stall as you pull around on em.

[trotter]

Trotter, he said it was a Spitfire 5.  The P-51D outclimbs the Spit 5 below 10k ft, the Spit 5 is better between 10k and 15k ft, but the 51D is better again above 15k.

Oh whoops! My bad, didn't notice he said Spit 5.

Well then, take my advice and apply it to cases of Spit16, 14, 8, or 9. Sorry about that.

[Hoffman]

I'll see if I can get the film up in just a little bit, thanks for the advice guys.

*Edit*  After going over the film I see what I did wrong.
I'm still learning the P-51 so I'm sure she can do alot more than what I'm pushing.  I was flying too conservatively and missed my opportunity after his zoom climb to... I believe the term is yo-yo? over and push into him.

He was 1.5K behind me and alot slower than what I thought he was going.  I was pushing 300 MPH and still about 20 degrees nose up at 10K, he had just zoomed to 10 from 6 and was going 180. All I had seen was that he had jumped to my altitude and closed a full kilometer of distance.(I have always been intimidated by Spitfires, so I probably put more into their abilities than they can actually do) Had I then pulled a sharp high-angle turn into him, which I had the speed and was already partly into the move to do, I would've forced him to either dive, head-on, or try and turn away from another pass.  Then I would've easily had him going even slower and in worse position, likely stalling his aircraft out by pulling too hard on the stick.
Instead I let him recover enough speed and climbing power to barely keep with me in a spiral climb.

So those were my errors... Not aggressive enough and misjudging the other plane's speed.  But... eh... I'll figure it out.

Thanks again for the replies.

[BnZs]

Trotter, he said it was a Spitfire 5.  The P-51D outclimbs the Spit 5 below 10k ft, the Spit 5 is better between 10k and 15k ft, but the 51D is better again above 15k.

That is of course in some theoretical steady 1G climb, the Spitfire's insane ability to hold E in maneuvering throws a variable in.

Hoffman: One thing I will tell you is that the P-51D is not a great climber at all, but it can climb respectably at very fast airspeeds. For instance, at sea-level on MIL, you can set .speed for 300mph IAS and still be climbing at about 1,500fpm or so. This can force the choice on many slower planes of either chasing while you steadily gain an alt advantage OR climbing at which point they have given up the chase-they can't do both.

If you don't like running away, then I must suggest you get a plane other than the P-51D. It is inferior in the turn to the vast majority of common MA planes and not superior in climb/acceleration to many of the most popular at typical MA alts either. Its principal virtue relative most of the LW set is the ability to engage and disengage when it pleases, and thus deign to fight only from an energy or positional advantage. Another important virtue is relatively high top speed in MIL cruising flight and good energy retention, which in many cases can place you at an initial E-advantage over co-alt planes.  Although note it takes seemingly *forever* in level flight to reach maximum cruising speed. A final virtue to consider is its views, guns, and stability. Although the guns are not the strongest in the game, if you are really good deflection shooting,especially at slightly longer than normal ranges, the doom of anything you attack from advantage will often be a foregone conclusion.

[uptown]

Sounds like a damned boring fight to me. When he was 1.5K behind reverse him already and get the fight on before more show up....like they did. Now you're really screwed because it's 3 on 1. Always nose on the opponent. It create angles and sets up shots. Your not going to get a shot if he's always behind you. Be aggressive and he'll freak out because he's not expecting a P51 to want to turn with him. Use those flaps, chop throttle, do whatever  but mix it up. If you die you'll know what not to do next time.

No two fights are the same, so you won't find a "what to do list anywhere". Use ACM...YoYos, Split S, barrel rolls, scissors...etc. If you want to get good at this crap you have to fight. Leading a guy around the arena does nothing but tell him you're already beat. Turn around and show him that your P51 is boss and his Spitfire is junk!!!

[trotter]

Sounds like a damned boring fight to me. When he was 1.5K behind reverse him already and get the fight on before more show up....like they did. Now you're really screwed because it's 3 on 1. Always nose on the opponent. It create angles and sets up shots. Your not going to get a shot if he's always behind you. Be aggressive and he'll freak out because he's not expecting a P51 to want to turn with him. Use those flaps, chop throttle, do whatever  but mix it up. If you die you'll know what not to do next time.

No two fights are the same, so you won't find a "what to do list anywhere". Use ACM...YoYos, Split S, barrel rolls, scissors...etc. If you want to get good at this crap you have to fight. Leading a guy around the arena does nothing but tell him you're already beat. Turn around and show him that your P51 is boss and his Spitfire is junk!!!

In fact, throw my response in the trash, this is it. Well put.

[stroker71]

Have a squaddie go with you to the DA/TA and rotate one using the spit5 and the other in a 51.  See if you can come close to recreating the event.  If you have film you can see the alt and speed of each plane.  Then try a 1000 different ways to kill the spit, but you'll never know the level of skill of the spit5 pilot.  So next time something like this happens you'll have a better understanding of what to do.

Or maybe we should lobby HTC to put a tail gunner on the P51 so when it's running away it can still fight!  Hope you know I am kidding <---see smilies

[BnZs]

Be aggressive and he'll freak out because he's not expecting a P51 to want to turn with him. Use those flaps, chop throttle, do whatever  but mix it up. If you die you'll know what not to do next time.

I love reading stuff like this. 

Let me see here, the Spit guy is behind a P-51 in an airplane that has a much better sustained rate of turn, better turn radius, better energy retention in turns, and in the most common MA variant, much better powerloading and roll rate, and is armed with twin Hispanos...yeah, that is a situation that'll make anyone panic. 

I'm sorry Uptown, no offense to you sir, but pat answers like this bother me. Good way to sound macho and win the  's from the forumites, not so much useful information for telling the fellow how to deal with a Spitfire flown by a non-awful pilot.

Albeit, from the offensive position in the P-51, closing the throttle and slowing down to a moderate speed near cornering velocity is good advice, because of the P-51's wonderful deflection shooting ability and the fact that most P-51s attack at 450mph can make one rather lazy on the defensive maneuvering.

[BaldEagl]

You were lucky it was a Spit V.  Any later model would have eaten you up and spit (no pun intended) you out trying that.

[uptown]

I put it that way BnZs because too many guys hop in a 51 and run away at the 1st sign of trouble. The pony is a wonderful plane but it won't fly itself. It's very rewarding to do what people say can't be done. Sorry for the poor video, am in a hurry as the race is coming on in a bit 

[BnZs]

I put it that way BnZs because too many guys hop in a 51 and run away at the 1st sign of trouble. The pony is a wonderful plane but it won't fly itself. It's very rewarding to do what people say can't be done. Sorry for the poor video, am in a hurry as the race is coming on in a bit 

Post in AH film format please...I have dialup.