Soulyss,
My observations about the P-39:
The plane has very good instantanious turnrate and fair sustained turn rate performance. It is slow in level flight and slow to accelerate, but It will go 550mph in a dive without any compression problems. In short I think it handles better than folks give it credit for.
Looping is a real weekness do to low power to weight and fairly e bleed in tight turns (at the bottom). It has a very effective rudder but it too adds to the e-bleed in full rudder manuevers. I find that Yo-Yos work particularly well for keeping the e-up in a P-39 and if I can turn the tables on anyone this is usually how. The plane barrel rolls nicely which is the only defense against enemies on your six because the P-39 can't out run anything. It handles well at very low speed, meaning if you fly it smooth it won't depart, and can still turn and roll fairly well at 120 mph. When chasing enemies, be careful about chopping throttle too agressiely because it accelerates slow and they can walk out of gun range on you if your not careful.
The real problem with this plane is the guns. I can often manuever for a gun solution in every fight, but can't score the hit due to very low fire rate for 2 50 cals firing through the propeller (which drops their fire rate relative to wing mounted) and there are only two which isn't much firepower. The 37mm is the real threat to the bandits, but it has a very low firing rate, and not much ammo (30 rounds). I've chased spits and 51s and typhs around for 90 sec in the saddle and can't get enough hits to drop them. The 37 can kill with a single hit, but it feels like skeet shooting with a hand gun. holding the trigger down means your out of ammo in less than 10 seconds so lining up in front of a bandit and hoping he will run through the stream will get you 1 kill at best. Also the fire rate is so slow that usually the first shell passes in front and the next one passes behind him. So snap shots are for marksmen. But that's kind of what make it fun too.
If you can learn to shoot the 37mm and get hits on high deflection shots at 400-600 yrds. You can rack up a lot of kills in this plane. I've never been that good a shot.
Aslo (and I'm almost affraid to say it here. THis plane Ho's well. Not as good as an A8, but one shot from the 37mm (with it's cool new smoke trail) at a bandit at 1500 or 1000ydrs and he'll break early. this is a big advantage for a good pilot like yourself, on the merge. If you hit him he's toast.
One correction here is the Greziz is way better in the P-39 an I am. (sorry I've never flown with Batfink but I'm sure from his performance in the duelling bracket, he's way better than me as well. But thanks for the shout out Bosco
)
vinkman
