RWY,
(film link at bottom)
I think I know the pony answer. When I'm in a jug, I get it to stall speed around 10k above the field and nose over. The jug is such an efficient diver, by the time I'm mid-field, I am 400+.
I went offline and did the same thing in the pony. Nope, got nailed, but I noticed the airspeed was only 300+. I went back in a pony, nosed over at 10k and applied enough throttle that I was doing 400+ mid-field. No sweat - ack didn't even get close.
Acid test. I went online, flew to a small field (4k alt), nosed over at 14k, applied a little power and had no problems. I noticed I was doing 450 midfield, so I didn't try to hit the left corner position. It took 3 passes (instead of 2.)
I have to believe AH is based on a real-world physics model: If you are going fly straight near ack, you had better be going fast!
I believe there are two things working here:
1) If you let the pony dive from 10k (with low power), it won't achieve sufficient speed.
2) Occasionally, you are going to make a mistake. When the ack pegs a pony, it's usually bad news. When it pegs a jug, it just shrugs it off -- most of the time.

Here is the online film. It's small -- 79k. It was pretty funny. I was deacking the field and a F4U and 109 were protesting.
http://rattler.cameron.edu/film1.zip AKcurly
[ 09-01-2001: Message edited by: AKcurly ]