I've been having a great time in the PTO setup, and have been in a lot of really fun fights. I flew allied first night (#s), then went IJN all night tonight (balance again). I didn't observe anyone taking cheesy HOs on me when flying the zeke. I think the usual rules apply if you are flying a zero:
1) In a 1 v 1 fight, you're in heaven.
2) there is no such thing as a 1v1 fight
3) forget the swivel, keep your head on a spinning top.
4) if you lock onto an F4F, the other one will kill you. fast.
5) you can't afford to take ANY hits
6) stay low. altitude is only danger to a zero. same with speed. at 15 ft AGL, they can't turn nose low, they can't dive away.
7) hold fire until 100 yards.
8) only fire cannons. BBs will just make you think you are hitting.
9) consider an RTB to a nice present out of the blue: if you get one, great! If you don't, big deal. You probably died with a smile on your face.
10) Did I mention keep up SA?
It is ridiculously easy to get multiple-kill sorties when flying F4F vs zero. For one thing, with default skins, zero is way easy to see, F4F is very hard to see, and P39 is virtually invisible against the ground. But the main reason is that it takes a while for a zero to kill any allied plane, but takes 1 snapshot to kill a zero. Not even a good one. So, my recommendation is to set your expectations accordingly.
PS: Taking an HO (not dead on mind you, but FQ deflection shooting) is EXACTLY the right tactic when flying F4F vs Zero. I would also echo what was said about mistaking closing speeds. I've been out of flight simming for a while, and I find I do a crappy job of figuring out what direction the enemy in front of me is going sometimes.
Anyway, I've had great fun in here, and a big <S> to everyone on both sides. Seemed very civil ("Gentlemen, you can't fight in here, this is the War Room!").