Drop Tanks vs. Manueverability

[Karnak]

Bozon,

On the Mossie I just take 50% clean.  Anything that slows me down is to be avoided, even the 4-5mph of the drop tank shackles. 

[MK-84]

Bozon,

On the Mossie I just take 50% clean.  Anything that slows me down is to be avoided, even the 4-5mph of the drop tank shackles. 

For the mossie...This^  And consider dumping all or most or your .303 ammo as well, this adds to almost 300lbs (you wouldn't dogfight with a 250lb bomb would you) and also burn your wingtanks first.  Doing all of these adds a bit here and there to performance, but when all used together makes a very exploitable impact upon performance. Especially since this is an aircraft that is not considered to put up much of a fight...and the enemy never sees it coming.

[Krusty]

Just about ALL the gas is in wing tanks, in the mossie!

Also, there's no reason to get rid of the 300lbs of .303s, because that's barely even ONE percent of the loaded weight. You save just as much weight by burning off 50 gallons of fuel. Consider that it holds something like 550+ gallons total. 50% gives you some 275 gallons give or take and nets about 35 mins OFF wep (far less using WEP, this thing is thirsty) so you'll burn through FAR more than just a measely 300 lbs before, during, and after combat. 50 gals of gas is like 4 minutes off-wep. Burn wep for 2 minutes and you've already lost more weight than the .303 ammo.


At some point, nitpicking every last ounce seems to be futile. It's better to keep the .303s and empty them into the enemy. You only benefit from using them instead of wasting them. This also applies to some other very heavy planes. Don't dump tail gun ammo on 110s. Don't dump 7mms on Fw190A, etc. Better to just keep them and focus on flying rather than on less than 1% of the weight of your plane.

My $0.02.

[bozon]

On the Mossie I just take 50% clean.  Anything that slows me down is to be avoided, even the 4-5mph of the drop tank shackles. 

For the mossie...This^  And consider dumping all or most or your .303 ammo as well, this adds to almost 300lbs (you wouldn't dogfight with a 250lb bomb would you) and also burn your wingtanks first.

I thought that the Mossie wing tanks did not leave shackles when released. They are a bit like the Spit belly tanks in that they are wrapped around the wing, instead of hanging below like the American DTs. Even when still attached, I feel that the speed loss is very low and climb is reduced only by ~100 fpm. I will test the impact on speed tonight: clean, DT on, DT released.

I am with Krusty regarding the 303. If I could have left the guns themselves at home then maybe. As it is I do not bother to empty them, even though I only shoot the cannons in combat. The 303 are useful for shooting chutes and the occasional kill when I am out of real ammo. I also use them to scare people of HOing me - just shoot away from 1.5k. If you start early enough, most players will move out of the way and not try to HO what they believe is nose mounted 4*20mm.

[Karnak]

I don't dump .303s and I don't try to drain out wing tanks first.  Those simply don't make that much of a difference.

Bozon, the Mossie seems to use the same hardpoints for both bombs and droptanks and they are left behind after the bomb/tank is released.  It isn't much, but given the quantity of fuel it already carriers I don't see the point of losing even that.

Just ran a new test:

Mosquito Mk VI at 150ft:

50% fuel + droptanks:	MIL: 306	WEP: 341
50% fuel + shackles:	MIL: 318	WEP: 354
50% fuel & clean:	MIL: 320	WEP: 357