Again, just my opinion, and not suggesting it's right or wrong.
What I find is the hardest about being a 'furballer' in the MA is it gets very tempting to fight the guys in the uber birds or pickers with the same bird. To me that's caving in, and I've done it on more then one occasion where it's into a Spit or a 51 just to be able to 'live' a bit longer.
The absolute best furballers I've ever seen have been guys who go in to the fight in a less then uber bird and tear it up. I'm not talking Hurri IIcs cause the cannon is more then an equalizer in a low and slow fight. But a guy in a F4F or FM2, a D-11 Jug,P-39, P40, 109E or something along those lines who has learned to do more with less is the guy I watch for in a low fight.
The benefit in the end for doing that is learning to get everything out of the particular bird they fly. Watch the few 51 guys who furball. They do things with the 51 that the BnZ 51 drivers would never ever try as they've not pushed the 51 as far as it will go. That applies to any number of the latewar birds that usually are only flown one way.
Again, there is no 'right way'. The advantage of not really dying is if you choose to push the edge, you get the time to learn, even if it costs you cartoon airplanes.
