Yak-3 vs Spit XVI

[artik]

I love both these planes...

- Both have exceptional roll ratio
- Both have good acceleration and very good climb speed
- Both have reasonable maneuverability (also Spit is better)
- Both have good firepower (also Spit is better)
- The have quite close performance (at least at medium - low altitudes)




Now when spit having higher score and yak has much more poor firepower I still get much better kill/death ratio  in Yak-3 (almost 1:1) in comparison to Spit XVI (which is 1:3)...


What do you think? How do you compare them?

[Zoney]

Pffffftttt.....

They both look really cool on fire otherwise who cares, them aint no luftwaffe birds 

[Changeup]

They are trainers.  That is my evaluation.  After you learn these two, you graduate to the F-18 SuperBrewster.  Upon SB graduation, you go to 51D/LA7 school but that's only for 2 hours if you have a pulse.

[Latrobe]

The Yak's guns, while not having a lot of ammo, are quite deadly! Usually only takes a short burst to rip the wings off most planes. In a slow fight I'd give the edge to the spit16 as the yaks have terrible torque issues at low speeds and will sometimes refuse to roll left. If you just remember to make right rolls and right turns at low speeds in a Yak though they quite deadly!

I'm really enjoying the Yaks lately. I always loved flying them but I never flew them enough. I'm thinking of trying to fly a whole tour in them. They are serious fun!

[Karnak]

The elitism on display in this thread is mind boggling, but sadly predictable.

[DmonSlyr]

I'd take a spit all day long, it is more balanced and turns way better, given the speed similarities.

Edit: I'm fairly certain the spit would out a climb the yak in a straight up vert climb.

[bustr]

The elitism on display in this thread is mind boggling, but sadly predictable.

You should be happy. No one paid with anything but pixels to learn all of this. It's gotta be kind of lonely for them. Raise the "I is 31337" flag, and their numbers have dwindled down to being the fossils sitting around the stove at the sutler store remembering when they were once gawds of a sparkling pixel cartoon empire of piu, piu, piu.

I hear the crickets out number the 31337 in the DA by 1000 to 1 now days. We might want to start an AH endangered species conservation movement to protect the 31337.

We could sell 31337 trading cards. Game controllers that $.50 from each purchase goes to a conservation fund. 31337 memorabilia. 31337 meme booklets with 31337 hot insult one liners for the Face Book, twitter, and BBS challenged. We could sell 31337 DVD with interviews and game films of their greatest moments in AH 31337 history. OH! Oh! and every new game subscriber gets a free T-shirt and Hat with "I IS 31337" on them so everyone can be 31337. And don't forget the 31337 fan club so we can get suckers to buy all this junk...........

Commercialize the concept of becoming special at something by wearing a team jersey or hat with an attractive price tag. You can sell bridges in NY to Martians. Then ever body is 31337 for $14.95 regardless of their abilities.

[TheBug]

Now how are you not much different from them??   

[Changeup]

Now how are you not much different from them??  

Neither of them are.  They look waaaay down from their moral perch at anything other than game-worship.  They kinda have to I suspect...given their lofty self-appointedness.  That's no predictable, that's a fact.

[bozon]

In a knife fight the Spit16 is better. In a large scale arena game, they are about equal. Keep in mind that the graphs are deceiving. The Yak has effectively unlimited WEP, while the Spits performance degrade significantly after the 5 minutes WEP are out and the recharge of RAF Merlins is very slow. In a stall fight the Yak has to pull back a little on the throttle, but this is like turning off the WEP in the normal plane.

My impression is that the Yak3 is much more survivable than the Spit due to it smaller size and puzzling ruggedness. 

I claimed from day 1 after the Yak-3 release that it has some modeling issues. It seems to produce very little induced drag and is one of the toughest planes to bring down, even though it is very light and has no armor to speak of. I don't have any hard numbers to back these claims, but I find its ability to climb nearly 4000 fpm at 100 mph and angle of attack into the stall, a bit suspicious. The Spit16 is also a bit suspicious in that way. You should check what the Yak-3 is capable of as a glider after its engine gets killed - maneuvers cost very little energy. Both the stall climb rate and the glider energy retention under G point to too little induced-drag IMO.

[DmonSlyr]

I find the spit16 is one of the few planes that can do a triple immel on the merge. Which is deadly for the yak. A yak even loses 1 v 1 to a 109 in a turn fight.

I am gonna disagree with you bozon, but it's all good, don't take it personally.

I think the spit16 flies circles around the yak in AH. In the large scale arena you gotta make quick shots and put planes down quickly. The spit can easily get kills and it is much easier to aim and get lead shots with 2 cannons and 2 50 cals ( much better cannons as well). Since the yak is nose heavy with only 1 20mm, aiming is a little more difficult, making the kill shot is a bit more difficult, especially against an opponent that is tough to hit in the first place. This makes you more vulnerable to getting picked and losing E trying to make shots and/or coming back around for another shot. I find that yak pilots fall into the lag roll trap the most because they are trying so hard to get close enough to make a couple shots. After they get impatient and pull for the shot it's already too late, even if they do get a hit it might hardly hurt me, and they get lag rolled and their plane isn't capable of defending that against say a 109, ki84, spit,f4u  

[artik]

I claimed from day 1 after the Yak-3 release that it has some modeling issues. It seems to produce very little induced drag and is one of the toughest planes to bring down, even though it is very light and has no armor to speak of.

I probably need to recheck this using "flight testing" but I was surprised that Yak-3 isn't good glider at all. When I run out of engine I couldn't glide in Yak as well as I could in other planes, I felt that even Pony and Typhoon are better gliders. (something probably worth checking - in laboratory conditions...)

About bringing it down. I actually noticed that it can't stand punishment well at all. Even small pings break something. It easily catches fire (much more than other fighter - maybe not as much as Zeke) and pilot wounds/kills are common.

However it is a small target - it is one of the smallest fighters in game, for example some popular planes sorted by the wingspan:

Plane	Wingspan (m)
I-16	9
Yak-3	9.2
Yak-9	9.7
La-7	9.8
Spitfire XVI	9.9
109G6	9.925
190A8	10.51
Spitfire XIV	11.23
P-51D	11.28
F4F	11.6
A6M	12.0
Hurricane	12.19
P-47D	12.42
P-38	15.85

i.e. only I-16 is smaller but it is totally ignoreable  aircraft at MA.

Another thing I noticed doing sample dive from 15K...

- I could still control Spitfire 16 around 550 mph and was even able to get out of dive without a damage
- P-51D get control locked at around 550 mph
- Yak-3 was totally controllable but around 550 mph break apart first loosing elevators
- 262 was controllable till around 600 mph and than locked

Also it isn't much accurate and several checks are needed but Spitfire is pretty good diver

[Debrody]

The elitism on display in this thread is mind boggling, but sadly predictable.

If someone beats a spit16 in a turnfight flying a 109 or 190 (or a Mossie ), he has the right to feel elite compared to the spit pilot. 

[SirNuke]

Also it isn't much accurate and several checks are needed but Spitfire is pretty good diver

the spitfire had a very high mach limit in a dive.

[iKo]

It all comes down to who is behind the stick