mossie tips??

[humble]

flew 4-5 mossie hops last night...1st time in one since 1st couple days it was out. Launched em all as Jabo's with 4 x 500 looking to support some ground ops on the "big island". Had some problem hitting with the 500lbers but the 20mm is a blast.....anyway curious if anyone seriously fights the mossie in an air to air role. Way back when I was a pretty good stick in the vader in AW....key there was getting it down under 120 with full flaps...the moment you got over 150 you were toast.

The more realistic gunnery model of AH makes those nose to nose "two circle" fights a lot tougher than in AW were the HO was eliminated by the program.

Had some fun and got a few A to A kills but really need a better grasp of tactics to use. Whas amazed how quickly the 20's eat up buffs....got 4 b-26s on 1 hop....all on 1 burst each:eek:

[Lephturn]

Well it's fast, so I'd use it to BnZ slower birds.  It's got such great punch with the guns, it's a snapshot machine... fly for snapshots.  Take the HO if they are silly enough to let you, take it every time.  Just be very careful of the faster fighters you can't escape from, and try to maintain an E advantage at all times.

The Mossie really can't turn with most true fighters, but keep it light on fuel and live for the snapshot and you can do quite well.  As you have already discovered, it makes probably the best Buff destroyer in the game.

[humble]

you pretty much have summed up my initial impressions....reasonably fast, slow to roll with marginal sustained turn rate and relatively quick loss of E. Every once in awhile I'll pick up comments that make me believe it can do more in the right hands. I fly it with 50% fuel....can it handle a 25% fuel load and still have decent range??

[poppysead]

Have found over a short period of time(this of course is from a newbie's perspective) that the mossie is excelent at altitude. I mean with a full bomb load this thing cooks. Historicaly the so called 'fighter' version was used to attack shipping and later ground targets, unfortunatly I have also found that if you do not start with a significant energy or alttitude advantage you WILL be caught by a f4u p47 p51 and the list goes on and on. As a fighter I have gotten few positive results with the aircraft(reminds me of the time I got caught in the old mossie at 10,000 with a p51 and a dora hovering overhead menacingly taking turns splintering my wooden wonder) Though if you catch somone on the deck in a spit its fun to make that one pass laughing as you speed happily away from his chute. In short its easy to win with it just dont turn.......of course I couls be wrong, then why dont I see more junior members steppin up??? be proud newbies we keep the big boys in their pretty perk planes lol. c-ya guys.

[Tac]

Lepht, ive turned with spits and won in the mossie. Its an excellent turner imo.

The one thing the Mossie really must avoid is the vertical. Dont even think on going vertical.

A mossie with 50 gas , no ord and overload of 20mm.. just has to be flown like an F4U, without going vertical. Ive chased and smacked 190's with it.. because the 190 dove instead of looping

[Lephturn]

I can't believe it would win a sustained flat turn battle with a Spit, but one thing the Mossie can likely do well is instantaneous turn.  Like the Jug, though it doesn't do sustained turn well, it's fast E burning in hard maneuvers makes it's instantaneous turn very good, so you can nail a Spit if you get him early because he can't burn E fast enough to break as hard as you can.  Go more than 360 though and you will get eaten I'd bet.

This bird is made to win the snapshots.  Be super aggressive and nail them on the first shot and it will do very well.  Use it's fast initial turn to get a shot on breaking bandits and explode them with those fantastic guns.

[Ghosth]

You can go vertical once in the mossie if your light and fast but for pete's sake do NOT miss!

Recovery from the vertical can be ugly if there is a 2nd con around your toast.

[humble]

I've heard comments like TAC's before...of course he's partial to anything with two engines:)

My question is can you "T&B" the bird at all or are we discussing a single 45-90 degree "pull,shoot and scoot" type of thing. I've roped a couple of folks in the mossie when they misjudged E state...but overall it flounders and flops badly in a low E vertical state (least for me)

TAC....are you flying the mossie in nose low turns with spitty?

wondering about tight nose down turns with some level of flaps as a possibility...course my question is why a spitty wouldnt just spiral climb on you...I'd think once you go a 1/2 circle or more...you wont have the E to transition to a nose high firing solution if he flies the fight right

[Tac]

Not sustained, nothing can sustain a turn with a spit. But a mossie certainly can keep up with it for 2 or 3 turns below horizon (lazy corckscrew).

And since you only need one tiny snapshot with those 4 20mm's... you will get your chance. if not, the mossie is quite capable of diving away from the spit.. and then force the spit into another snapshot opportunity (sciscors). A mossie rules a spit on the deck as well, so it all works nice for ze mossie.

The only real problem is the ugly mossie stall.

Humble: if the spit goes to spiral climbing its easier to spray 20mm at and get a hit, specially if you just lag-persuit it for 2 turns spraying the 303 until the spit tries to jinx to evade getting hit *snork*  and levels or turns the other way .. and WHACK! St. Hispano's smack it outta the sky.

Note: this is all when both mossie and spit start fight at high speed.. a slow mossie vs slow spit = dead mossie.

[Lephturn]

I should also add, that a decending spiral in general is a good way to beat spits in most craft that can burn E quickly.  The Spits most of the time will accellerate much faster since they don't burn the E by turning like the Mossie would, so they'll overshoot if they are not really really careful.  That's why the nose-low turns work so well, because the Spits accellerate (or at least don't slow down) and their turn gets wider while yours gets tighter.

Of course, if the spit chops throttle and drops into lag, you are a deadman.

[thrila]

I've been flying the mossie for about 2 weeks and i've taken quite a liking to it.  I've got quite a few films of me in my mossie, just trying to get some webspace so i can chuck them on somewhere.

The mossie seems to be great for bnz,  those 4 20mm nose cannon really make a mess of a con.  In a few of my films i had to play them at the slowest speed possible to view the pings i landed on someone.  What looks like a 1 ping kills in the films are actually 3 or 4 when slowed down.  Because the pings landed in 1 spot it's enough to take whatever it hit off and you get a nice and easy kill.  The mossie also has good manouverability at high speed- roll, elevator and rudder,  so you can swoop down at high speed and manouver at the last minute when they try to evade.  I've got quite a few kills where i smash on lots of rudder at the last minute when the con performs a break turn and i spray all over him.  It's easy to get kills out at 1k too because of the lack of convergence issues.  Just put your sight slightly above the con and ZAP!

I've not noticed any problems with the stall myself and it seems to zoom climb well after a dive.  
As soon as i get somewhere to put my films up i'll put a link to them in this thread.


Just checked my tour24 stats-  In mossie i was 152 kills for 45 deaths.  Did a lot better that i thought, i got shotdown an awful lot in a 2day spat and completely ruined my 5-1 k/d.  Glad i got it up tp 3-1:)