Ok Saved,
From an Air Force dude the above posts are good but I have a few more pointers.....
When you approach with any plane on landing like was quoted before you want to get a long straight in if you are just starting out. Curved paths to final are tough til you get the basics down.
Bottom line is that you want to have your approach and threshold speeds correct. In AH it doesnt matter all that much but here are some pointers.
To reduce your speed you need to be at a "reasonable" altitude and airspeed for approach. If you are coming in too hot try some 90 degree turns left and right of approach course with onset of G's. This bleeds your speed off and still keeps you headed to landing...the 360 mentioned earlier works as well.
While in those turns, attempt to lower your flaps. Flaps increase drag and lift so that you can maintain a slower approach speed. Once you are below lets say 160 (my speed C130 Gear can come down at 165 kts) Drop them puppies. The gear will act as a brake in the air for you. Maintain your aimpoint...."aka where you want the plane to touch down" by using your throttle...yes throttle. They joystick should be pushed a bit forward. As you approach to land ensure your speed doesnt get too slow...i use 120kts roughly but as long as you are maintaining control and not sinking too fast or hearing the gear rip sound you will be in the ball park.
As you approach you will encounter whats commonly referred to as Ground Effect. It will feel as though your plane will be trying to climb and you want to push the nose down to land....try to refrain from doing this. Bleed off your power gradually while maintaining a "level" attitude and the aircraft will gradually work its way down to the runway.
Once there, keep your nose pointed down the runway with rudder controls and chop that power off. Apply brakes. Resist the temptation to over control the plane with rudders while moving above 50 knots (that is over control....you still use rudders but if you put too much in you will do the infamous AH runway tumble).
There you have it.
On the speed issue....If you had exactally the same aircraft...P38 and you all took off at the same time you will be in the ballpark for distances if you are all using auto climb. Some guys, myself included use trim to milk extra knots out of the bird. I doubt all 5 of those fellas were using it but they might have. Also as number 6 in a formation it is very hard to maintain a tight position if you are maneuvering and they are at max perfomance. Think of it this way....if you were driving on a road that was perfectly straight and 100 miles long. The lead car was doing 100 mph MAX speed for all cars. If you all took off at exactly the same time and drove the same path you would be in perfect formation. Now, if any one of the trail dudes starts to turn left and right...the others if they follow will also be trying to maintain position on the guy in front. Now unless they do the synchronized turning thing and call on a radio to initiate the turns at the same time there will be delays. So as you can see the tail end charlie car will be having to do all those things just to keep the guy in front in position. Remember max speed it 100. As a result he will fall behind.
In aircraft the same is true. The only difference is that you now add the third dimension which is up and down (altitude). So you can see that with all that going on trail will fall behind eventually unless the maneuvers are all done at the same time.
For a formation when we do it in the AF lead tries to maintain a max airspeed less than what the plane is capable of. That way the trail elements have power to work with to maintain spacing.
In AH the same applies. If you just took off with them and are falling way behind perhaps they were using WEP, you had a heavier plane, your gear was down...lol done that, etc.
I hope that helps. Good posts before....just wanted to add my 2 cents
. Remember, there are 100 techniques on landing. Do the basics first and then try for some more sporty things!!!!!!!
Good luck!
