"For him to roll over, dive down by about 1000 feet, zoom back up, and catch up to me, well. . . "
If he was moving at 300 mph or greater, you can bet your bellybutton his Split S would've cost him alot more than 1000' in altitude, at least in real world physics. Probably closer to 5000', unless he backed his throttle to zero and really reefed it in hard and tight, spilling off loads of E, but if he'd done that then there's no way he'd have been able to catch you before you got completely out of sight. Most late war fighters could barely make a 1000' flat turn (most could not, actually), much less a Split S that tight. I think one could concievably pull a Split S only losing 2000' in a real fighter, provided it was done with throttle reduced to idle. Even so, it's incredibly unlikely he'd be set up to catch you afterward. Had he pulled a gentle immelman, though, that'd be different. Long chase maybe, but he could probably catch you.
This is just another good testimony to the fact that no flight sim seems to know how to incorporate physics into flight models. Dive accelerations, especially, are much lower (several times, I think) than they should be on all aircraft, energy doesn't bleed off like it should in a hard turn at high speeds (how many times have you pulled a gentle 2G zoom in Warbirds with more smash than the guy you just merged with head to head, only to have him pull a 5G immelman and end up closing on your 6?), mass seems to have little to do with zoom climbs, and the list goes on and on and on.
Oh, BTW, I couldn't care less about an RPS in AH because, at this time, I don't fly it. I do, however, think that every sim should have an arena that is extremely historically accurate, with proper terrain, planeset, etc. There are more historical junkies than you may think, and many people who fly something like that just don't give a crap for the "Fragger" arenas (read as Main Arenas) in Warbirds and AH. In addition, many people who don't think they would care for it end up actually preferring it over the Fragger Arena they used to defend.
Something else I don't think I'd like about AH, the Perk system. I think it'd be much better to limit rare aircraft by numbers, rather than making people earn points to fly them. I prefer a "first come, first serve" system personally, then just limit all aircraft to their historical strengths. Of course this would only allow about 1 Me 262 in the air at a time in an arena with a population of 400. This would only work in an arena where all fighters are available for both sides, though, because Axis fighters were becoming an endangered species later in the war. It would take some careful thinking to get a system that would work well for everybody, but I think it would be better.
