There have been changes. As I said, not changes to the top speed and climb rate, but to every other aspect of flight in these planes.
So sure of it?
In the case of the 190s, virtually every pilot who made themselves known by being 190 experts, who were still playing AH2, since my first arrival in AH1.05, has agreed that the handling is somewhat more gentle than it was - and yet, still it remains to be seen, yet to be proved.
I was the first one to bring up the 109 destabilization issues in the a/v forums. I am very convinced that things have been changed - and yet, still I cannot exert this opinion as an absolute because of the obvious difficulties in proving a "feel" as an objective factor.
The closest I could come to proving the above two issues as solid fact, was by using the stall-limiter angle setting as a method of measuring the difficulty level required for a pilot to push his plane to its absolute limits of turn maneuvering - and still I find it difficult to pursuade people who remain skeptical with that fact alone.
In the above two issues, we at least had some sort of "LW consensus" going on. However, this thread clearly shows that such consensus doesn't exist in regards to this particular issue: 109s didn't change, or rather, opinions are split.
So I wouldn't be too sure in basing an opinion as an immovable fact - because like Grits said, when the man shows up and clarifies it one way or another, one could be in heaps of embarassment or loss of credibility.
There could be a multitude of reasons in why some people can't maneuver 109s like they used to.
For one thing, the MA competition has grown tougher. The abundant Spit8s Spit16s are much more powerful competiton than the usual Spit9s or Spit5s we used to fight.... the margin of time available each pilot has to finish a 1vs1 engagement in the way he wants it, is considerably shorter than it was - in which condition it is not strange to expect a pilot to behave more hastily and sloppily.... or, it is entirely possible the self-confident 'vets' we have gathered in this thread are much too overconfident in what they can do.... or they might be basing their facts upon one or two engagements which they particularly remember as being unsatisfactory - it is pretty common fact that people exaggerate the things they hate.... and on and on, yadayada.
So let's try not to settle anything as a given fact.
