Guys here my sixpence worth, suck it and see. Pony experts please feel free to add/detract/slate as required
Gremlin.
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P51-D (Mustang)
About 6 months ago I began flying the P51D on the advice of Skyman. At the time I did not like the pony at all. As far as I was concerned it was a poor plane, you couldn’t turn in it, it was way too fragile, and it bled e for too easily. 6 months down the road and a few hundred sorties later my impression of the P51 has changed beyond recognition, I now consider the pony to be one of the best planes in AH.
If flown with a little care you can become pretty much untouchable. However to fly with this type of care patience is required. The pony is not a furballing plane, and if you choose to fly it this way you will inevitable end up in the dirt. Choose to fly correctly and you’ve gotten yourself a uber killing machine. However this doesn’t happen quickly. You can expect to spend up to 30 minutes to get 3-4 kills. Sometimes less, occasionally more.
Foremost in your mind should be the survivability of yourself and your squaddies. Although your squaddies life is of course very important to you, you must remember that your no good to him dead, so if your squaddie has gotten himself involved in a lo alt furball you are not doing either of you any favours by diving in gung-ho and trying to outturn everything in sight. You know the result already, both of you die. In this situation your best bet is to make fast boom n’zoom (BZ) passes on any enemy who is of immediate danger to your squaddie. Either you will kill or damage the enemy or he will break to avoid you, both outcomes will remove the bad guy from your squaddies six and may help him stay alive long enough to extract himself from the mess. This of course goes for all planes, not just the pony. Even in a spit, your chances of surviving a major furball are slim at best.
When you engage your enemy it should be always on your terms (at least that’s the theory). Often a situation will dictate otherwise, however in general you must only engage when you have the advantage. This ‘advantage’ may be many things. It maybe speed, altitude, proximity to other friendlies, plane type (of enemy) but most often a combination of many. You must learn to recognise this so that YOU choose your fights instead of your fights choosing you. Do not underestimate the importance of what is said above, even by implementing this much you will find yourself alive a lot longer and rtb with some kills much more frequently. Again here the by-word is patience. You may be thinking “I could fly around all night and not find a situation which meets those criteria.” Believe me the correct situation presents itself so often that you will never be short of an advantageous engagement. Just learn to recognise it and then all you need to do is learn how to execute it properly.
If you are like I was six months ago you will now be thinking, “Yeah, but properly executing the attack in that piece of rubbish is easier said than done”. Again you would be as surprised as I was to learn that with some practice it will become second nature and incredibly easy.
There are of course few hard and fast rules as to how to prosecute the attack. In a pony the only rules, which are pretty much inflexible, are, STAY FAST, in a pony speed is life. As the pony is one of the faster planes in the arena. If you keep enough speed and altitude you should be able to out-run most planes. The exceptions to this are the La7 (below 12k), Tempest, TA152 (high up), obviously the ME-262. The FW 190-D9 is probably marginally faster all things being equal. However this is usually so marginal that if you can get a couple of kms of initial separation, you should be able to travel a long way before the dora catches you. Golden rule number one, NEVER dive to the deck to escape an LA7, and LA7 will eat a pony alive below 12k both in speed and performance. You should only engage and LA7 above 12k or with fast BZ passes after which you regain as much lost altitude as possible. If you are caught low by an LA7 you haven’t listed to a word I said!!!! Even so it is inevitable that you will be caught in a compromising position at some stage. Most times there’s little you can do. Against the LA7 use the fact that he needs to be close in to get a good shot, also as anyone who flies an LA7 will testify, even close in an LA7 is not an easy plane to score hits with. The ponies best answer to a close in LA7 is to try and force an overshoot, chop the throttle briefly, perform a barrel roll, and be ready to spray n’pray if the LA7 pops out in front.
