by DrRedskwirrell » Sat Jan 06, 2007 7:00 am
I flew the Hurricane, Spit and P51 as 'stock' aircraft in online dogfights for 5 years.
M$ introduced certain 'effect's to make each plane different and I found the P51 had a stronger recoil effect which made longer distance shots slightly (emphasis on slightly) harder but still possible with practice.
I used to teach people how to fly the 'stock' game, and then the aircraft, when the Zone was up and running. Now I'll have to resort to text advice via Simviation.
'Hosing' away with your guns is bad practice. Fly "100%" settings and use short, 1 second, bursts when you cannot miss the target to save ammo. You will have some left to use against your opponent when he ditches and has to get a new plane, which gives you a one plane advantage.
The Hurricane was my favourite as it's the aircraft I started learning and, for a long time, was the better performer online. Then people started perfecting different tricks with the P51 and it became a better performer.
With either aircraft the max range is 'around' 2000ft (depending on certain circumstances). If you're firing at a greater range than that, you're just wasting ammo. At that range your opponent will take damage from shots landed. However, the closer you get, the greater the damage will be from the same rounds because of the force it will carry with it (muzzle velocity, etc).
When I was still flying everyone would tell me to avoid the 'head-to-head' challenge. Instead, I flew more and more. I would fly into a head to head, letting opponents fire and waste ammo. I would open fire at around 1200ft. This is a much more accurate range although this tactic will not work against an experienced pilot and you always should adjust your tactics acording to what you know about your enemy.
At 1200ft I could put rounds into my opponent 99% of the time which then hindered his (/her) performance. I could then use the greater agility of the Hurricane to get onto their tail and put more rounds in from a closer range.
The best advice I could give any of my students is to concentrate on your flying skills and outmanuevering your opponents, then worry about shooting them. If you're behind them, you can take your time and they can't shoot you.
The best aircraft for that is the Hurricane. It has smaller rounds but, if you can get them into your opponent and he can't bring his weapons to bear on you, you should win the battle.
However, every aircraft has differen strengths and weaknesses and you should fly each accordingly; If you fly like that against an experienced P51 or spit pilot (or German aircraft, especially the fw), they should simply use their greater speed and horse power to get out of range, gain height advantage, and then come back and let you have it with spades. This is called 'zoom and boom' and is how the Germans fought the airwar.
If you're into one of these battles you need to learn how to fly 'injured', which involves mastering trim to counteract damage inflicted. If you are unable to fly injured, you will lose your maneuverability, and the advantage, and the heavier gunned aircraft will be able to pick you off at will.
The Spit was a very good Zoom and Boom fighter but I would not use one unless I was in a fight with other zoom and boom planes and, even then, I would normally take a P51.
The 'stock' aircraft in CFS1 are generally recognised NOT to be accurate flight models of the real thing but they did put everyone in a 'stock' game on the same footing which is why I preferred them to so-called '1%' or 'mod' aircraft. Unfortunately some children did start resorting to 'improved' aircraft and began to sneak them into 'stock' games pretending they were also 'stock' which did spoil the game towards the end.
If you're in a 'stock' game, fly 'stock' aircraft, otherwise fly whatever the host has advertised the game as.
Last edited by
DrRedskwirrell on Sat Jan 06, 2007 7:07 am, edited 1 time in total.
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