Flying Tips for 109F-4

[RabbitHawk]

Hey - Does anyone else out there have the 1% 109F-4?
I having a real struggle trying to take this against the
SpitVs. I thought they would be a fairly even match.

This 109F-4 is more of an energy fighter than I expected.
And the Spits are so fleet of foot it's hard to draw a bead
on them for longer than a split second.

So has anyone worked out some effective tactics for this
aircraft?

[Stormtropper]

Yeah...put your head between your knees and kiss your butt goodbye

Its a Spit, its invincible



Jeff...Spitfire lover

[james007]

RabbitHawk the Bf109F was dady of a fighter you just got to learn to fight with it. Yes the Bf 109 was basically a energy vertical fighter.

Its just harder to fight as vertical fighter than a Horizontal one. You have to bee very decipline and patient and wait for you opportunity.

The Bf109F was a good match vs the Spitfire V. But as the Spitfire improved from V to IX it overcame the Bf109 in general performance.

The beauty of World war two air warfare was how balance it was up to to End of the coflict.

No aircraft completely dominated the other inspite of one pilot flying a better plane than the other. The Bf109 and Fw190 where alway able to shoot down allies planes as long they had well train pilots.

Yes the Bf109 and the Fw190 where obsolete planes by the End of the conflict. They were still formidable and under the right circumstances able to shoot down enemy planes.

Bee patient and practice and practice a little more. The more you know your plane the better your chances of beign sucessfull.

Learn to use energy and rolls to your favor.Most of all learn to anticipated the enemy planes movement and aim your guns for a deflection shoot before he makes the maneouble.

Good luck and good Hunting

James007

[RabbitHawk]

Thanks 007,

Well, I took your advice. I bit the bullet and went back
to it - enduring the shame of having my tail shot off
(literally) many times. Eventually, I managed to survive,
at most, 2 waves of 4 SpitVs while retaining one
wingman at the end (out of 4) and getting 6 kills. Hard
work that.

I found that pulling too hard on the stick is a definite
no-no with this bird. It requires gradually increasing
pressure. I normally  - while flying a Spit - like to make
shallow climbing turns with rudder to bring the nose
down at the end of the turn. This is a bad idea with the
109F. It is better to go into a near vertical climb and roll
out over the top. Then drop the nose 3-5 degrees
below level to gain speed quickly. Spits are easily
damaged so even a few minimal hits from a head-on
pass can seriously degrade the Spits performance. So
I give a little shimmy to spoil any counter fire and take
a snapshot. Often, these "wounded ducks" are much
easier to bring down. Fast, diving turns are an absolute
no-no. You will overstress the wings and lose one. It
is better to orbit above and wait for the enemy to
climb into action. They will have little E and will not be
able to maneuver as effectively.

In my humble opinion, that still didn't constitute parity.
Flying the SpitV against the 109F is comparatively
easy. One of the historical advantages the early 109s
had over Spits was speed. I didn't have that. It was
about the same. So I did a little a little research. I
found that the 109F carried DB601E with 1300 hp. Here
are some of the links:

http://www.warbirdsresourcegroup.org/LRG/bf109f.html
http://www.geocities.com/jzg23ausbildse ... 1Bf109.htm
http://www.making-history.ca/features/a ... efault.htm

The early Fs -  F-1,F-2 carried the DB061A. F-3+ versions
carried the more powerful DB601E. In my aircraft.cfg file I
found that max hp was listed as 1200. So I changed it
to 1300 and started again. What a difference! E-fighting
is a whole lot easier when you have power. This, I felt,
created parity between the two types.

So I jumped back into my SpitV and took it up against
the "revised" 109Fs. I still mowed them down like
wheat. But this time I broke a sweat. I kept a real
careful eye on my 6, because the now speedy 109s
could catch up to me very quickly.

Cheers!