Quote:
Originally Posted by 5./JG27.Farber
You can no longer, in a 109 with equal energy, escape a spit in anything other than a dive... He can keep pace in level flight and will catch you in a climb by waiting till he is underneath you before pulling up!
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Not the case over 10,000 ft, and under, you can do the 'Bunt and pullup, Bunt and pullup' routine or use your superior rollrate.
I'll give you an example how your claim of Spits at equal energy being able to catch 109's is not accurate.
I was at 20,000 ft on the ATAG server in a Spit IIA, spotted a formation of Blue bombers at approx. 15,000, with two 109's on top of them at approx. 17,000 up sun from the bombers. There were several Spits and Hurris slightly lower trying to climb up to attack the bombers. If things went as usual the 109's in the sun would dive on the Red planes and shoot them out of the air before they could close on the bombers.
I approached the formation and the 109s with the intention of disrupting this situation by driving the 109's down to the level of the bombers where the Spits and Hurris climbing up would have a better chance.
I started with a dive on one of the 109's, I was up sun of him, but he saw me and avoided my pass which showed a speed of 240 mph on my gauge at 18,500 ft. I had much more speed and energy than he did, or his partner. I pulled up smoothly to regain my alt, but because of the poor climb of the Spits at that alt, did not regain 20,000 ft. I was still at least 2000 ft above the 109's. My temperatures were already climbing despite having rpm of 2600 and boost of +0 before the attack, temp of 90, now they were close to 95, after using 2800 and higher boost in my zoom. One 109 went one direction, the other the opposite, trying to split. I moved towards the one which was the higher which was approx. 4 km away and climbing very steeply. He turned, (obviously having to bleed some speed doing this, and obviously going very slowly after the steep climb, and came back at me dropping his nose a little to gain speed. He passed under me, with me at at least 1500 ft higher. We both pulled up into zooms which put us about 2000 meters apart. I watched as he gained on me in the zoom, and in fact pulled out just a hair below my alt. I came out over the top and rolled out into level flight out at a higher speed than him, pointing at him, he had practically stalled at the top of his zoom. I started to move back towards him, initially I was closing fairly rapidly. Instead of having to put down his nose and dive away, he started a climb away. As I closed, my speed bled off almost immediately, and my extremely poor climb was gaining me hardly any alt. I couldn't firewall the throttle and put rpms to 3000 because temps were already at 95. I watched as he simply climbed away from me, despite starting at lower speed and energy.
Sorry, I did nothing wrong in my maneuvers, I was simply flying a plane which is completely uncompetitive at those altitudes.