The P-51D Conundrum

[fuzzychickens]

Originally Posted by MorgothNL

still... it should not fly like it is flying in this game, altitude plays a role, a big one, but the P-51 is just unflyable at ANY altitude in this game.

yes it did shine at high altitude, it was a high alt performer, but is was not a low altitude sucker.

some people keep on defending the performance of the P-51 in this game, by saying 'it was a high alt performer'. but really, it was still 10 times better at low altitude, than the one in the game.

what im saying is: the P-51 was GOOD at low/medium altitudes, it was at least an equal to the 109 in dogfights.
the P-51 DOMINATED the 109 at high altitudes, because it would not lose performance, were the 109 did.

so still at tree top level, you should at least be able to give a 109 a hard time, with the P-51 in this game, you simply CANT.

It was not the equal of the 109 at low/med altitude given equal pilot skill. Please, that is just myth. It kicks the 109's butt at high alt period and was inferior at low to med with 109 because the 109 could easily outclimb and outturn it at lower levels.

109k4 has about 2000hp with empty weight of around 5300 lbs.

p-51D has about 1700hp with empty weight around 7000 lbs.

So not counting fuel, 109k-4 already has generous hp to weight advantage. Most stats show max climb of K-4 being over 40% better than P-51D max climb.

The math says at altitudes where superchargers are not an issue, the K-4 mops up big time on the P-51D. They are not even close.

Add in the fact that the P-51 uses a laminar flow wing designed to give efficiency at the cost of lift, you also get a plane prone to violent stalls. So you won't be smart fight low and slow against a 109 with decent pilot in a P-51.

P-51 excels at high speed and high altitude. Other than the slight error that the developers say will be fixed regarding weight data, the plane was modeled true base off the pc version.

I played IL2 on PC online many many times and met many many pilots capable of kicking my butt with their p-51s against my 109, they learned how to use the damn plane right. A lot of people playing the console version want the plane to be a mythical version of reality - and want to use the plane in a way it didn't historically excel and still get results.

[MorgothNL]

I have played the PC version as well for a long time, and I also was more than able to outfly 109's. Thats all im looking for, Im not going in a turn battle with a 109, but I do want to have the performance to outfly him in other ways than turning.

I hope the P-51 in BOP will be flying like the PC version P-51. This and adding the red/blackouts, should make the P-51 a good opponent with a decent pilot.

Like I said, I dont want it to outperform all the other planes, but when I fly my spit against a bf109 pilot that I beat with 15-1, I want to be able to beat him in a P-51 as well. I want to be afraid of someone who is master of the P-51. now I dont care whos in it, he will lose

[fuzzychickens]

Hopefully the weight error they say will be fixed is the issue. I want to think they left the flight model untouched from the PC version - because it was pretty darn good.

If they fix the weight issue and the P-51 still performs worse than the PC counter-part, then I would agree something was screwed up.

[FOZ_1983]

not sure what needs to be done with the P51....


Maybe just make it possible to turn without stalling, and also keep the turn radius as it is perhaps (cant think how good it is since ive not really used it since the campaign) but make it so that it doesnt lose so much speed!! it loses so much in a turn/climb and take forever to gain any speed when throttling up etc.

Shame because its a nice looking bird.