Well, the P51 is said to be one of the best piston engine aircraft ever designed.
So is it just me and my inability to fly it, or does it generally not perform too good in IL2?
On most arcade maps online, take 25% and droptanks, p51 with 25% can fly a loooooong time
Yup, most real life P-51 pilots only flew with 25% fuel loads. Few made it home as we now well know.....
Seriously though, if you want to fly the Mustang at anything approaching a realistic style, get the modded ones. They fly so much closer to the way we have all read about even at 75% up to full fuel loads.
You will need to install " Unified Install 1.1 to get newer mustangs", not sure if you need to do a clean install of the game itself and patch it with 4.08, 4.09, then 1.1 unified or HSFX if you wish.
I use HSFX install myself, but it your choice.
Anyway I strongly recommend a fresh intall of the game before you do anything.
Allison Mustangs reported to be nice as handling, flying. It was very fast at that time, but climb rate wasn't significantly better than the P-40's and P-39's climbe rates. As it got the Merlin (rather Packard-Merlin) engine and four bladed airscrew, it had lost all of it's nice handling, that was the price of the exceptional performance. This performance only could thank for the laminar flow wings, imho. Without it the Mustang would be nothing more but another gray aircarft in the history of flying. The Mustang had an exceptional speed and range, but nothing else was exceptional, rather medicore. Lot of people thinks that it was a good maneuvering fighter. Actually all of it's opponent was better in turnfight, dogfight and even climbing. The Mustang was a boom-and-zoom figter, as well almost all of the american fighters. The plus annoying thing is the ass kicking feeling when you fly it, and it will stop when the fuselage tank got empty. Unfortunatelly in the game that's the last what got empty. :roll: This is a very big shortcoming of the game, that you cannot choose what fueltank comes first, second, etc...
RavenHawk1988, just a personal question to you: Did you try the Mustang in turnfight/dogfight against other single engined fighters (Messerschmits, Focke Wulfs, Japanes fighters, Russian Fighters; Yaks, Las), didn't you? I think that is your problem, as mine as well. Don't think because it looks so cool it can do everything. You will be downed soon in a traditional dogfight, the Mustang is not a Spitfire. :-?
(Maybe starnge but I can fly the much larger P-38 in a hot turnfight against Ki-61s for example. The Lightning has a very nice steady turning characterstic at very low speed... :wink: )
Most planes with a full fuel load are pretty lousy flying airplanes. However, that doesn't mean they aren't good aircraft. The Mustang being my favorite aircraft and the plane I fly the most in IL-2 is very effective at any altitudes regardless how much fuel it takes, but that is only my opinion.
In IL-2 this is sort of my fuel layout with the P-51's razorbacks and straight backs.
[Without External Fuel Tanks]
25%-30 minutes
50%-1 Hour Ten Minutes
75%-1 Hour forty minutes
100%-2 hours fifteen minutes
As for flying the P-51, it is an effective aircraft at any altitude. Especially when there's a couple of Mustangs you can really do some devastating damage to other aircraft. The P-51 was very maneuverable, the snap roll, quick dive, tight turn and etc. The 109 will out turn the P-51 at a low speed, but at high speeds over 300 miles per hour the Mustang will out turn most aircraft, including the A6M Zero. The .50 caliber machine guns in the stock Mustangs are a bit weak and they really fall around the convergence settings. My convergence setting is 274.32 meters which is 300 yards, and that's how close you want to be when you fire at an aircraft.
Hopefully, some of this might have helped.
Blue skies,
-Doodle
My experience with the stang is mixed. Something we can all agree upon (I think at least, lol) is that it looks really good, beautiful aircraft. I like to fly it for that reason alone. Online not so much, only if I can get a bunch of alt or have a wing man. Today, in fact, I learned the power of a good wingie. In Macci 205s my wing leader and I took on the furball, and came out smelling of roses. I got a spit and he got a 190 and we made it out ok. Thach weave is easy to set up and devastating. The P51 is very fast, and picks up speed well in a dive, I rip off a lot of wings attacking lower aircraft and trying to pull lead to make a shot.
OK....you fly a 109? So do I and therein lies our problem, I dislike the P51 as well because of the same reson you stated. "It spins out too easy"
The 109 has a different wing design...and it has slats that pop out aiding in an aproaching stall. The Mustang with its laminar flow wings does not have these slats and is LESS forgiving in an impending stall.
My friend you are used to flying the 109 and they are two differnt wing designs. Your "muscle memory" is flying a 109 it has not learned the finesse of the Mustang. The Spitfre is sort of an inbetweener.
What I am doing is relearning...I want to fly the P51 as expertly as I do the 109. So I take it one step at a time.
Learn the parameters that this aircraft can handle, fly it docile at first and gradually build up. Do the same with the FW 190.
These flight models are different....may not be as exact as the actual aircraft but I hope they are close.
Hope this helps.... Good luck.
