Sharkys blog....

[Mako]

Just one of those missions ya gotta talk about .....

....So tonight I finally had it with the .303's and decided to take a dewo up to the battle for brux. Two minutes in I'm loading up some music cuz that damn engine drives me up the wall.... sputter-put-put-poop-sputter...5 minutes in I'm reminded of how fk'n slow it is and how crappy it climbs.

After what felt like 30 minutes later I arrive at the brux battle, which i found out was the "ground" battle for brux after making several laps around town.

Just as I'm about to start busting some squishes, our guys on the ground start yappin about an he111 but i dont see shit. So I cut the music and the engine, put the plane in a stall and pop open the canopy...and I hear bombs falling past me but no plane. WTF!!!! Light the fire again and climb up through cloud layer after cloud layer, not a damn thing so I give up. Back to doin laps.

Finally an EA call comes across obj and I find a 109 doin laps around a well defended fb. 2 passes and I'm huggin the cannons...much better. I head back to my patrol circle then the town gets libbed so I put the plane in mexican overdrive and adjust the turtle climb to 4, off to peer I go.

Half way there this gray circle pops up at my low 1. I firewall and roll in. Yeehaaa 110! But I dont have the E and he's on cruise to brux. SOB slow pos! I tuck in under his low 6 and wait. Eventually the 110 driver decides to do some small degree turns to check his loc or maybe cuz he heard me...either way it allows me to cut the gap in half and I pop off a few rounds. He does a bunch of split-s' and I cant catch until he gets on the deck and makes the mistake of turning too hard and wasting the E he coulda used to run. I let fly but my aim sux so I only scratch the paint, but the chase is on.

Then I get fk'n plinked!!! Oh great now what right...6 check...109 with a lotta smash. SOB! I continue on with the 110 for a bit but the 109 starts getting closer and closer so I cut into him and we go at it, but I'm like wtf I dont even know what this thing can do I havnt flown it in ages. So's I start flat turning with him but he's using that bigass elevator to its full extent and I'm getting plinked as he starts getting the edge in this flat scissors he's sucked me into.

Lame. I'm thinkin my ass is grass but I notice he's biting with that elevator so hard its killed his E and I attempt pitching verticle not knowing if the lawnmower engine will take it. Some how it does. I roll over on him but as I pull the nose up to get a bead on him I'm riding the edge and one of the wingtips is begging to stall. WOOPS! I barely miss the turf. Okay that kinda worked....I've got the edge for a second and I get a couple rounds off. nothin. My speeds pickin up and he pitches hard for another flat scissors. Of course I over shoot after the second cut and again I give it a go nose high. Same result. Right on the edge, I get a few more shots in then PLINK PLINK! WTF! 6 check 110 came back. Motherfkr! Aw screw it I'm goin for the 109. I bear down on him but this time I got a lot more E and I just go high immediately, he blows all his E in the flat scissors and I inch the nose towards his wallowing 109 and let fly with the remaining cannons only to kick up dust. Down to mg's with the 110 chewin on my tail, I know somethings gotta be smokin now and the temps probably through the roof but I'm too afraid to look.

The dewo's right on the edge, I'm losing lift with the holes from the 110, everytime I go with the high yo-yo to cover my overshoot I have to dance the edge of stalling as I try to bring the nose back up. The dewo literally just wants to snap upside down each time. Advantage one is I know the 110 behind me cant hold the vert so thats all I got to keep it at bay. Advantage two is the 109 is about to buckle too. We're right down in the dirt cutting through the trees and I'm poppin him with the mg's. Finally he snaps in. Of course he doesnt blow up, just cartwheels a few times. sob no kill for me.

I go level and see the 110 turning around at my 7 so I turn into him. Go vert over the top and smash on him. 2 passes later he swaps ends and blows up. Game over. I rtb to brux, put some popcicles on the engine and call it good. No credit for the '09. Oh well.

blog off.....

[allibone]

ha cool story, I've had it with the .303's so far too, it is ridiculous up north as everywhere you go there seems to be like a 2-1 Axis v Allied advantage in the air. They're flying smart and i sure as all hell aint'

[Mako]

Yeah I was feeling the same way. The problem with the spitfires are that you can only push them so far. Other planes are a nightmare to handle but if you can keep 'em steady there is that ability push them much farther than any spitfire.

All 3 of them feel like SUV's. Good at everything but not great, just a consistent pattern while other aircraft might be worse in some aspects but you can push them far beyond the limitations of the spitfires.

The dewo kinda feels that way. It will do some crazy shit if ya can keep it steady. Kinda like the 109's.

[Mako]

So last night, after shooting holes all over the sky I decided it was time to do something about the aim before i end up with 500 damages and 50 kills. Some time ago I saw it mentioned on PS by some pilots of another squadron that using the buttons on the throttle help imensly when aiming because no matter how steady you are when you pull the trigger the joystick will have some negative movement.

Problem is I have an x-52 with a million buttons but none of them match up right to calibrate that way...I thought. So I tore apart my whole calibration file and started tweaking with things a bit and now have primary fire as FIRE D on the throttle and I put secondary on the POV switch. Kinda odd but it really does work. I didnt get much time with it because I was having other issues....

That POV switch on the throttle is what I use to use for views and the new pov switch I'm using on the stick I use to use for engine settings and the worst part is I had vertical view (default #5 on your keyboard) set on the stick so it was really easy to change to the above views, I had to move it though. I'm so mixed up with the controls now that I'm firing the guns when I really want to look behind me and I'm switching to ECO when I want to shoot lol. So when I get use to this setup I'll let ya'll know if its really better.

[Mako]

So i gave up on the whole guns on the throttle idea. The x52 throttle just isnt designed for such a setup. I did finally take snipers suggestion and put all the guns on the main trigger. The x52 has a double down setup on the trigger so if you pull half way its mg's only then full pull for cannons. Its been going good so far and my aimings far more steady.

Convergence. After the lengthy posts about conv. on PS I finally gave into the idea and went to 75m convergence. I've been using it since. My evolution on convergence has been a very steady decrease in the distance as my skill and experience improve. I've been up as high as 250m and more recently worked my way down to a consistent 120-150m range. I dropped it down to 100m for a bit before going to 75m. The frustrating thing is that you do miss out on that reach out there and touch someone convergence but if you get them in that 75 range DAMN lol! Zip bang EA's dead, even with the .303's

Spit9's out now. You dont fully appreciate the uberness of this plane until you spend a bunch of time chasing 109s around in spitI's and VB's, the spit9 is nearly untouchable if you fly it as a b&z AC. It's second only to the 190 in invulnerability.

I'm feeling tapped out now with the spitfires. I've done all I can with one, I see no room for improvement with my flying in the aspect of the airframe it self. On to something new next campaign.

[Mako]

I'm feeling tapped out now with the spitfires. I've done all I can with one, I see no room for improvement with my flying in the aspect of the airframe it self. On to something new next campaign.

Finished 11th in my run on the top100 for fighters. Due to the tendancy I still have to fight to the death I doubt I could get any higher. It certainly is possible to hit the top spot but I just dont have the discipline to do so.

So, considering I'm a stat ho I'm going to make a run on somethin else. Prior to joining the dambusters my primary flight time was actually in bombers doing cas, thus I'm gonna make a run on the top spot for bombers using the havoc and h2c. Maybe a blennie here and there but I doubt it lol.

I ran a couple CAS raids at map closing and one of the issues I noticed while bombing a hotly contested town is rendering what you what your bombing. In tightly packed towns the enemy often times doesnt render unless your right in there face which sux cuz in order to get kills you gotta be right on the nose of the AAA gunners whom I've noticed have improved quite a bit in the last year.

So thats where I'll be, down in the dirt mixin it up with the infantry, gettin my Havoc engines shot out by AAA.