How To Fly The P-51 In Air Warrior

By: Troy "Pancake" Whigham

Like most USAF planes in AirWarrior, the Mustang can be flown in either the European or Pacific arenas, which may be important to you. Its generally a good idea to fly one plane exclusively until you become familiar with it, and the Mustang is a good choice for beginning pilots due to the fact that you can have a bit of success in flying it without being familiar with all of the flap settings and fancy aerobatic maneuvers. But, you do have to know how to watch your airspeed so don't try to turn in it. Just point the nose at your target and go. If you miss, just keep going until you're out of danger. This is known as "Boom and Zoom" fighting.

The Mustang's key asset in AirWarrior is its speed. Nothing can catch it, nothing can outrun it. A P-51 pilot can catch and kill anybody, anywhere, given enough time and assuming that both planes start at almost the same speed. This does not mean that a Mustang has quick acceleration. It doesn't. What it does have is a very aerodynamically efficient airframe which allows it to have a higher top speed at level trim. The Mustang is not a jet - the WEP is not an afterburner which you can use to climb like a rocket (for that you'll want to fly the Bf-109) - so you'll have to keep your airspeed up at all times.

The Mustang has average turn rates, an average lethality, a just-below-average climb to altitude, and can take an average amount of damage. The reason for the below-average climb rate is the wing. It was designed with an emphasis on speed more than lift, and speed is an important consideration (along with range) for a fighter on bomber escort duty. Don't try to take an FW-190 head-on, and don't try to turn with the P-38, Bf-109, and Spitfire. The FW packs a stronger punch, and the Lightning, 109, and Spit will turn inside of you all day long. The Yak will also outturn you, but there aren't a whole lot of fans of it in the arenas so the chances of you facing one are pretty slim.

And stay away from the Ki's in the Pacific. They're fast as a Mustang, have about the same armor and lethality, BUT can turn inside of a P-51D and have a lower stall speed. If you find one of these Franks coming in at you, stay fast and try to get him to rip his wings off. American planes are a bit more durable.

The Mustang has tremendous range on a full tank of gas, but all that fuel will cause it to wallow like a pig. Take 25 to 35% fuel on average. In flying the P-51, keep the throttle at 100% during climbout and during the dogfight. You can reduce thrust to 79% to save fuel during the patrol, but don't try to climb too quickly. Keep that speed around 225 kias in case you get jumped from behind. The Mustang has a high stall speed - about 150 kias - and becomes an easy target when it gets slow.

In dog fighting, don't get hooked into looping fights. The Mustang is a pure "boom and zoom" aircraft. Make a series of high-speed passes on your target. You won't need flaps - they'll just slow you down. Do not try to pull an Immelman in a Mustang because you'll get stuck at the apex of your roll and get popped by a stall fighter with better maneuverability. In the Full Real arenas, stalling a Mustang in a nose-up vertical can cause some nasty spins.

So how do you turn a Mustang around? Well, if you've ever looked at an oval race track, you'll remember that the straight parts were flat, but the turns were angled. This is your flight pattern, but in the turns pull your nose up too. This will shorten your turn radius. Doing a level turn is a waste of good energy, and energy is life for a fighter pilot.

Now, I'm not saying that you can't turn the Mustang and stall fight with it. You can. I do. But if you do, you can expect to pay your dues along the way. A Mustang pilot must know how to use his flaps and his War Emergency Power switch in order to fight Spits, 109s, and P-38s at the 200 to 150 knots-indicated-airspeed range. Once you've mastered the P-51D in low speed fights, you're pretty much qualified to fight in the true turn fighters (except for perhaps the P-38, which takes some rudder practice). When you can stall fight in a Mustang, you'll have developed a pretty good skill at judging energy states of aircraft.

Here's a couple tips to get you started. First, if your airspeed indicator is closer to 150 than 200, you'll want to give yourself at least one notch of flaps and get set up for a series of high yo-yo turns. If the enemy is below you and he can't climb up, you can drop another notch of flaps (maybe even two, depending on the energy state of your plane and your target) and go into a nose-down spiral turn. At the bottom of the spiral, raise the flaps up to one-notch and hit the WEP to keep your speed up. Put the pipper on the target and fire. Remember, you're an easy target for other enemy aircraft and you might find yourself in a mean spin if you work the stick too hard.

The Mustang can also carry two 550lb bombs under its wings. This payload, combined with its high rate of speed, makes it a very effective dive bomber. If you're going to use the Mustang as a dive bomber, you should make the flak batteries your primary target, and the airfield tower as your secondary target. This way, your enemy's airfield will be blind as well as defenseless. One of the best feelings in Air Warrior is rolling a Mustang down into a 15k dive, placing the red X on a flak battery, releasing the bombs at 3k, pulling up into a bone-stretching climb, and seeing the words "A kill has been recorded."