Flight Manual

GETTING STARTED WITH FIGHTER PILOTS

How do I get started? Well you need a pilot. Like always, it's recommended to have one infantry at all times. Don't level your first character up and make him a pilot without having someone else to make you money! Pilots can not join encounter or skirmish battles! Also, not every assault game will have planes in them.

Why don't all games have planes?

• Planes will be in a match if an assault team commander (rank 12+) sends one of his assault teams to the match you are in, or a staged battle that is set up with planes in it.

Planes Available

US

Currently Available to troops in theater:

• Reconaissance Planes: Curtiss O-52 Owl
• Fighter Planes: Seversky P-35A, Curtiss P-40N Warhawk, P51D Mustang
• Heavy Fighter Planes: Lockheed P-38 Lightning
• Transport Planes: Douglas C-47 Skytrain

Germany

Currently Available to troops in theater:

• Reconaissance Planes: Henschel HS 126 B-1
• Fighter Planes: Messerschmitt Bf 109D-1, Messerschmitt Bf 109E-4, Focke-Wulff 190 D-9
• Heavy Fighter Planes: Messerschmitt Me 410 B-2
• Transport Planes: Junkers Ju 52/3m

Soviet Union

Currently Available to troops in theater:

• Reconaissance Planes: Polikarpov R-Z
• Fighter Planes: Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-3, Yakovlev Yak-9B, Lavochkin 7
• Heavy Fighter Planes: Petlyakov Pe-3bis
• Transport Planes: Douglas C-47 Skytrain (Lend-lease)

Flying Tips

Flying takes some time to get used to. You will need to get familiar with the different controls, such as your basic steering controls, your bomb key, your primary fire, your secondary fire and your free look key.

General Controls

There are three control modes, classic, mouse, and camera.

Classic

• Roll and Pitch: mouse
• Yaw: A for left, D for right
• Acceleration: W to increase power, S to decrease
• Bomb: space bar
• Primary (MG): left click
• Secondary (cannon): right click
• Pan key: shift
• Debug Controls: ctrl (Swaps control of roll/pitch and yaw between mouse and WASD, throttle is locked)

Mouse

This mode allows you to primarily use your mouse to fly around. Aim where you would like to go and you will go this way. In this mode, all attack controls are the same, W manually increases throttle, S decreases throttle.

Camera

Camera is very similar to mouse mode with a larger white cross hair pointing to where you want to go and a red cross hair pointing to what you are actually pointing at

Frequently Asked Questions

How do I win dogfights?

To the surprise of no one, the most important thing about winning a dogfight is getting and staying behind the enemy. Most of this positioning is based on the initial engagement, or who saw who first and decided to focus and destroy the other. If you engage the enemy, you are most likely going to win. If there is mutual engagement, this often leads jousting, or when you and the enemy are looking and headed at one another and open fire, and then either pull up and turn around for round two, or crash. If a pilot disengages, the other usually has a chance to get behind them. If you engage first, try to fly below the treeline until you are simultaneously behind and within striking distance of the enemy aircraft. Once you're there, fire off MG rounds until you get a hitmarker before using your canon, as it is faster, cheaper, and the tracers are more visible. From there on, fire at the enemy aircraft and try to match their path, not their movement, as a common evasive manuever is to fake a roll and bank by turning the roll into a complete barrel roll before actually rolling and banking into a turn, leaving them behind you and thus with the upper hand. If the enemy engages you, you need to execute evasive manuevers, mainly consisting of banking at steep angles. Generally make it as hard as possible to follow you in a straight line. Fly through clearings and above rivers, or even through forests with your wings perpindicular to the ground if you're feeling risky. If none of this works and they're still on your tail, rely on your team. Your team is your most valuable defensive asset, and you must play around them like no other class when flying. You will be shot down by someone you never saw if your team doesnt help. That said, enemy aircraft chasing down friendly aircraft are your highest priority targets when flying. Now the best way to assure you engage first is attempting stealth. As much as you can while not in combat, fly below the treeline at high speeds to make sure you establish first visual. If the enemy does not employ the same tactic and remains higher up, exposed, they are not to be fought, they are to be hunted.

What kind of ammunition should I use?

Bf109 high-explosive cannon rounds were recommended by the last author, so it is assumed that they would recommend for any plane for reasons suggested below. They are extremely good at killing infantry, due to their splash damage. If you use the APCR rounds, they will destroy planes, and other vehicles, insanely fast, however don't be fooled, using these against tanks is hard unless using a plane like the P-38 lightning due to the inaccuracy, and if you are in a starter plane use bombs since .30 cal guns cannot penetrate any armour.. With the Rommel build HE shells are extremely good at dogfights, they provide quick neutralisation of an enemy pilot. If you know you are going into a battle against tanks, you might want to equip those APCR rounds instead of the HE rounds, due to armour penetration differences, just make sure you are a good shot. Here is why the old author used the HE rounds:

I see a Paratrooper plane in the air, can I shoot it?

Definitely. Just make sure it's not your own team's plane. German transport planes have a lot of yellow on them and a signature triple propeller while the US have white stripss on the wings, the Soviets' lend-lease C-47 looks a lot like the US', however there are no white stripes but green ones. The US' will show up with a blue triangle when playing with them. Know your plane, don't kill your own team's planes! As a side note, if the enemy has paratroopers and you have planes, fly behind the plane and troll away! You will get a lot of XP for plane kills.

I keep getting harassed by Anti-Aircraft (AA) guns fire. What can I do?

The easiest solution to AA is to alert someone on the ground to their presence and hope they can take care of it for you. AA is incredible vulnerable to ground attack since the person inside the AA is generally scoping out a plane and cannot see the person walking up behind them for an easy head shot. Sometimes that assistance is not forthcoming/possible depending on how deep in their lines the AA is. In this case some people prefer to gun run the AA and try and shoot the person out of it, the P-38 Lightning is very good at this. If the defending team are the Soviets and thus the mounted AA gun is a Maxim M4 Quad, they will have very little protection and an MG spray from a high enough angle should do the job. Otherwise, try to fly in from the sun and shoot your machine gun at them. However, if you aren't good at manoeuvring, bombing will put your plane at less risk and won't expend anything you pay for. Bombing makes more economical sense but sandbags are currently pretty bomb-proof. Landing the bomb just outside of the AA's sandbags walls (if they have those) won't do anything. To land the bomb inside such a small target takes practice. Your best bet is usually dive bombing as you can judge the trajectories more easily but if you practice a fly-by bomb (release from a horizontal plane) you can get good at those too! However you engage AA it is imperative that you deal with it quickly as they can take off vital health from your plane that you may need in the next dog-fight.

How do I use my bombs effectively?

Bombs are best used on groups of enemies, enemy vehicles, or armor. Stray from dropping bombs on one-man targets. An effective way to find these are dropping bombs on objectives or points, but use caution and check your map before doing so, as this is also a great way to rack up team kills. For getting good with bomb accuracy, there are two major options: dive bombing and fly-by bombing. Generally speaking, dive bombs are when you drop a bomb at an angle of more than 30 degrees or so, and fly-bys are everything less. Because your momentum aligns with gravity more, dive bombs are usually much easier to learn the trajectories of because they generally just go where you're aiming. Fly-bys are much more difficult, with a steep learning curve. You must literally learn the curve at which your bombs fall. The best way to do this is just watching your bombs fall and learning the trajectory by trial. Fly-by bombings are usually less dangerous because you are less likely to be shot out of your plane by your target and you don't have to recover from a dive, but they can still be dangerous as you can easily kill yourself by dropping your bomb too low.

• Plane resupply
• Paratrooper's Handbook

THIS PAGE NEEDS REVISION AND EDITING AFTER THE LATEST MAJOR REVISION.