I had a little bit more time off than usual tonight. We all know how the P-51 handles right? So I'll leave it out of my analysis.

F-84 Thunderjet:

This jet is a real joy to fly, classic republic enginering features all modeled correctly. Very smooth aircraft, requires little more than a feather touch to opperate, very forgiving when flown right. Carries a big stick to (as we all have come to recognise in the campaigns.) While spin testing the F-84 it is clearly the most stable of the 3 jets. You can let go of the stick, at least 6,000ft of altitude permiting it will come out of a spin on it's own. I managed to nearly recover from a spin induced at 1500ft AGL The one drawback of the jet is that the F-84 is so spin and stall resistant at high speeds that you can and will overstress it very easily. Most of us found this out when pulling up from stuka style dive bomb attacks. Fast and agile. My favorite of the two ground attack aircraft. Ah, like all other Republic aircraft the polish glider nickname suits it well. So does Lead Sled But at least Republics jets didn't get terribly bad insulting nicknames like Douglas's aircraft. A3D Skywarrior, nickname: "All 3 Dead." That nickname has to make a designer want to commit suicide.

F-80 shooting star:

The lockheed classic lockheed fighter, it wont let you bust it up, it's deadly quirks almost seem like build in features. The F-80 is very tollerent, but once you push it passed it's limits, ho boy, watch out. Spin recovery is natually, a b!tch, infact if you spin anywhere below 6,000 AGL, you die. Letting go of the controls and hoping for the best is not the way to recover in this game. If you let go of the controlls odds are the spin will get WORSE! Like in most lockheed aircraft, it's tollerences are clearly set, you bust those and you are in for Mr. Toads wild ride down to terra firma. You will rarely ever overstress the aircraft, newbies, MS sidewinder and Logitech fans will definately enjoy thing one, till they get into a spin. Reminds me of other (in)famous lockheed jets like the F-104 and High speeds are not attainable in this jet, so they relegated this puppy to flak bait in the war.

F-86 Sabre:

A very mixed bag, it's not like the F-80 or F-84 in any one respect, I'd liken it more to the other North American fighter the F-51. The lineage is very apparent between the two fighters. Stalls, Spins and overstresses are a mixed bag IMHO, couldn't see a real pattern. Sometimes I'd be able to recover sometimes I wouldn't. Spining at low altitudes is a definate no no in this aircraft.

In conclusion I take my hat off to Rowan yet again. They really know how to model aircraft characteristics, lineage, and manufacture design paterns.

DBond
Contributing Editor
Frugal's World of Simulations http://www.frugalsworld.com

F84 vs F80 in a dogfight, hummm ... that would be an interesting fight. I'm wondering if you can do that? I'll have to check.

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Ken "KC23" Cook,
Senior Editor
Frugal's World of Simulation
www.frugalsworld.com/

BWAHAHAHA!!!