Ahhhhhh...... Guys, Don't shoot the messenger (Please Ozzy, I know ya luv your Spit) but I just watched a program on Discovery Wings and only saw part of the program but they (Don't know who they are) picked the best 3 a/c from each decade (and/or War) up to todays modern fighters, then whittled it down to the best a/c for each, then picked the best a/c overall.  It was (Oh God, Please I am only the messenger) lol.   It was the P51 Mustang.  I am waiting for the program to come on again to watch the whole thing and see what criteria was used in the selection.  Anyway, just thought I would let you know.  Please continue to talk to me  lol

"Wings Over The World" is having a program on tomorrow evening on the RAF Spitfire. called the "Elite Fighter During WWII.

Splash

  Whew!!!!   Dodged the bullet on that one!!!!  Yes, I know how prejudiced programming can be, depending on who is doing it.  That is why I want to watch the whole program again to see the Who, What, Where, When, Why and How the selection was made and what criteria used to do so.  I only saw about 30 mins of it and it was an interesting program nonetheless.  Ah, the things you see and hear on the box huh?  lol

Splash 

Discovery wings would go under if they announced a british aircraft as the worlds best.

The problem isn't primarily in the amount of fuel although the 51 did have a requirement to use the tank behind the pilot first.
The problem is in all 3US fighters and it is CG.  1 percent aircraft have a selectable CG adjustment.

The 3US fighters do fly much better with less fuel. Doubt it is weight of fuel. Most likely it is CG.

Sounds like a really cool idea. I'm in...
Dano...

Having got and read an official copy fo Pilots Notes for P-51D. The notes state that fuel from the fusilage tank MUST be used first as the P51 is very unstable in pitch and  NO air combat entered unless absolutely necessary. Ideally the fusilage tank should have no more than 20-25% fuel remaining so that there were no stability problems with the aircraft. Having used the fuel from the rear tank, fuel from the drop tanks was used next etc etc.

Where the Mustang was used in combat with a full tank or near full tank, some pilots found they had to push on the stick to keep in a turning fight with the opposition.

I'm sure Ozzy's analysis is correct.  But I also think the Game is off somewhat on P51D performance.  In any case, you can change the performance by modifying the aircraft.cfg file with a text editor like Notepad.

Open Windows Explorer, click on the CFS3 game folder (wherever you installed it), click on the aircraft folder, click on p_51d.  Create a new folder and call it something like Archieve.  Right click on the aircraft.cfg and copy and paste it to the Archieve folder.  This is to preserve it in original condition.

Now go back and highlight aircraft.cfg.  Double click on it to open it.  You may have to tell windows to use Notepad or some other text editor.

Scroll down to the [flight_tuning] section and find the following lines:

elevator_effectiveness=1.000000
aileron_effectiveness=1.000000
rudder_effectiveness=1.000000

Change the numbers to something greater than 1.0.  I found that numbers between 1.1 and 1.2 work pretty well.

You will find a noticeable improvement in performance.

If you are still having stall problems, you can overcome them by modifying the following in the [piston_engine] section:

cylinder_displacement=137.250000
max_rated_rpm=3000.000000
max_rated_hp=1490.000000

Increase these numbers by 25 - 50 %.  This will give you more HorsePower to overcome stall.  It will also give you a tendency to overspeed so you may have to "work the throttle" to prevent overspeed.

There are many more parameters you can change to alter the plane's charistics and performance.  If you understand airplane design you can play with them but be careful or you'll make the plane totally unrealistic.

All of this is cheating of course but it may make the game more enjoyable for you!