DCS Module Buyer Guide Review: Warbirds (Spitfire, BF-109, I-16, P-51D, FW-190 D-9 & A-8) 

"You will learn more about flight in about an hour of warbird flying... than about 10 months in the *beep* Hornet!" And that is truth right there... Not that the Hornet and flying it isn't fun, but learning about flight is key for even the more advanced birds. Its an extremely good idea to learn everything you can about flight aerodynamics and such, no matter the plane you want to fly, and the WWII Warbirds perfect. Initially learning will be frustrating, even maddening, to the initial sim pilots... but stick to it, master it, and you will be a 100% better pilot all around for it.

The Mustang and Spitfire had the same Merlin engine, that’s why the horsepower ratings were similar.

Nice review. I have some tips for the 109 which has long been my favorite: For take off and landing, try using manual propeller pitch. It makes it much easier. For take off, set trim to +1, propeller to 12:00 and use about ATA 1.2 from the start. She will be controllable with the rudder, lift the tail and take off by herself. Catch the tendency to nose up when airborne, and you're flying stable. For landing, throttle down and set the propeller at 11:45. She will loose speed pretty fast and at 350 km/h you can let the gear down which will slow her down further. From there it's just to float her in, like you did in the video. Also try flying her with manual propeller pitch, she changes to an even more docile plane, very stable and easy to trim and control.

Wish they would add the F4U and Mosquito.

Bought myself a P51 as my first plane in DCS because I thought it would be useful to learn the fundamentals of flight, and because I just fell in love with the civilian version that comes with DCS. Glad to hear a veteran confirm this was a good purchase for training. Great breakdown of the different planes, thinking of getting the Spitfire next.

Cap - great job! Creative approach on how to review these all together. Was concerned they were going to get "short shrift" by combining into a single video, but you really brought out the unique features of each plane while emphasizing the overall quality of all of them. Thanks so much for the time it takes to make these reviews.

1:25:43 this is when cap knew, he F@#$ up... Thank you for that moment I spit out my drink

I put off watching this video because of the length. However, I wanted to buy another warbird so I started watching it. I ended up watching the entire video. It is great. Seeing all the warbirds put through the same paces was so informative. The specification comparison at the beginning was great, but the flying comparisons was really worth a watch. So I bought the BF 109 K4 because of the superior climb rate. I already had the Spit (best turn fighter) and the FW 190 A8 (best fire power). Thanks Cap.

Amazing video. But one little thing, the FW 190 A8 was introduced in Feb 1944.

Cap - thanks for these videos! I am looking to get into warbirds and this video (along with your Jug review) is perfect! Thank you, sir!!!

6:18 I think its because Mustang P-51Ds where fitted with Merlin engines (I think its Merlin 66) and LF Spitfire Mk. IX used the same engine.

Your affection for these old Warbirds really comes through Cap.Thanks for all your work on this.

I love WW2 and so of course i got some warbirds BUT even if you are not into WW2 stuff like me .. these planes are a joy to fly! If you like chill flights where you can fly low and see things around you.. get one! They are not that complicated because they don't have tons of electronics in them and you can feel the plane in your hands because of the direct control. My favorite is the FW-190D9 .. got it when it came out, still fly it to this day, it never let me down in dogfights if you keep your calm and speed none of DCS warbirds can touch you..just B&Z the hell out of them... perfect.

You get P-51 with DCS for free, just an unarmed version. For a pure joy of flight it's rather enough in my opinion. And recently Mustang and Dora both received significant overhaul in terms of visual quality. Other than this - excellent video.

Genuine, spot on, brilliant review.

I enjoyed your flight on the I-16. Thank you )

Just bought myself the Spitfire today (last day of the year end sales) - loving it; currently my fav aircraft to fly!

Only thing i have as complains is the us skin on the bf 109 😂

In the battle of Britain the Spitfie Mk2 did 357MPH the Me 109E (with a petrol injected engine was 348 MPH.. however the spitfire and hurricane's engine could cut out in any negative G manouvre...NOT due to oil starvation but FUEL starvation, a result of having Carburetters as oposed to the Fuel injection system as found on the 109. This was over come to a certain extent by the invention of a british woman engineer who developed a small washer/diaphragm to put in the float chamber. Her name was Miss Beatrice Shilling, a standard joke amongst RAF was how their spitfires and Hurricanes now did not cut out thanks to 'Miss Shillings orifice' (google it! As for Spitfires wings breaking off? Late in the war, Spitfire and Tempest Pilots in a powered dive encountered buffeting? What they did not know is they were nearing Mach1 No this isnt the early spitfire but later models and if you think the Spitfire cockpit was small please try and get the chance to sit in a Me109 it makes the spitfire look like a ballroom, I love DCS but historically the facts and figures given were not true. Read some books on ww2 fighters, read the bigraphy of eric winkle brown. The Spitfire Mk5 was superior to the Me109F but when it came across the FW190 they were certainly outclassed in speed and took a thrashing from the new german fighter. However, a german pilot landed his FW190 at a south wales airfield, he mistook the bristol channel/severn estuary for the English channel, it was a gift and this new german fighter was test flown in mock dogfights with the Mk5 spitfire. It certainly exceeded the spitfire in nearly every factor. The Fw190 had the fastest roll rate of any WW2 fighter. The RAF wee in trouble. However, Rolls Royce put a 2 stage Blower on the engine, A 4 bladed prop to handle the increase in power and a a slightly larger tailfin. the Mk9 was born. This was, some say the finest model. When the Fw190 first met the Mk9 spitfire. the germans thought they were dealing with Mk 5s they had a shock. It did not fare well for them. Now whilst the Fw109 was indeed faster at low level, at altitude the Mk9 ran circles around it. The P51 (originally built to a british specification) had an alison engine and again was an excellent low level ground attack (aprt from it weakness being a liquid cooled engine) but it's performance was very poor at altitude. A rolls royce engineer had a ccouple of P51's and they 'shoehorned the Merlin engine into its airframe and a superb fighter was born. It's range was very good but to reach berlin it needed all its tanks full plus drop tanks and was a pig to fly due to C of G problems untill a lot of fuel was burnt. I am sorry but I must take issue with the statement of engine blowing up in a spit same as the wings snapping off? Spitfire and P51's both had merlins and yes some had a bendix stromberg carburreter etc but the fact is both engines could blow up and both types did there is no statistical evidence saying the spitfire engines blew up any more than the P51, If anything lots of german engines blew up mainly due to poor quality metals (as the war went on!) and sabotage as a lt of german hardware was built by slave labour. Please watch some you tube videos by pilots who have flown both, Mark Hannah for instance or better still do some research, go to duxford wherre you can hear a spitfire and a P51 flying...Real engine noises in the real world. I love DCS but come on get the models correct DCS, Do your Research. Me109k read here for infowww.historyofwar.org/articles/weapons_bf_109K.htm Finally one of the most difficult ww2 fighters to land was the Bf109 (all models) it had a very narrow wheel base, in fact the wings could be taken off a 109 and the plane could be pushed along as its wheels were actually attached to the fuselage not the wings. A very high proportion of german pilots were killed in landing accidents as it was so easy to ground lopp the Me 109.

Very comprehensive. I have started into DCS World with the “Dora”. Thank-you for showcasing the other planes. Want to get the 109K next.

Thanks Jon, I love your stuff ! Warbirds, yessssssss Kind regards, Nick

Need more warbirds! Especially USN warbirds, i.e. F-4U Corsair, F-6f Hellcat.

I love the FW A series

i have the P51, Spit, Dora, 109K4 and i skip the newest ones because what i noticed in all these years of flying DCS i only can say is that the first of all them which came out was and is still simply the best of all !! ....THE P51 !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Hey guys, just a short one on the top speeds. I mean, it counts for all the planes, but the warbirds are particularly susceptible because of their fairly low climb rates. Namely, it depends a lot on altitude, so while some planes were better up there, others a better down low. This is especially important during low altitude dogfights. Just did a short drag race, at 500ft, all planes clean, with 350lbs of fuel, starting speed at 100 knots, as i wanted to see how fast each is modeled in DCS. The results were following: BF-109K reached 321 KIAS and reached it first. It ended up winning the race, but burned though its fuel the fastest. FW-190D and FW-190A also reached top speed of 321 knots, but lost the race with some 1/2 a kilometer behind (about 0.3 NM). The Dora was only slightly better then the Anton in acceleration and won 2nd with only about 3-4 plane lengths advantage. The P-51D reached a top speed of 301 knots. It lagged behind the Spitfires in the first part of the race, but the Spits hit their top speeds fairly early and stuck there. Anyway they all lagged behind the Germans. Both cropped and regular wing Spit Mk IX's reached 272 knots of top speed, and to my even greater surprise, they reached it with no difference in acceleration what so ever. Finally, the I-16 as expected was slowest and reached only 220 knots. I put in the Christian Eagle II in there, just to keep them company, but i don't think i should post its score. It just wouldn't be ethical! Well.....just something to keep in mind when buying these planes and how you intend to use them! Cheers everyone and good nigh! P.S. loved your Buyer Guides reviews.

The Mk 108 30mm cannon on the BF-109 K-4 is shoots an enormous bullet that’s the size of small artillery shell. Each projectile weighs 3/4’s of a pound (0.35 kg). The entire shell cartridge weighed more than 1 pound (0.5 kg). Just one 30mm round scoring a direct hit will take at least half a wing off an enemy Warbird. The Mk. 108 30mm is an absolute beast of gun that shoots 660 rounds per minute which is 500 pounds (227 kgs) of lead being fired in just 1 minute. The only downside is weight when the MK. 108 is on an aircraft. For that reason, the BF 109 K-4 only carried 65 rounds of the 30mm ammo for the Mk. 108. But all it takes is 1 round and the plane being hit is going down fast, most likely with a large part of the airplane blown away and no longer attached.

Awesome Video !!! 4 years and I still have problems with the Dora landing, I don't die, but I break a wheel or prop. Especially hard on short runways of Normandy.

over an hour wooow. i am thinking of getting all the war birds. but i dont want some now. thank you for saving my money.

Wow. One hour and 40 minutes!. Nice.

To enhance the WW2 immersion you need ships, carriers and equipment of that era.Please give us that immersion.

GET SOME! Is that some kind of saying you dont think about? Great video btw 😄

Just one thing. The FW190A-8 is not from 1941 (that's the first 190), I just check wikipedia and it's from 1944: The A-8 entered production in February 1944.

Those .50 cals on the Mustang sound amazing.

Good video Cap. Regards climb rate, that is primarily down to engine power. In fact, if you double the power, you more than double the climb rate!

I love warbirds your converting me over to dcs

You stated that the fuel gauges were impossible to see in the P51-D If you press Right CTRL + Shift and number 4 of 5 on your num pad your sight view will scroll left or right and you can see the contents ....Great Review on all or them ...Thank you

Ive noticed that the attitude indicator on the TF-51 gets out of adjustment and needs to be caged and uncaged fairly regularly during level flight to keep it "accurate." Indeed from what Ive seen in this video, that seems to be the case for most of the warbirds. Any ideas why?

The Spitfire definitely wins my award for the sexiest WW2 Warbird. It’s a beautiful airplane.

(Old video, I know) THERE IS A STABILITY SYSTEM IN THE 190!!! If you've ever flown an RC plane or heli, the 190 had Expo on the stick! Near center, the stick was less sensitive, making it easier to aim and to land. (I'm pretty sure it was on every variant of the 190, but I could be wrong...)

I would love to see metric values for non anglo-saxon vehicles or even better both values, imperial and metric, for all vehicles. At present both systems are being used rather randomly throughout all reviews with your occasional kilometers, and meters popping up between feet, miles and knots (!). Cheers.

Fun fact - only the most experienced pilots dogfighted Spitfires. With the leading edge slats deployed, the 109 was turning just as well as the Spits. Marseille was famous with that.

amazing video cap o7

Landing gear in I-16 is very difficult (and thus very slow, since it's done entirely by the pilot's mighty right hand) to rise at speeds over 250 km/h, so it's a good practice to reduce throttle or set steeper climb angle after takeoff until gear is up and locked. And it's better to start lowering it at the second turn (to downwind), with speed already reduced. And it is a joy to fly and learn, took me 5-6 tries just to take it off the runway without rolling in the grass or damaging the gear.

Hi, I’m quite new to sim flying and I enjoy and appreciate your videos. Question is is steam better than the stand-alone version?I fly using quest 2. Cheers

54:48 made me lol ;)

I'm new to Cap of the Grim Reapers. So far, every video I've seen is top-notch, absolutely brilliant! Thanks to Cap for this amazing review of all the Warbirds. I only have the P51 and was thinking I'd getting others, so Cap helped tremendously! However..."flight model, absolutely beautiful. 4 and a half outta 5." What more would be needed for a 5?

There's nothing better than watching the IL-2 sessions with massive furballs and dogfights.

A note on the lack of aileron trim...Spitfires, at least the MkIX, didn't have trim tabs there. I was told by a guy during a visit by the Silver Spitfire at a nearby airfield that they would tweak the outside corner of the ailerons by bending to give it a little trim there.

So Anton vs Dora. Which is a better module and more fun?

Actually, a small correction, spitfire Mk IX was made to compete against earlier fw-190, which was a lot better in terms of power than previous spitfires such as mk.V. at least thats what I read

Just a historical titbit that might be of interest to some. The Spitfire E B B, shown in your list is actually a Griffon powered Mk XII. I recognized it as a Griffon Spitfire by the huge spinner and longer nose.

Spitfire was early war.. beautiful for the time! 😍

10:17 The date for the Focke Wulf A-8 is April 1944, not 1941. The A-1 and A-2 models came out in '41.

I believe the FW190A that you were flying in the review is actualy a late model aircraft,944 I believe. It was mentioned in the review that it was a early war plane and hard to compete with the other laer model war birds. Perhaps I misunderstood..correct me if I am in error. Really enjoyed the review though...great job Cap!

some one needs to make a P-38L

I'd say the main reason for comparable horse power between the Spitfire and the Mustang, is they both used the RR Merlin engine. Sure there were variations in supercharging and other attributes, but the core of both aircraft was the engine. The climbing differences between the two, may have been wing loading to a point. But the weight between the two was nearly a ton difference, the Spitfire being the lighter of the two. For the gunsight crosshair in the Spitfire, it seems there would be an adjustment for that, by raising up in the seat. Many sims have such adjustments. It wouldn't make sense to put such a large reflector in front of you and then fix the sight to the bottom of it. I think the ONLY aircraft that would have a similar turn capability, would be the Japanese 'Mitsubishi Zero.' In true 'Cap fashion,' you went and broke the bloody Spit!

I would'nt mind having a warbird, but in DCS, to have the settings matching the warbirds, we have to pay for the France map and WW2 assets. And those planes are from different period of WW2. In IL-2 (I have IL-2 Cliffs of Dover BLITZ edition), you have loads of plane of the same date, the map, and assets for a very low price... If as you say the warbird flight model is far better in DCS World, maybe I will eventually get myself a Spitfire, but I'm still pretty much esitating about getting the map and assets. Anyway, thanks for the video.

I didn't join DCS for the warbirds, but i did get the Spit about a year ago, just to see how they are modeled AND because she was the prettiest of them all at the time. I do want to get the Anton at some point, as i love that birds as well, but it's not high on my priority list, i want an F4U first. It is however the visibility in DCS that puts me off the WW2 stuff. With modern jets, the size of the planes and the sensor package does a lot to mitigate the spotting deficiencies, but the Korea jets, and especially the comparatively tiny WW2 props it's almost like flying blind. That green windshield makes things even worse, i've had bandits disappear on me, right as roll in on them in order to put them in my gun sights :/ . So.....for me, these will largely have a collector's value, the way things are in DCS right now, i don't believe i'll get to fly them in any meaningful capacity. And i have no intention to enable labels.

P51D 437mph, Spitfire MkXIV was 448mph, the pic above is certainly not a MK9 but looks like a Griffon powered Spitfire (by the long nose and large spinner.)

55:56 Petroleum Bohren right there! :)

Doesn’t adding some left rudder counteract the propellor pulling you to the right?

Would love to see the Lavochkin 7 or Yakovlev 3 (later war variants for Yak 3 to be somewhat on par with P-51, D-9, etc. maybe some of the Griffon version spitfires too

As a person who knows A LOT about ww2 aircraft I approve this Btw Can you do reviews on mod aircraft?

dont forget to use rudder when you roll warbiords, and pre fbw jets too including the tomcat

Hi Cap. WW2 assets is needed for missions to fly with them? or can i just buy one module. there are on good sale now. but i cant make my mind buying gulf map, F16 or a classic plane :)

The A8 is a late-war model from 1944

the K4 was withOUT MW50. 2,000hp with. i think the climbrate is explained by 2,000hp, lightweight and large displacement engine with a lot of torque.

Thanks for the video. I plan on downloading DSC world when my Skytech Chronos arrives next week.

Wait, did I miss the Gazelle review?

So with this, we're missing the Gazelle, the Yak, the CE2, and the free aircraft that don't really need a "buyer's" guide but which Cap said he'd cover separately (at least covering the Su-25 / Su-25T). Anything else?

Wonder if spitfire blowing has to do with its fueling problems and being carbureted and not direct port injected…they were notorious for icing the carb bowls and going lean in climbs etc

Could you (or anyone else reading) tell me where the island used in this video is? Thank you.

I knew something was off with the Polikarpov dimensions...no way it was longer than any of the other warbirds. Switch length and wingspan and it will be correct.

"All modules except warbirds...." and Christen Eagle and Yak!

I hope youre gona do the turn rate tests and all the kinetic tests you did with the jets for the warbirds

"[German] cockpits weren't good enough" while describing the plane type flown by the highest scoring fighter pilots in history...

Being English you'd think my favourite would be the Spitfire but I've got a soft spot for the Mustang..my favourite to fly

The Spit has the same power as the Mustang because it is a later spec Mk9, from March 1943.

Im pretty sure that the p51D has 1400hp, not ~1700. Both searching up the plane on wikipedia and checking chucks guide indicates the lower number. It also does feel like it pulls worse then the other warbirds, so i recon 1400 is correct.

Have you ever added the P-47 to that list? I'd love to see how it would compare

These are famtastic videos. Can you please update them? As there have been a lot of changes to these + the jets as of end of 2021

How does the free P-51 compare to the one you reviewed here in terms of the flight model?

I thinking for armament it would be better to compare something like the mass out of weapons per seconds. Also wing loading should be replaced by dynamics parameters like roll rate, instantaneous and sustained turn, since it is a design parameter but not an objective per se.

I belive the k-4 has more horsepower because it seems the boost fuel stuff was off but it’s been a while so I could be wrong but I never heard the huge change in sound

A high level AI Dora can easily out-turn a Mustang, and it climbs straight upwards like a bloody rocket. I wish the Mustang had a bit more powerful engine, and a bit more lift on the wings, that way it would have been beyond superb.

12:08 I think the DB-605DC engine used in the 109 k4 has over 2000hp

Hi.. I'm new in WW2. What plane do you recommend me to buy?. The 109 4k or the P47D?. Thanks

Any chance you can update this comparison with the P-47?

I note the specification differences between the two FW-190 models, but from a commercial marketing perspective, why offer two so similar-looking planes? What was the niche that the first FW wasn’t meeting? Am sure many other models could have been offered that would have drawn FW and German aircraft fans as well.

I know the range means it doesn't need them, but the Mustang's drop tanks don't hold fuel in DCS. It's not modelled properly. It's a shame because it would be nice to have the option to have a light fuel load in the main tanks.

Just to say at 03:10 the Merlin 66 War Emergency Power was 2050 hp, not 1705 hp. Also at 04:00 the maximum rate of climb around 5500ft per min. The P51 is not considered the best all round fighter of the war, only Americans say that because it was their best fighter. At 07:10, i think the word you were looking for was 'maths'.

Get some 👌🏽🇬🇧

Hi cap!

#23:32 you might know this but because of the direction the propeller is spinning it naturally rolls to the right

Did I miss the A-4 review?

Bf-109K's speed + Mustang's firepower = F-4U Corsair.

Errors. The Spitfire can load 2x250+ 500 not 3x250. Should've mentioned the lockable tail wheel of the P-51. The main reason why the P-51 is an order of magnitude easier to takeoff and land than all the others. Maybe the Dora is easy too, don't have the Dora. I'm disappointed you chickened out of landing the I-16. I had the popcorn ready. It's at least as 'interesting' as the Spitfire. Using flaps at 20-30 degrees makes the I-16 pitch neutral which eases the landing a bit. Full flaps 50 degrees, it'll pitch up for no real advantage. Hauling up the gear took so long because you exceeded 200 km/h. It's 41 turns IIRC. Below 200 km/h it turns much faster. Your not sure if it's Allison or a Merlin? Jeeez. I'm on a WarBirds forum where you'd be banned for that... Only the early P-51 in smaller numbers had Allisons. Really quickly both sides of the pond people thought "lets put a Merlin in and see what happens".

I do not fully agree with what you mentioned with the highlights, you do mention the pure performance figures but you forget to mention that for example both fw 190's have really good high speed manoeuvrability and the 109 does not have that at all. Also the 190 A8 does have very good durability which you also forgot to mention, ofcourse it doesn't perform like the other warbirds but performance figures do not complete the picture.

Why are all the planes in us markings

How to enable pilot?