Some advises here: - have a better pilot with Aerodynamic Expert and Battle Tested (on top of the Marksman II) if you can afford - upgrade and even calibrate the Sight and GoA even if you can't use the bonuses before specialization, the sheer increased damage with accuracy will help a lot - have a Turbine instead of the LPU (for your only engine slot before speccing), and also remove the ordnance and focus on aerial kills only
I would say these are all great ideas if one intends to keep and specialize and regularly play the Banshee. That's a minority of the people who will fly it. My assumption here (and in any video for tech tree aircraft really) is that it's someone of moderate experience who is just doing the normal grind to get to tier 10. The majority of pilots in other words. Given that, having a better than 8pt pilot is probably not realistic. Nor is wasting tokens or credits on a throwaway upgraded equipment package. Which means the turbine doesn't buy you anything (ie, doesn't add any additional aircraft to the list of those you can already outrun without it), but the lightweight power unit can help you get a little more guns-on-target time and makes the plan a little more comfortable to fly. That said, I did have Aerodynamics on the pilot before I re-skilled for Marksman II because these guns desperately need all the help they can get. If you are going to run turbine, that would definitely be the preferable skill. I've never used Battle-Tested, I'm not sure I am worried in this plane about wing crits, thought I could see the use in keeping the pilot healthy given the firepower problem.
The F2H is my second-favorite tech tree U.S. heavy (P-38F.) One of the issues with the guns on this plane is that the stated range is not the actual range in-game. You need to wait until you get within 400-500m, then cut loose. Against light fighters, the max range engagement can work, but you can get trolled by WG RNG there, too. TL:DR. Face-hug your target to get the DPM.