rossmum

At least some of the takeoff behaviour seems to be due to the stiffer suspension rather than the flight dynamics, by 250+ you're already bouncing quite hard and it doesn't take much to cause the nose to bounce right off the ground.

The 19 actually does have roll trim, but it's a separate 3-position sprung switch on the left console, near the radio channel selector panel. AFAIK roll trim didn't move to the stick until the 29 - all 23 sticks I've seen still have the old style pitch-only trim switch.

The MiG-15 also has a different control system and flies at much lower speeds.

That's why it's only viable either against lone enemies, or groups of enemies who are too busy worrying about their own tail to offer mutual protection. There's a big distinction between things that are risky for tactical reasons and ones which are risky because the aircraft will try and kill you. A lot of people mix these up and then scratch their heads when a plane they thought was incapable of turning cuts inside their circle and deletes them.

I have all the gear controls bound on my HOTAS for muscle memory purposes (same with weapons control panel). It's easier to reach for something IRL than swap hands on the stick, look at the relevant control, move the mouse to it and click it while my subtle head movements are making it hard to be precise, then swap hands again.

While a single pair of double racks isn't too bad for weight or drag, carrying one on every pylon is, and unless you religiously manually select the appropriate pylon after every shot, you'll end up with an imbalanced loadout and a very, very bad roll tendency in an aircraft without roll trim.

It doesn't, however, stop you carrying 4 R-60s and 4 R-60Ms (which I strongly advise against).

Eh, I'd disagree on the above. With emergency burner, some discipline, and especially a stage of flap out, you can hold 30 indicated pretty comfortably. You'll be slow and vulnerable to attack from another enemy, but your average F-5 driver starts panicking when the plane he thinks can only go fast is cutting inside his turns and happily staying airborne as he's approaching a stall himself.

My usual combat load is 2x R-3R and 4x (occasionally 2x, but rarely) R-60M. People talk a lot about the draggy double racks but it isn't that big of a tradeoff at all in my experience, and between the weak warhead of the R-60 and the generally chaotic furballs that develop on Cold War servers, I'd rather have the extra sticks. Punch off the racks when empty. The R-3Rs are useful for killing oblivious cosmonauts or forcing someone to chicken out of a head-on merge, and you can also use fixed beam's ghetto boresight ability to pop someone in a dogfight if you run out of heaters. R-13s are something I only carry when I'm deliberately trying to make a 'fair' setup for practice against an F-5, or when I'm forced to forsake the R-3R. The extra range and extra explosive power isn't worth the far worse turning ability of the missile, the R-60 is god when it comes to close range. Any other missile exists only for memes or specific historical setups IMO.