A-26 "Invader"
I do not recommend flying the A-26's to anyone because of how difficult they are to fly.
A-26B-10
AEC:
Considering the size and the role of the A-26 its incredible that it achieves the speed that it does. Fortunately it can make custom load outs, saving it from an extra undue weight. Historically the A-26 had several hot-swappable noses for different sorties, and that is reflected in game. However the fastest nose is the .50 cal only nose as taking either of the 37mm options will only increase the overall weight of the aircraft. The A-26 still suffers from the same compression issues of the A-20 family, as it is its successor. This means that the pilot must preplan all corners, often rolling in the direction of the corner long before they actually get there and possibly using “down elevator movement” to complete a series of corners back to back. Rudder rolling into the corner can also help with this compression. Fortunately overheating isn't an issue on the A-26B-10 as it lacks WEP. Typical expect speed range is in the 280-310 mph range however it does have decent acceleration and has little issue with remaining in the upper end of this spectrum.
MEC:
95%-10%, Fixes all issues and the numbers didn't become red until after passing the final bridge.
A-26B-50
AEC:
The A-26B-50 is slightly heavier than the B-10 as it has extra machine guns, however it also has WEP and 440 more horsepower. So the extra weight is actually quite negligible. Unfortunately with more power comes more cooling issues and the B-50 will fully overheat through H4; this overheating cycle is only quelled with 90% power and jumping back on WEP will cause the engine to flash over again. So be careful with engine power after H4.
MEC:
Luckily MEC fixes all cooling issues with a set up of, 90%-10%. This also fixes the drag penalty when the engine would overheat in AEC, allowing the B-50 to cruise at around 320 mph for the duration of the race. Cornering will always be difficult on the A-26's with the chicane being the worst of them all. Its important to pre-plan the corner, without proper rudder usage when moving in a steep bank the pilot can waste large amounts of their total kinetic energy in a climb they didn't intend to make.
A-26C-45
AEC:
The A-26C-45 Would definitely be the fastest Invader of the bunch if it didn't have to carry a full payload. With the lack of custom load outs (when I flew it out), I was laden with a significant amount of extra weight. That being said it flies almost exactly like the B-50 Invader. Its still very fast but because of its large size it has a hard time rolling and in turn making the corners. Overheating was not an issue on this variant of the A-26.
MEC:
95%, 0-25-0 % rads. The engine will eventually overheat on 0% rads and if nothing is done about that you will be stuck in an over heating cycle; so I move the rads% up to 25%. But then at the final bridge/the final straight I move rads down to 0% again for that final extra boost in performance.