Our planes are airshow planes that get wrung out every once in awhile.
The guns are mostly just barrels that protrude very realistically, but there is no reason to have the weight of the gun at all unless needed for weight and balance (like in a MiG-15, for instance). In the case of the MiG, if the mass of the guns isn't there, it will settle on its tail.
Our Me 109G-10 was flown with no ammo, guns at about half weight or less, and about half fuel. We removed any armor plate and the gunsight was already gone. My estimate is it flew lighter than typical combat weight, and the empty weight was less than typically reported due to armament deletion. A typical Me 109G was bout 5,900 pounds empty, 6,950 pounds loaded, and 7,500 maximum weight. Let's not quibble over 10 pounds more or less.
I figure ours was typically flown at about 6,200 pounds for takeoff, so it SHOULD have performed better than a wartime Me 109G.
Lest yout think we compare the 109 flown at low power with a Mustang flown at high power, you are wrong. On a typical flight, we takeoff at less than full power, but not too much less, and throttle back to economy cruise right away. That is NOT the case in airshows. In these cases, they are sometyimes flown at rated power, and you almost HAVE to do that once in awhile to WWII V-12 engines of any veriety or they don't like it. By "don't like it" I mean they will break or give trouble if flown all the time at low power.
We DO make power changes gradually and take care with collingore than combat pilots. Most Mustangs cruise around about 235 knots, and I daresay most piston warbirds do the same. The speed limit below 10,000 feet uis 250 knots, so cruising arounf at 300 knots is forbidden most of the time since most warbirs occupy a lot of their air time below 10,000 feet. They CAN get higher and go faster, and DO from time to time.
From my perspective, having been in an Me 109 cockpit on many occasions, I think the pilots were generally between 5 foot 4 inches and 5 foot 9 inches tall, and needed to be strong and athletic because of no rudder trim, no control assist of any sort, and a very narrow cockpit tgaht does not allow much more than 40 pounds of side force on the stick due simply to no room for your elbows to move outward and generate the force. I have no problem believing the German pilots were athletic and strong, it was a national pastime.
I do NOT like the fact that the pilot sat on the fuel tank. On the plus side, the fuel was relatively nea rthe CG. The minus side is apparent to all, especially wartime pilots.
According to Steve Hinton, the Me 109 is treacherous to takeoff and land on pavement. He says you cannot land one at all on pavement if your brakes have failed or you will most probably groundloop due to the well-known swing that cannot be stopped without brakes. But on grass, which is where they operated in wartime, it is just fine for someone familiar with the aircraft. The drag of the grass on the tailwheel and relative lack of traction for the maingear tires compared with pavement makes it simple to handle on grass. Beware pavement (which is where they operate today unless they can find a grass strip).
It climbs steeply at low speed, and is not a "fun" aircraft to fly relative to others. We all love the sound of a DB engine and most of the active 109 pilots feel you can attack in the Me 109 better than you can defend. Aerobatics are not fun since you must be realtively fast to do vertical maneuvers, and fast is where the elevators become very heavy ... as do the ailerons and rudder. But the rudder remains effective while the ailerons and elevator lose effectiveness at high speed.
To be fair, that is true in varying amounts for almost ALL WWII fighters, not just the Me 109. But the Me 109 shows it markedly.
I personally think the Me 109 is a very strong candidate for best fighter aircraft of all times due in no small measure to its war record of achievement. But if you want the best actual airframe performance (as opposed to combat record), the Me 109 is way down the list, and not close. That says a lot for the training, skills and planning of German wartime pilots, doesn't it?
In the end, it is a great plane with flaws. There are no perfect figher aircraft and ALL WWII fighters had flaws, as do all MODERN fighters. Every planes is a compromise. The question is what the design objective was to be. Usually there is some main mission and the rest are required but secondary. It is difficult to envision a better fighter in WWII for Blitzkreig (did I spell that right?). But what about home defense, bomber escort, ground attack, recomaissance, patrol, maritime escort, desert fighter, winter fighter, etc?
The Me 109, within its range, was decent at many tasks and that is a tribute to the design. But superfighter realtive to many contemporaries in airframe performance? No, and never. Still ... a great aircraft and one I really like.