So the first thing you're going to want to do, in case you haven't done this already, is go into the controls menu, then go to the bottom left corner where it says "Control Setup Wizard".



You will then see another window and a drop-down menu which probably says "Keyboard and Mouse Only (basic)", click that menu and look for the "Keyboard and Mouse Only (Advanced)" setting.



Now that you have configured your settings you should make take a quick look at the controls to see what everything is bound to. After that we may continue with the next and probably most vital step for most prop players, separating the cannons from the machine guns. You can do this very easily by using the search bar at the top of the controls menu and typing "guns", and then bind the small and large caliber guns to whichever of the two mouse buttons you want them to be.


(Ignore the extra bindings, those are for my flight stick)

(Edit: If you have a jet with flares you can unbind reloading and set R to deploy countermeasures)

I recommend using the small caliber guns on the left mouse button, and large on the right, but it doesn't matter that much which way you use them. If anything else is bound to either of those buttons you can just replace them in the dialog box. While we are here we should also set up the ever so important indicators, which can be done by going into your options and looking up "indication", and setting all the indicators to 'always'.
(Note: Your ground speed or radar speed indicates your actual velocity while the airspeed is the speed at which air is passing your aircraft, it is very useful info for climbing)

You can also use other programs such as WTRTI (War Thunder Real Time Information), to display more information about the state of your aircraft, which I would recommend trying out.

That concludes the basic controls and indicators section of this guide, now we can move on to an optional, but superior method of engine control.

To use manual engine control, you must select the "Full-real controls" tab on your controls menu, which is pretty easy to find. (Don't do this in a match because it will change the mouse cursor to a mouse joystick which is not fun.)

Then, click the manual engine control option in the navigation menu to the left, once you have done that, use these bindings for your engine controls, except change the propeller pitch controls to numpad 6 and 9.


In order to assign these properly, there is an extra step for some of these bindings, you will see this window after clicking on those bindings.


For each binding, turn on Relative control, and set the sensitivity at about 50-60%, I have found this to be satisfactory. Don't worry about the multiplier or correction, It isn't necessary. Remember to switch back to mouse aim once you are finished with binding the manual engine controls, unless you really like mouse joystick. Don't worry if you can't see the manual engine controls when you return to mouse aim, they're still there.


Most planes can generally use 120% fuel/air mixture at takeoff, and 100-90% prop pitch, this can vary based on speed, altitude, and ESPECIALLY engine but you can fiddle around and see what works best (that's the fun way of doing it, but there might be guides for specific engines). After a certain altitude, usually around 500-1000 meters, you will usually need to reduce your mixture to 110 or 100% to prevent flooding the engine. In some planes, a lower prop pitch may work better to quickly gain speed in a dive. Some planes have superchargers which should be activated at high altitudes for increased performance.

The radiator for most most engines is pretty simple, you can keep them open at about 35-50% while climbing, and reduce or increase it while cruising, or to reduce/increase drag (works well while dog-fighting if they're on the wings). But make sure to still keep an eye on your temperature, as propeller pitch and engine mixture also affect the temperature of the engine.
Radial engines stay much cooler than other piston engines, you can keep the radiator at about 30-15%. If you are using a more sensitive engine (such as the 109 and yak engines which typically die if you put the pitch too high), or It is a fockewulf with a radial engine, then you can just set the prop pitch or radiator to auto if the option is available. Using manual prop pitch controls may still help reduce the temperature and increase performance of many engines. I would recommend messing around with your individual plane's controls to find the best performance.

(Side-Note: This is not perfect advice, but what a friend and I have determined to be a pretty good way of getting the maximum amount of power and continuous WEP time out of a plane.)

That brings us to the end of this brief guide, I may expand upon this in the future, but for now it just covers the basics, thank you for reading and I hope you found this guide helpful!