Fly higher
Press ALT + H to get the pitch lines on your HUD, fly upside down, turn off your engines, keep your plane at roughly 10 degrees on your HUD and you should then go way up.

Keep pilots alive
In order to keep your pilots alive do some work in DOS. The data for your pilots is saved in a file called ROSTER.FIL when you have finished a mission exit to DOS and type the following:
copy c:\mps\f19\roster.fil c:\mps\f19\roster.xxx
If your pilot is killed on the next mission, exit to DOS and resurrect him by typing the following:
copy c:\mps\f19\roster.xxx c:\mps\f19\roster.fil

Hex cheat
Here is a hex cheat for F19. First back up the ROSTER.FIL file first, then follow the commands below from the DOS prompt:
debug
nroster.fil
l
e 0100 00
e 0150 00
e 01a0 00
e 01f0 00
e 0240 00
e 0290 00
e 02e0 00
e 0330 00
e 0380 00
e 03d0 00
w
q