Lecture 1 *Energy Management*

[Hades55]

Ofcourse i cant teach But someone had to start it.
Ask here and let the Big Sticks Answer to your questions. (If they want ofcourse .

Question 1 (and very general).
How you see and use Energy Management ?

[deSelys]

Well nowadays, with the price of gas, energy management is very important.

Use a plane with small engine & good mileage, don't firewall the throttle, and flying in the MA will be much cheaper for you.


This is, in a nutshell, all you need to know about energy management.

[XtrmeJ]

Boom N Zoom like the rest of the pack. Pretty soon everyone will be able to do it in unison and we'll have formations doing a flying wall effect, go up while staying in tight formation and have the flying wall come back down. Imagine a wave so to speak. It will be beautiful...

[DipStick]

Turn off the lights when you leave the room and close that damn door ... were you raised in a barn? I'm not paying to refrigerate the entire neighborhood!

[Load]

A very simple trick to manage energy:

Climb over 10 k.....take a deep breath and dive on your enemy, while you are below 10 k you are NOT ALLOWED to breath, then...as your head begins to turn red you know it is time to pull and get back over 10 k. If you cant get that high again......someone should cancel your account....

I swear you will keep your energy properly.

[Jackal1]

I find that an occasional granola bar helps keep energy built up over a period of time.

[Oldman731]

Originally posted by Hades55
How you see and use Energy Management ?

Bullethead's primer on energy tactics was the best I ever saw, but, sadly, I no longer have a link to his site, if it even exists anymore.

The basic notion is that you want the other guy to use up his energy first, so that he stalls (or at least has to stop maneuvering so as to avoid a stall), while you swoop in on him with your superior retained energy.  Different ways to do this, and I've always found it to be the most difficult ACM skill.  You can't dogfight him (that uses up both your energy too quickly), and you can't just b&z (because you'll be too far away when he runs out), so it's a difficult mix of getting the other guy to turn while not getting too far away from him.

As a start, just try making a pass at the guy, a pass which you have no intention of turning into a successful gun solution.  Because you know this, but he doesn't, you can pull up gently (conserving your energy) while he's pulling a tight turn to avoid you.  Do that a couple of times, pretty soon you'll see him straighten out.

That is, if none of his buds have shown up to save him before then.

- oldman

[Grimm]

Good Old BulletHead  

Here is the link to his home page with links to his other stuff.

http://people.delphiforums.com/jtweller/index.htm


Here is the Link for Energy Managment directly.   Note that this was written for AW but it really holds true for all Air Combat Sims.

http://people.delphiforums.com/jtweller/training/emgmt.htm


You can also check out our Website for more fun stuff,  the Roster page has a link to his Bio.

http://www.cactusairforce.org

[Grimm]

Here is an a sample of BHs thoughts.   I personaly like this commentary,  its gives people an Idea of the differences between  BnZ,  TnB, and E-fighting.

OK, first off there are basically 2 types of fighters in AH: real planes and bottomfeeders. That is, E-fighters and stallfighters. There are also a few freaks that don't really fit well in either category, but disregard them for now. The main difference between a real plane and a bottomfeeder is that it takes a real pilot to be effective in a real plane. By this I mean using E-tactics at fairly short range, aggressively pressing a rapid series of attacks without blowing E (as outlined on my training pages), as opposed to stupidly doing BnZ. OTOH, any dweeb can, and usually does, fly a bottomfeeder well enough to compete with other dweebs.

[Furball]

Originally posted by Grimm
any dweeb can, and usually does, fly a bottomfeeder well enough to compete with other dweebs.

i completely, and utterly disagree with this.  People that cant fight properly BnZ all the time, they are the type to avoid a 1 vs 1 if the opponent is Co-E/E Advantage/superior plane.

You fly a Hurricane IIC on the deck for a few weeks and see how many kills you can land.  Yes you may kill a lot, but i guarentee you will find it extremely hard to escape.

Any moron can BnZ in a runstang and get home.

I learnt in turnfighters, thats a good start and since i learnt in turnfighters (i.e. the best way to learn ACM) - if i get caught low or outnumbered in a BnZ plane such as runstang, i am usually confident i can fight my way out.

There is much more skill involved, surviving and killing in a low-level turnfighter than being in the stratosphere in a runstang or run90.

[Oldman731]

Originally posted by Furball
i completely, and utterly disagree with this.  People that cant fight properly BnZ all the time, they are the type to avoid a 1 vs 1 if the opponent is Co-E/E Advantage/superior plane.

Bullethead was talking about energy fighting, not b&z.  I agree with you that b&z is a boring and unimaginative way to fight.  But that's not what we're talking about here.

- oldman

[Innominate]

B&Z is the simplest form of energy fighting.

Smarter forms of energy fighting don't require a faster plane, or a full sector 'extension', or a ten thousand foot alt advantage.

[Xjazz]

Hi Hades55,

Check these

Good articles from SimHq / Air Combat Corner Library
http://www.simhq.com/_air/acc_library.html

Search these
* Energy Management: Picking the Right Airplane for the Job
* Boom And Zoom (energy stuff too) Tactics part 1-4

* It's All A Matter of Perspective - Part 1-4

Countering the BnZ Defense (!!!)
http://members.aol.com/karbarra/tactics/bnzcount.html

Avoiding the head-on attack and other defensive situations
http://users.eastlink.ca/~sconrad/hodefense.htm

Some pictures and descriptions about Air Combat Maneuvers
http://members.tripod.com/~Zuel_DIA/topgun11.html

ACM films in Real Audio format
http://spandau.250x.com/acm/acmfilm.htm

[SLO]

the best tactic is to use both BnZ and TnB....

E-man. comes from BnZ experience....

when to shot comes from good TnB skills....

learn to apply both at the right time and voila.....

[Xjazz]

Originally posted by Furball
You fly a Hurricane IIC on the deck for a few weeks and see how many kills you can land.  Yes you may kill a lot, but i guarentee you will find it extremely hard to escape.

Booo! Boo! Man has choise the easy "Quad Hizuuka" mode!

Take it to the extreme and start flying The Real Man Plane (C)(TM), Hurricane Mk1