Bishop B17's saved by an F4U

[dtango]

Here are two film clips of a fight that BD5Pilot and I had as I was trying to take down some Bish B17's that just wiped out the Rooks radar last night.

I was in a P51D.  BD5Pilot in a F4U came to the rescue of the poor B17's that were getting shot up by me out of spite for killing our radar  .  The fight went from around 25k down to 8k.  It was a great turning fight between two pretty evenly matched planes.

It was an incredible display of manuevering and gun jinx by BD5Pilot.  BD5 was out of ammo.  I ran out of ammo trying to take him down.  (Geez..I need some practice with estimating lead properly!).  Neither knew that we were out of guns and at some point we were both trying to figure out how to exit.  Citabria caught me in a Tempest and killed me in the end...sorry Cita..didn't catch that part on tape..only when you showed up.

Anyway, here's a quick an dirty web page I created with the 2 films of the extended fight.
 http://home.earthlink.net/~dytong/ahfilms.htm

Enjoy!
dtango

[funkedup]

Clearly you have not been here long enough.  You are supposed to call BD5 a rollwarpchogdweeb, then complain about the lame guns on the P-51, then call Citabria an uberperkplanecherrypickeraltm onkeyhispanodweeb.
 
<S>

[LePaul]

I'm awful glad you filmed that!

I was escorting those B17s to your HQ in a G10.  I BattleStar B17 shot me down, so I upped from 5, in a FDU-D with 100% gas and 1 drop tank.  I finally caught up to you and Oosik just west of A16 and dumped my ext tank.  I was really heavy!

I had 2 goals when I tangled with you...

1.  Drag you away from the B17s

2.  Bring you down to my aicrafts strong points/speed.  I knew if I could get your E bled away, I had a excellent chance of getting you with my better turning radius.

Number 1 worked, you and I did disengage once, then you came back  

Number 2 didn't, I wasted all my ammo on Oosik on that Typhoon.  I saw lots of hits, but as you learned on the 4 hits you had on me, machine gun hits do not do a lot of damage.  Had you had a 20mm or 37mm, that would have been a different story!

But anyways, that was a great fight.  Thru most of the fight, I was toggling my flaps up and down one notch to really get you down really slow.  I kinda *suspected* you were low on ammo since your bursts were quite short.  Had you had more ammo, I woulda been dead, I really hung in front of your nose a few times, but I can see where you chose to preserve what ammo you did have, for a better angle.

And thanks to Cit for jumping in!  Im pretty surpirsed no one came up from that Rook base we were practically fighting over.  That was my big worry.  I felt pretty confident jinking with you, but if someone else joined the fight, Id be dead.

Battles like these are what make the game great, I enjoyed our chat after the fight.  It was worth being up til 1AM for!

BTW:  All the B-17s made it back to base, as did I  



------------------
Paul J. Busiere

Aces High Arena handle:  BD5Pilot
 http://bd5.checksix.net
BD-5 "T" (TurboProp) 90% complete, first flight in 2001 (We hope!)

[WizOfClay]

Hey dtango,

I was that B17 that you got smoking   ...  its funny cause after we diabled the Rook radar, all 4 of us ran out of fuel   ...  BD5 was escorting us from A1 with a 109 but got shot down and grabbed that F4U at A5... then he met up with us I guess just as you came along.. and thank gosh he did... he saved my life... managed to glide all the way from Rook HQ to A5 and landed safely   ...

Thanks again BD5 for saving my prettythang and getting dtango off me without anymore damage.

<S> to both of you.

------------------
Wiz of The Screamin Meanies...

"Start every day off with a smile and get it over with."
                                --W.C. Fields (1879-1946)

[This message has been edited by WizOfClay (edited 06-06-2001).]

[Dead Man Flying]

 

Originally posted by LePaul:
I kinda *suspected* you were low on ammo since your bursts were quite short.  

Reason #9182 to turn off your tracers.  

-- Todd/DMF

[Jigster]

 

Originally posted by Dead Man Flying:
Reason #9182 to turn off your tracers.    

-- Todd/DMF

I do believe that's #9183 actually. #9182 is to prevent sheep stampedes, right?

Then again that might be reason reason #6392 for flying the Jug?

 


------------------
Moo. Happy now?
   
               
 

[dtango]

Man, those B17's were waaaay the heck up in the stratosphere there.  Thought I saw Sputnik go sailing by.  I was waiting for my blood to boil or something without having a spacesuit on  .  BD5Pilot really saved your butts.  You guys were lucky dogs, making it all back to base!  

Some observations:

BD5-
(1) In the first film, I should have stayed with you after the 1st pass we made.  I hesitated, started to close as you were going after Oosik then ended up peeling back around to try and finish off WizOfClay in his smoking B17 that I peppered.  Was getting greedy.  Instead, my SA was telling me that you were closing again while chasing Oosik and that I needed to jump in and give him some help before you downed him- so I turn back around to chase.  It was the angel / devil argument on my shoulders- get the B17, no save oosik, no get the b17, no save oosik.

(2) Your split-S's are what threw me - twice!  I need to find a counter for that  .  I hesitated following since I didn't want to burn the valuable altitude.

(3) I was aware of the E-bleeding and tried to maintain my E using lag pursuits and nose-low turns.  I would try and wait for you to bleed some E after some of your hard turns etc, stay in lag and then decrease angles and range back into firing position when you weren't pulling high G's.  Great job of getting us to slow down toward the end.  I was also toggling flaps as well.  I had just enough E to stay with you while you tried to do some of your low-speed climbs and outclimb me.

(4) When I was outta ammo, I was pondering how to exit the fight.  Those darn B17's- wasted too much ammo on them for nothing   .  That really messed with my psychology I think which lead to...

(5) Panicking when Citabria showed up on the seen with his Tempest.  Those freaking hispanos scared the dickens out of me!  He lead turned me.  I should of thought about how to get back into a neutral angles with him by doing a nose-tail turn with him at high speeds, or splitting-s'ing away or something.  Instead I panicked and stopped thinking.

Anyway, that was a really fun series of engagements.  I would welcome anyone's critique!  I could definitely use any advice so that I get more "return" on my "investment" next time  .

[Dead Man Flying]

Heya, dtango... you asked for comments, so I'll offer some general ones that might help you in future engagements.

First, if your objective was to kill the buffs, and BD5's objective was to draw you away from them and bleed your E state... there wasn't any reason to follow him in his split-ses.  Once he rolled that nose over, you could have pulled up into an Immel or some sort of climbing spiral, and he would essentially have removed himself from the fight.  You then would have been free to either attack the buffs or dance on his head.  Try to avoid the temptation to follow the split-s unless you're certain you're going to nail the guy with it.

Also, be sure to work the vertical more.  I saw a few merges where you broke into a flatturn.  You had plenty of speed to Immel the 51 on these nose-to-nose passes, and it may have helped.

Finally, be calm.   You were missing some pretty easy shots because, I think, you were nervous about missing them.  You wanted to make them "count."  Practice that gunnery as much as possible.

Hope that helps.  

-- Todd/DMF

[Apache]

BD5, not being nitpicky or nuthin but what do you mean by "bring you down to my aircrafts strong points/speed"? You were flying a Corsair right?

The Corsairs strong point/speed alt, if you will, is around 23k.

[dtango]

Dead Man Flying- Thanks for the critique.  Great lessons for me to learn.

On my decision making- that's a really good point.  I should have that priority already sorted out and stuck to it.  After we neutralized and BD split-s'd away, I should have gained alt and stayed up above which would have given me to option to kill the buffs and probably still dealt with BD5 using an alt. advantage.

On using the vertical more- yeah, you're right.  The funny thing is that I used to use the vertical more.  I think I've been shying away from it lately because I either (a) seem to black out too much doing that so that my immels / loop radius is bigger than I want- (stick scaling issue?  pulling too hard issue?) (b) I get to slow at the top and can't do much offensively or defensively - (maybe I'm not making my verts oblique enough?) and (c)have been trying to maintain high speed in the P51 - (I guess I need to come up with a strategy when alt is better than speed etc?).

On wanting to make every shot count- you hit the nail on the head brother!  I guess I need to spend some time with some trainers working on that.  I've been trying to select shots that are really close and with as little need for lead as possible because of my lack of confidence in my aim  .  Need more practice in this dept. definitely - e.g. estimating 1 wingspan, 2 WS, 3 WS lead etc.

[dtango]

Apache- not trying to speak for BD5, but thought he wanted to slow the fight down so that he could use the F4U's smaller turn radius against me.  I thought the P51 has better turn performance vs. F4U at high speeds (260 knots +) while the opposite is true lower.

What are you referring to with the F4U having advantage at 23K?  I haven't looked at the charts.  Is it faster than the P51 at 23k+?

[LePaul]

Originally posted by Apache:
BD5, not being nitpicky or nuthin but what do you mean by "bring you down to my aircrafts strong points/speed"? You were flying a Corsair right?

The Corsairs strong point/speed alt, if you will, is around 23k.

Dtango is correct, I knew with my almost full fuel, and being under 16k, I couldnt bring the fight to a better altitude.  And, being out of ammo, I knew my best advantage was my turning radius versus his.  

Asides that, it was

1) Hope one of his chums at 12 didn't join in and whup me

or

2) Hope one of MINE would and shoot him down.

Its a great film, and was a great engagement.  I usually fly bombers 99% of the time, but I felt obligated to assist my fellow bomber dweebs as best I could