Ok, here it is, by popular demand, the key, the secret, the way to consistantly kill at high deflection in an Ostwind. I post this for one reason and one reason only. To make vulching, which is just spawn camping planes with planes, as unpleasant an experience as possible and totally non-viable as a method to pad fighter scores.
Firstly, there's a couple of things to note, always park your Ostwind on concrete somewhere. Secondly, always have your clipboard open and your mouse cursor on the Tower button so you can end mission quickly if you hear ordnance about to plop on your head. Thirdly, learn where to park your Ostwind, in AH2 there's two main places to park it, near the Fighter Hangers, but not too near and near the tower on a small field or near the nexus of runways at a medium or large field for vulcher slaying. In some situations you may not want to park at all, such as when there are no friendly aircraft to amuse the vulchers, in this situation go up and down the runways in 5th gear maintaining a straight line path to make compensating for your own movement as easy as possible.
As far as aiming goes, the core principle is rather simple, some may have already heard me state it. Always fire fully zoomed in. While fully zoomed in a target travelling roughly parallel or perpendicular to the ground at a range of 1k will be hit if kept exactly at the edge of your screen. Therefore a target 500 away should be kept halfway from the edge of your screen to your crosshair. This is the basis for all shots. Now shots off angle you must judge by the aircraft's attitude, speed and size as to how much extra or less to lead it relative to the base amount, always leading in the direction of the target plane's nose. Always lead your target slightly more than you think you should and slightly above to allow for shell drop, and keep your turret swivel motion as smooth and fluid as possible. On large targets and slower than average targets lead a little less, on small and fast targets lead a little more.
Another thing to realize, while an Ostwind shell can technically kill at distances approaching 3k, never ever fire over 1.5k for one simple reason. The smoothing code or whatever, does an adjustment at 1.5k, you will notice a small burp or hiccup in the planes position, so at distances over 1.5k you are not actually seeing the plane where it really is. You'll notice this effect on bombers, it is espeically pronounced with the drones in a formation. I almost never shoot beyond 1.2k on anything that isn't just coming directly at or away from me. The 1k distance is really where you want to be firing, it's the key to accurate deflection shooting in the Ostwind.
To sum this up really simply:
1k away = target at the edge of your visible screen.
750 away = target is 3/4s of the distance from crosshair to edge.
500 away = halfway from your crosshair to the edge of screen.
250 = 1/4 the distance from your crosshair to the edge.
This only works if you are Fully Zoomed in! (of course you do your scanning un-zoomed) I also recommend being fully Page-Up'd by default.
Hope this helps! Death to vulchers!
Zazen
