Rocket: re the energy fight-v-angle fight. Its always helped me to think of it this way. All fighting involves a tradeoff between energy state and nose position. You want to change nose position in a hurry? Well that's going to involve an expenditure of energy to achieve it. Conversely, if you fly the energy fight, you'll often be gaining energy at the expense of nose position (angles) on the bandit. The energy fighter seeks to build that energy advantage in such a way that, when the time is right, he can cash in all that energy for a massive improvement in nose position and gain the kill.
OK, on to Andy's comments.
If you want to enter the merge doing a barrel roll, fine. But the barrel roll maneuver (as in an aerobatic sense) is not the textbook Barrel Roll Attack. (The use of upper and lower case is deliberate and significant.)
Whoa! Hold on there Andy. I never said anything, ANYTHING, about doing a barrel roll to merge. I was talking about the specific Barrel Roll Attack maneuver. Perhaps I forgot to capitalise it when explaining it earlier
That’s why I asked “When is a merge, not a merge?”. I’ve never seen anything in Shaw which provides a definition of the merge, so here’s my dweebish attempt
“A merge occurs when two (or more) combatant aircraft enter an area of space in which at least one aircraft has a reasonable opportunity of shooting the other”.
A HO situation therefore would not constitute a merge until firing parameters are met: if two aircraft approach headon, but are separated by a 5000 feet altitude difference, there would be no merge until either the low fighter climbed or the high fighter dove down.
Trimming is great technique, but not a necessity.
Sorry, but I disagree with this statement 1000%. OK, lets take two identical aircraft in a turnfight at say, 160 mph.
Aircraft A is trimmed for 160 mph. Aircraft B has just dived in from a high speed cruise and is trimmed for 300 mph. I will assume that AH follows the same model as WB and achieves trim by use of stabiliser changes, but even if it doesn’t, the following still applies IMHO.
Now on aircraft B, part of the aircraft (the horizontal stabiliser or trim tab) is exerting a lifting force on the tail section, while the pilot is using elevator to generate the downforce required to turn circles with his opponent. Will not the pilot of aircraft B have to pull MORE up elevator than the pilot of aircraft A in order to turn the same turn radius? And if the pilot of aircraft B does have to pull more on the pole, will that not therefore generate more drag?
If you fly around with your rudder trimmed out of alignment, it will tend to produce unnecessary drag.
Exactly the point I was trying to make, however your above comment confused me a little when you followed up with ...
Trim will only change the stick feel. Trim does not reduce drag...it reduces pilot work load.
Sorry, you lost me there. So are you saying that being out of trim will, or will not, induce extra drag?
I’ve never flown a RL Spitfire, Mustang or Fw190. I wish I had
But I can tell you that at least as simulated by Warbirds and Aces High, being out of trim DOES have a dramatic effect on a pilot’s ability to ride the edge of the stall, and get as much out of his aircraft as is possible.
Try this as a test: go offline in a Spit 9. Set your trim to 160 mph autoclimb then enter a level constant speed turn at 160mph. Time your turn for 360 degrees. Now take that same Spitfire and trim it for 300 mph. Try to enter a 360 degree turn at 160 mph and do one of the following:
1. Try to hold the constant-speed turn at 160mph and time the turn. (You’ll find your turn rate has suffered)
2. Try to turn the 360 in exactly the same amount of time it took to do the initial 360 when trimmed for 160 mph (you'll find you cannot maintain 160mph all the way around).
Now, this may not be the case in real life, but then again, our new guys are not getting shot at in real life
But this is certainly true for our sim, and that’s why I still maintain that proper trimming of the aircraft is mandatory if you are considering a ‘riding the edge of the stall’-type fight.
I would imagine that in a modern jet fighter, trim drag would probably be almost irrelevant. A 10mph disparity between a Mig-29 and an FA-18 probably means nothing at all. But in a piston-engined WW2 fighter as simulated in AH, improper trimming can easily cost you as much as 10mph in a turnfight. And in a WW2 fighter, 10 mph is an enormous difference between aircraft.
Aircraft A maintains 160mph in a constant 800’ radius turn. Aircraft B, being out of trim, can only hold a constant 150mph around that same 800’ radius turn. Aircraft A will complete one 360 in about 21 seconds, compared to 22.8 seconds for aircraft B. Aircraft B is slower, so it cannot easily disengage, and aircraft A has a turn rate advantage, so it will eventually reach a firing position on Aircraft B’s tail.
The pilot of aircraft B checks his chute straps are tight, and awaits the inevitable
Oh, one other thing. New guys might not necessarily have items like rudder pedals or twisty sticks for rudder control. In fact, they probably won’t. For new guys therefore, being in trim is even more important than for those of us who’ve got a full hotas setup, and can therefore easily step on the ball to keep the pointy end going in the right direction
Regards.. Jekyll
