Constant G turns and turn radius

[Dingy]

   

Originally posted by Andy Bush:
The bandit need not 'blackout' to track the break turn. This is only true (assuming he has more airspeed than you) once he has entered your turn circle. Outside of your turn circle, the bandit can track at a lower G than you are pulling. Now, this may well result in an end game overshoot, but he can track you. This is known as 'tracking on the beam'.

Yes but remember the situation as described.  The enemy is closing from your high 6 and is diving for a shot.  You havent begun turning yet but the enemy is gaining on you.  You dont begin a nose-low break until he is just about within guns range.  Whether you continue this aggressive defense or not is determined by what the enemy does (you need to always be watching him).   If he does not move out of your up-back view, he is working for the shot and you can continue to work for the scissors.  If you see him pull up to follow in a high yoyo, that is the time to stop your break and to start thinking about your next defense.  At this point, I usually use a 10-20 degree dive to start gaining back some E and to try for some separation.  If the bogie is very aggressive, he will then dive back in on your six from a somewhat higher AOT (he pulled over you in high yoyo and is now almost on top of you) and if he then dives for your six, you have a much better chance of forcing the overshoot.  Obviously, the circumstances could be different.   Good attacking pilots will give themselves some lateral separation after a blown pass so that the AOT isnt too high.  I've found the best offensive pilots keep the AOT relatively low using various lag rolls, yoyo's, etc. when attacking to limit the overshoot chances.

You need to keep a rear view on the bogie as you break so you can adjust your maneuvers to suit what the enemy does.  If the enemy does not move from your up-back view, it means he is using pure pursuit on you to work for the shot.  This is the situation which is quite simple to force an overshoot on.

Andy, you are right about being able to track the break from outside of your turn circle but that is why you try to time your break so that it begins just before the enemy is within guns range.  If he wants to continue for the shot, he has to try to turn within your turn circle.

   

>>Watch the bogie and wait until you see him in your up view then roll 180 degrees and put your lift vector back on him.<<

Sorry Andy.  What I meant to say was as soon as the bogie begins to move out of your up-back view towards your tail, you will want to put your lift vector back on the bogie.  Usually this reguires a 180 degree roll.  As soon as you see the enemy moving towards the bottom of your up-back view (AOT begins to decrease very quickly as he moves to your tail), that is the time to begin your roll to put your lift vector back on him.

Hope that was a bit more readable.  Its hard to describe those moves in words because its gotten to the point where its almost instinctual...I dont think about when I do it.


-Ding


[This message has been edited by Dingy (edited 01-23-2001).]

[Andy Bush]

Ding

Yup!!  Sounds good to me. Thanks for the clarification.

Andy

[Vermillion]

Dingy, it looks like we think alike   You posted almost the exact same thing I did, right after I did.

If your flying a fast rolling plane, you can combine the defensive manuever, with the potential opportunity for a snapshot.

Here is what I do in my Yak.

I let the bogy come at me and close the distance, while I fly straight and level.

At around 1k-800 yards on my FE, I begin a slow easy flat left hand turn (about 2 G's), so the attacker thinks I have pulled a newbie mistake and telegraphed my defense too soon. Now realize that the Yak turns best to the right (so you may need to reverse this manuever).

Just as he starts to enter gun range (about 600 on my FE), I immediately go full upper right quadrant on my joystick and full right rudder. This immediately pivots my aircraft back around to the right side and heavily nose down, a manuever called a bunt. I hold that for a count of 2 seconds and then roll back straight to my original flight path, and look for a shot on the overshoot.

Which does two things.

One it moves my aircraft heavily out if its predicted flight path, as well as increasing the rate of closure, and it puts me even further under my opponents nose. Ie he has to both find me for the shot again, as well as potentially (almost always) redout at the same time.

Secondly, it sets me up for a potential snapshot on the aircraft that just overshot me. Most experienced BnZ pilots, that realize I have made them miss when they lose sight of me, will roll gently off to the opposite side of original turn, and begin a lazy zoom climb. Not realizing that I am now back along that original flight path climbing up behind them hoping to get that shot.

Of course this move is almost tailor made for a Yak's (or 109s) abilities.


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Vermillion
**MOL**, Men of Leisure

[Sparks]

Well -   just got back after a few days work and read this great discussion - thanks VERY much for all the replies - it is all great info and I shal be watching much harder what is going on. I think over time it is easy to become complacent about the skills and thought that is going on at the other end of the network in order to shoot you down.

I'm off to my H2H home to practice

Thanks again.

Sparks

[Jekyll]

A variation on Verm's defensive move (a little more aggressive variation) is as follows.

As the bandit closes on your 6, wait till he reaches about D1.1 then commence a moderate G level break turn.  Your objective is to centre your opponent in your direct up view, to maximise closure and AOT.

Once you have him centred in your up view, watch to see whether he tries to match bank angles with you.  If he does, it means he's also going to flat turn, and try to beat you with turn rate/radius.  As soon as he hits 500 yards or so, commence a wide barrel roll in the direction OPPOSITE to your initial break.  So, if you initially broke to the right, barrel roll left!

This dramatically slows your forward closure, without costing you much in the way of energy.  Then watch your rear and rear/side views for him to appear on the overshoot.  Track him through your side views as he pops out in front and complete your roll to drop onto his 6.

The hardest part of this move is tracking him with your views during the evasive.  Here's a film to demonstrate what I'm talking about.

 www.bigpond.net.au/phoenix/images/film34.ahf  

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=357th Pony Express=
Aces High Training Corps

[bowser]

Link doesn't seem to work?

bowser

[Lephturn]

Good stuff guys.  

I am normally hesitant to get into the scissors because I suck at them.  That and my Jug doesn't perform well in that situation, while it does tend to preserve it's energy better in a dive.  Which one to use will depend a great deal on closure rates, your speed, and your plane.

I don't think these sort of break turn moves keep your speed as well in planes with high wing loads.  If I have the speed, a break turn looking for a scissors may be a good option, but normally in this situation I don't have the speed I want to get into that kind of move.  An initial Split-S of some sort may be a good move to keep him off you and let you build speed if you need it.  If I'm looking to stay fast, some sort of split-S will keep my speed, while anything that leads to a scissors of some kind will depend on me slowing down even further.  In some planes, this is just not the right move, the Jug being one of them.  Planes that can roll well and accelerate well tend to be suited for the type of moves mentioned above, but be very careful going for them in planes with poor low speed performance.  Planes that don't handle well slow (particularly in roll) and have poor acceleration are often better to use some variant of a Split-S.  In planes with a high speed handling advantage over the opponent, use low-G split-S moves to get the fight faster where you can try to turn the tables.

Beware, that all of the break turns and scissors that you do looking for an overshoot are sucker moves.  If the enemy see's what you are doing, he can throw out the anchors and follow, or use vertical moves like a lag displacement roll to follow you and avoid an overshoot.  You will die lots learning this.  In planes like the Jug I'll use these when I have to, IE when I don't have the altitude to run like hell.  If I've got 7k feet of altitude to work with and I'm defensive like this, I'll split-S and run like hell.  I use the scissors and other sucker moves when I don't have the altitude or the performance to escape.  Sucker moves are for turning the tables when you no longer have the choice to dis-engage, but a good enemy pilot will kill you most of the times.  If you can escape, do so and come back with an advantage.  

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Lephturn - Chief Trainer
A member of The Flying Pigs  http://www.flyingpigs.com
 
"A pig is a jolly companion, Boar, sow, barrow, or gilt --
A pig is a pal, who'll boost your morale, Though mountains may topple and tilt.
When they've blackballed, bamboozled, and burned you, When they've turned on you, Tory and Whig,
Though you may be thrown over by Tabby and Rover, You'll never go wrong with a pig, a pig,
You'll never go wrong with a pig!" -- Thomas Pynchon, "Gravity's Rainbow"

[This message has been edited by Lephturn (edited 01-29-2001).]