The more I read that passage by Johnson, the more it sounds like a controlled high AOA snap roll or spin entry used to set his initial turn direction. In the F-15E, we can get an amazing initial turn rate by doing something similiar. Basically you pre-load the aircraft, either in yaw or pitch, then in the F-15E, you trick the flight control software into snapping the nose abruptly one way or the other. We can move the nose approximately 25 degrees in pitch, and then can snap the nose almost anywhere around at least a 25 degree cone around our flight path. This is what we call a "vector roll", rolling (it's actually more like a yaw) around our flight path at an extreme AOA. The F-22 and F-18 can do this up to and beyond 45 degrees AOA, although the F-18 is thrust limited and can't keep doing it long before it falls out of the sky.
It's possible to do it in WB as well, especially in the P-38 and F4U, but it's difficult. The P-38 move in the game was perfected by mili then copied by many others. It's almost impossible to describe, except as a controlled spin entry with the rotation halted after about 180 degrees, then the plane is flown out heading in the other direction. I haven't tried it in AH because the more lethal guns in AH mean giving your opponent even a snapshot opportunity generally means virtual death.
Back to the P-47... Imagine this. The P-47 rudder allows it to skid, say... 10 degrees off of it's actual flight path, in this example to the left. Once stabilized in that skid to the left, a 90 deg left roll is made. Guess what? The plane is now flying along with an instant 10 degrees AOA (the previous slip angle) in a 90 degree left bank, except since he still has a bootfull of rudder, the nose is also pointed an additional 10 degrees down, for a net gain of some 20 deg instant nose position. This was apparently enough to help put the guns on target. This kind of thing can be used to combine small nose pointing abilities into relatively large nose position changes and the ability to immediately set the lift vector where it belongs.
On another subject...
Andy, you're right about the new gadgets we have to play with. We have this new thing called "radio" so the tower can tell us we are allowed to takeoff and land without shooting flares at us, and our "radio" is so high tech that it only has 9 dials, knobs, and switches. We recently got something called "TACAN", but since that would confuse our poor overloaded students, they put a simple "DME" display on the panel so it only gives range and a radial. It seems that our old "VOR" still has a few decades of lifecycle still, so they didn't want to tie the "TACAN" to the needles and dials.
The manual describes something called "ADF", but it must cost too much because our jets don't have it installed.
Isn't it amazing how these modern, 50+ year old planes never seem to get older? Half of our fleet survived a severe hailstorm, and after some touchup paint they were back flying again. I guess all the dents on the skin reduce drag just like the dimples on golfballs make them fly farther.
I've already had my moment of final approach Zen... We were leading a formation approach and Stanley (ya know, Stanley Student) couldn't figure out what power settings to use to keep 110 configured with speedbrake out on final. It was a warmish spring day, so I told him "quit messing with the throttles, just set 87% and it'll hold 110. And %76 will hold your 3 degree final just fine too." It worked as advertised, and as usual he thought it was magic
It's amazing how the little tricks almost ALWAYS work out within a percent, but that's the beauty of the tweet. I wonder how long it'll be before the new T-6 is known as well.
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eagl <squealing Pigs> BYA
Oink Oink To War!!!
