Avoiding the lead shot

[Tilt]

It does seem to be a timing issue...............

Pulling up too early or too late can present him with such a snap shot............

Early.....well obviously he sees you all the way

Late......... he has already decided not to take the classic merge..... maybe beacuse you went nose down earlier............he makes a part aileron roll and uses rudder to track you with lead on his sights. (ruddered you are tracked to the left or right of his gun sight and not hidden under his nose) He then sprays a cannon thru your path.

He is nose down and commited...he cannot pull up to close angle after the merge (or if he does he has sacrificed major E compared to you)...he has to extend and the direction is determined by his attitude during the attempted lead shot.


You have to watch him........if you see him part rolled nose down (pre merge) he is going for it...... counter his roll or use a bit of rudder to put you under his nose and continue your merge to pull up......... aileron roll as you go vertical to immediately track him........... if he extends then convert to hi YO YO to pull to his 6.

If he attempts to pull up too to close angle then the dance begins but he just lost a stack of e.......you are above and behind him and he is pulling  a 120 degree to go vert (thru the bottom of the egg) and you just did it with a 90............ you then have to judge his e and choose appropriate angle.  Thats where I mess it up.........(judging his e)

The other reason your opponent may have tried the tracking (side slipping ) snapshot was that he was simply way too fast for the merge........unable to close any angle and vulnerable to a well executed lead turn IF he attempted to close angle past the merge.

He may just extend to safety.,......its the easy solution. But be wary of him performing 45 degree climbing extension in fact its a zoom...............you will not be able to lead this (rem he was tooo fast) but to pull to his 6 you may have been tempted to pull hard immediately after going vert........... now he has tons of e and you have just performed a sort of hard chantelle to follow him..........

basically he is attempting a rope with this sort of extension..............deny it and continue in the vertical for max alt...........unless of course you are absolutely certain you can get effective guns on him.

[humble]

The problem is when he's diving...it sounds like he's diving as he enters HO range as an evasive...."proper" form is to dive early and establish the under position (with some horizontal seperation ideally) then as others have said you "pull" up and thru on the vertical oblique...

[o0Stream140o]

I am no expert but, it seems he is waiting way to late to commit to his merge. So late that he pushing his nose down so hard that his tail is coming up in the air, giving the con a bigger target to take the snapshot at.  Instead of being horizontal and making the target as small as possible, he is pointing his nose down and leaving his plane in the vertical,  leaving a bigger target for the snapshot.  


Wise person told me once, you always need to be out infront of your plane... not in it.


Just my two cents.

  Stream14