Well, I had this plan, see. THE PLAN.
For two years I'd been kinda flying in the MA with a slap-dash approach to improving my flying and scoring.
Oh, I had read up on fighter acm on several web-sites, and watched levi's films religiously. Lately much of my time online had been devoted to improving SA and perfecting the rolling reversal.
Attempting to perfect it, anyway.
The fruits of these efforts had been modest. So I decided to have a bull session/committee meeting with myself and try to determine what specifically was the problem.
After an acrimonious debate, during which I was almost forced to eject myself from the meeting, the committee concluded that a more scientific approach to the problem was needed.
Hell, I was a college graduate for Pete's sake! I was the proud holder of both the bull-shat and monkey shat degrees earned from some Arkansas' most prestigious ivy-league universities. Time to put all that knowledge to work. Yup, I could do this.
So after much study of Tour 60's stats, THE PLAN was developed, which contained the following points:
1. Kill/death ratio of 1.94 suggested that I still took too many chances in combat. Time to fly smarter.
2. Kills/sorties ratio of 0.975 suggested that I wasn't aggressive enough when the situation called for it. Again, time to fly smarter.
3. Kills/hour ratio of 3.67....well, ditto the conclusions for point number 2.
4. Hit percentage...actually not bad at 10.471...but could also probably stand some improvement.
5. Perfect the rolling reversal and other maneuvers to insure that I...
6. Survive the sortie to land the kills.
So, THE PLAN called for me to fly smarter, more aggressive, and survive my sorties.
First night of Tour 61; time to put THE Plan to the test.
Took off from a cv to defend nearby base. Got six kills, including one after a nice reversal. Superior numbers trapped me near the fleet after the cv was sunk. Got shot down...but not a bad start.
Next sortie, this time from another base, began well enough. Downed nme stang, then tangled with another F6F. Pulled reversal, causing overshoot, but nme went vertical. Tried to follow but he had too much smash. I rolled over and dove to rebuild e, nme Cat following. Attempted to repeat reversal at lower altitude, but he shot me up and set me on fire. After he passed me I attempted to follow and reverse my fortunes before I blew up. Almost had him, but my time ran out and my F6F exploded.
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Next sortie, tangled with a lower Lag-7. Passed over him while tilted up on my right wing. He appeared to be going 180 degrees to my path, his right wing tilted up. No nose to nose situation, but just as he passed...WHAMWhamWham! Pieces of aircraft flying everywhere! How he turned quickly enough to make that shot I'll never know!
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Third sortie, dove into a low-level furball with lots of buddies around. Enemy cv's planes were attacking knight base. One of those dangerous and fluid situations. Shot down a spit. Looked back to check 6 and discovered that my fellow knights were no longer nearby. The sky behind me was filled with red icons, with two spits closing in. Got into a frantic, low-level scissors with the two spits, trying desperately to get a killing shot on one of them before the other nailed me. No luck. Blangblangblang! Wing came off and I kissed the waves.
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SHAT!!!
Aaaarrrggghhh!!! What's a man to DO?? Come on guys! How about a little cooperation here!! If Ya'll keep this up, I'm liable to take up knitting!
Oh well....back to the ole drawing board.
