Thanks, Hang. As you can guess, I was delighted with the outcome and saved all three films
Yes, I fly under ‘enemy’ handle, mostly to fight against the odds and practice defensive flying (which translates – don’t check my score). Enemy is rather Hristo’s Training Arena, since we didn’t get one by now.
However, this time I played pretty safe.
Here are links to all 3 duels and some analysis :
fight 1In first fight I was at G-10 top speed at that alt. I figured (wrong) that this p51 was taking off and could in no way be as fast as me at this point. So I planned to avoid HO and zoom up on the merge to see what happens.
Just as I hoped, the Pony lead turned me. He did it in horizontal, which gave me even more edge so I thought of doing high a yoyo, but at this speed it might not be just too wise (large turn radius). I lazily zoomed and watched Pony pass below me.
I followed your nose low sustained turn with lag pursuit. My fear was that you would pull me into compression and actually outturn me at high speed, so I followed all the way to the deck when we both were slow. With compression trap avoided, I pulled lead and managed to land hits.
fight 2On second merge I was fast again. I tried to go under Hang, so he might do a nose low lead turn. Still, he managed to pass below me, so only option I could think of was to zoom again. I pulled a tad to hard and reversed to soon. Going down, I met Hang almost HO, while I avoided it. Hang landed some pings, but luckily no damage. I waited for Pony to go down and followed. Managed to get in favorable position: we would meet when I was going down and Hang coming up. As he was getting slower, I managed to get a shot.
fight 3While playing safe was good for morale, I tried to make fights more dangerous.
So I invited Hang over open channel to jump me with advantage this time. I went low and Pony came higher. I expected him to immediately Split S on me, and my plan was to use smaller turn radius of slower plane against faster diving plane.
Much to my surprise, he dove on me but I was still faster. So, my first option was out. I zoomed to some 200 IAS, with Hang following out of guns range. I reversed down to cross paths by 90 degrees, without clear idea what exactly to do. However, fight developed in kind of rolling scissors where I gained favorable position very very slowly. I did make a mistake though, and zoomed too high which gave Hang time and separation to come almost HO. Fearing he would take it and being to slow to avoid it, I accepted it. Luckily, seems speed and control disparity worked in my favor again. Soild burst along the fuselage solved the fight.
Thanks, Hangtime. These types of fights were really fun last few months. Arena is not just gang banging after all
Now off the subject a bit. I did not mention it earlier, but what the hell… Right now pay-to-play is out for me due to several reasons. However, there is one thing that would hook me to sign-on, and it is the Training Arena. When we get it, count me as a subscriber
