About your question of surviving higher cons...
First, if you see a higher dot ahead that is likely a bad guy, go the other way. Go find a co-alt or lower contact to engage, or back off and climb so you can engage this bogey on more favorable terms. Failing this, point your plane nose-low toward the nearest friendly area and bug out. Now, if you have gotten surprised or you just want to die, what do you do next?
Basic rule of thumb in this situation is to go down. Not straight down, but some sort of oblique Split-S is likely the best move. Of course this works best in a good diving airplane with good high-speed control. However, even if I was flying a 109, I'd make whatever dodge or move I made a nose-low one, and usually a Split-S of some sort if a higher bogey is diving on me. A Split-S under his nose will make him have to increase speed and pull negative G's to get you, and if he does he will end the manuever lower than you do. If he tries to follow he will be much faster, so his pull-out will end with him much lower, even though he will still be fast and likely have more E. Still, at this point you are climbing again, and he must pull G's and burn a bit of E trying to reverse his direction to climb and go back up, thus decreasing his E advantage. The smart attacker will not follow this move, but will simply zoom back up and set up for the next pass. However, you have managed to survive the attack and buy yourself some time to escape or climb depending on your plane type and his.
Likely the toughest situation is when a smart attacker dives from just straight above you, or very high six. In this case if he has managed his speed well, going down may make things too easy for him, so you will need to use some sort of break turn to foil his attack run. No matter what angle he attacks from try to use a move that takes you under his nose that will force him to increase his dive angle to make the shot.
Assuming you successfully avoid that pass, you should be getting the hell out of there! Unless the enemy has done something really silly and blown his E advantage, you are in a dis-advantaged situation and the best thing you can do is escape.
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Lephturn
The Flying Pigs
Visit Lephturn's Aerodrome for AH news, resources, and training data.
http://users.andara.com/~sconrad/[This message has been edited by Lephturn (edited 02-15-2000).]
