What to do about the guy diving on you from alt?

[Murdr]

Basicly if you have an enemy that can achieve a higher alt than you, you'll want to estimate if your max alt will be above where the enemy can convert to level flight after decending on you.  If it is above, you can estimate the best decent arc the enemy can achieve.  Those three things define a safe zone where the enemy is simply unable to put his guns on you.  In ropes, loop fights, stall fights, ect, you can use this zone to your advantage.  Much of the time, but not always, it involves the enemy stalling at the top, so I look at it in terms of the altitude they can recover level flight after a stall.  Hence LFRA.

In the film posted here where I refered to it, I initially got him to overshoot with a barrel reversal.  To counter that, he made is second pass at a slow speed.  My answer to that was to give away the shot, and charge right through his decent arc into the safe zone.  Because of our relative E states, his choices were limited from that point on.

[Furball]

I close my eyes and move the stick round as fast as possible and hope i can make it to the enemy base in time to get my bombs off.

[pellik]

Originally posted by kj714

Pellik, if you're here, you're pretty consistently deadly from an alt  position, whats (if you care to share) the biggest mistakes people make with you, other than no SA, mistakes when they know you're coming?

Predictability. Good pilots usually fly like good pilots. When I attack somebody I'll usually start a fake pass that ends right as they begin their first evasive. That pass can teach me pretty much everything I need to know about a pilot to get in his head. Knowing when to lag turn 3 degrees above your opponent to pick up the reversal shot is really all you need as a pure attacker. Worrying about  stealing a turnfight from a lower con is a waste if you can shoot.

Bad pilots also suffer predictability in their first evasive. There are bad moves I've seen literally thousands of times. Without proper defensive positioning good evasives are risky at best. A pilot who lets me into a good attacking line is probably gonna get hit on the first pass as I can tell by closure rate when it's  just too late to turn into me, and I will be super aggressive as the result.

As for learning defense, all of the really great pilots have their own style of evasive. I can teach you cut and paste moves to get you out safe 80% of the time, but  getting above that 4/5ths probability requires you to have more natural moves. If you want to learn those you'd best just experiment like hell now before you become distracted with this fancy stuff. Try something new every pass, nothing twice in a fight, and pretty soon you'll discover a routine that works for you.

[Murdr]

reverse 2nd pass on me in the film is what xjazz posted a pic of.

[Sadist]

My Fav is to head to deck, slow almost to a stall, as they approach at speed sharp turn into them, they will either pull up before shooting, crash or overfly.


But then I havent flown in a couple years:(

But i do know if you brandish a whip and such they may think twice:)

[Sadist]

BIGGG Shout out to Murdr and the 479th

[SuperDud]

I try to HO

[Simaril]

Originally posted by Murdr

Basicly if you have an enemy that can achieve a higher alt than you, you'll want to estimate if your max alt will be above where the enemy can convert to level flight after decending on you.  If it is above, you can estimate the best decent arc the enemy can achieve.  Those three things define a safe zone where the enemy is simply unable to put his guns on you.  In ropes, loop fights, stall fights, ect, you can use this zone to your advantage.  Much of the time, but not always, it involves the enemy stalling at the top, so I look at it in terms of the altitude they can recover level flight after a stall.  Hence LFRA.

In the film posted here where I refered to it, I initially got him to overshoot with a barrel reversal.  To counter that, he made is second pass at a slow speed.  My answer to that was to give away the shot, and charge right through his decent arc into the safe zone.  Because of our relative E states, his choices were limited from that point on.

I'm a bit confused. It seems to me that the enemy can chose any shallow arc he wants. Looking at your first diagram, why couldnt he start his pull up sooner, and thus avoid bottoming out beneath you?

Or are you taking the relative horizontal separation into account, and requiring that the enemy not overshoot -- so he has to dive wiht certain minimum angle? If that's what you mean, wouldnt a lateral component to his maneuver eat up some of the difference, and make the "safe" zone not so safe?

[tkor]

Originally posted by Sadist
BIGGG Shout out to Murdr and the 479th

Hiya Sadist, LTNS bro!
Give us a shout if ya ever pin your wings back on!
Tkor

[Eagler]

it depends on what you are in and what is diving at you

you aren't going to make the same evade moves against 109g10 as you would a 109f - or you shouldn't anyways, if you want to live

[Murdr]

Originally posted by Simaril
I'm a bit confused. It seems to me that the enemy can chose any shallow arc he wants. Looking at your first diagram, why couldnt he start his pull up sooner, and thus avoid bottoming out beneath you?

Or are you taking the relative horizontal separation into account, and requiring that the enemy not overshoot -- so he has to dive wiht certain minimum angle? If that's what you mean, wouldnt a lateral component to his maneuver eat up some of the difference, and make the "safe" zone not so safe?

Lets look at zoom to stall first.  You'll notice that first diagram shows a stall by virtue of the enemy zooming to max alt.

Attack/pursuit modes from 479th site
You gain or almost gain position o_n a p51 for a few seconds, but he is a little faster. You are in pure pursuit. He sees his E advangage, and pulls a steep climb, and then settles into a sustainable climb. You revert to lag pursuit to conserve speed and start a sustainable climb. (fig1)
(Image removed from quote.)
At some point the bogie feels he has out climbed you, and maintained distance long enough to pull a basic stall loop rope. You move from pursuit mode to intercept mode. (fig2)
(Image removed from quote.)
The reason for going to intercept mode is because you should already know at this point that the bogie will zoom as far as he can and either stall (most likely), or move into advanced ropeing like lowering the nose and hanging o_n flaps to delay a stall. Either way you do NOT want to continue pursuit mode and be directly under him.
Just to review, the bogie started out with a little more speed than you, then equalized the speed trading it for alt. You have attempted to minimize transfering speed for alt, saving the speed for a manover. Why?
(Image removed from quote.)
We know he has more E than you and in a pure zoom, he will top out higher than you. However there is a weakness in his position. He cannot pull the nose up at stall, and wont be able to go to level flight for several seconds. Your goal is to let him stall first above you in altitude (and away from you horizontally) and time your stall to be above his level flight recovery altitude. You do this correctly, and you will also have a heavy nose, but you will be above him. For a few seconds the tables are turned. You are higher than him, and out of reach from his nose. He is lower, which is where your nose is going anyways. Even if you dont get the killer shot at this point, you still avoided being roped.

If the enemy zooms to stall, they require X amount of altitude to recover level flight.  Once the stall happens the best decent arc is set in stone.  There isnt a choice of taking a shallower angle.  In that situation, you can (or at least I can) visualize their decent arc before they even stall over, and be out of harms way before they even nose down.

Now if you take the stall out of the equation, it becomes an issue of how steep their decent is.  The high plane for a matter of practicallity can do anything he pleases.  If they choose to come in at a steep angle, you could use the same idea by estimating their best pull out arc, and get above it before they get their guns on you.  Like any other move you might see described, it's only relevent if the situation fits, and the enemy coorperates

[kj714]

Great stuff, thanks for the tips.

Sorry it took me a while to get back to this, been to busy at work to gett to BBS.

I'm going to check all this out, see what works for me best!

Once again, thanks for sharing the knowledge!