Some excellent responses there!
Here are my thoughts… I’ve listed the first attacker’s mistakes in the order they struck me as I watched the film. Then I’ve explained a more appropriate maneuver. Apologies in advance, it’s a bit long winded.
The attacker’s actions were less than optimal with respect to the following points:
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- Pursuit curve used to close with the defender.
- Turn circle entry used to engage the defender.
- Energy management used with respect to 1 and 2 above.
- Aircraft Handling Characteristics (AHC) miss-judged.
- Basic Fighter Maneuvers (BFM) incorrectly employed.
- Disengagement/Extension incorrectly employment.
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One possible explanation for the high number errors may have nothing to do with the lack knowledge. In this case there were two attacking pilots, and it is possible that they were more concerned with something other than good BFM. I suspect they may have been putting each other under some pressure because each of them wanted to get the kill before the other, in effect they were competing against each other, and that compelled them both to go for the quicker low probability shot and accept the associated risks. That’s a factor that influences arena play, in an unnatural way.
But before continuing, let's look at the initial attack from the 109's perspective.
http://www.badz.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/Animations/Animation7.aviIn that film you will notice that the attacker uses pure pursuit to track the bandit. It’s what is known as Gunsight BFM, and it feels natural for inexperienced pilots to keep their gun sight on the target, unfortunately it is almost the worst thing to do. There are there possible pursuit curves, lead, pure and lag, and the mechanics of the pure pursuit curve are such that you should only pull just enough g to keep your velocity vector pointing at the target.
That’s exactly what this attacker was doing. The problem is as the range decreases, the g load required increases to the extent that pure pursuit becomes an impossible curve to follow if you are much faster than your opponent. If you try, the load required to maintain the pursuit curve quickly exceeds the 6g blackout limit. So in a high speed attack, against a slower opponent who executes a break turn, as was the case here, a pure pursuit curve will always lead to a flight path overshoot if the attacker attempts to track the bandit throughout the attack. A lead pursuit curve may have been slightly better, because that involves pulling more G than necessary earlier in the turn, which means that less g is necessary later in the turn when it may even have been possible to unload for the snap shot. However, those are both weak options because at best they only offer a difficult high aspect deflection shot and that comes with the certainty of a flight path overshoot, and considerable risk of a 3-9 line overshoot. What was the best option? LAG PURSUIT.
Regardless of whether the attacker has decided he is about to enter the fight as the energy fighter, or the angles fighter, the lag pursuit curve is better. Remember, the choice between angles or energy fighter at this stage is not made with respect to aircraft type, it is made with respect to the relative energy states of the two aircraft, even a Zeke with a big energy advantage on a P-51 should fly as an energy fighter initially. So why is lag pursuit better regardless of the type of fight?
If the attacker is not too much faster than the defender and believes his aircraft can out turn his opponent he should drive for the turn circle entry window, and that means lag pursuit! He will enter his opponents turn circle with a little more energy, and he can store it by using a climbing turn that will drain his opponents maneuvering potential and angular velocity, eventually he will be able to trade his own energy for greater angular velocity and a kill.
If the attacker is too fast for that, as he was in this case, and if he was flying an aircraft that doesn’t have a turn rate advantage, as he was in this case, the answer is to enter the fight as the energy fighter, and once again the solution is a lag pursuit curve, and the high yo-yo. Why the high yo-yo?
The high yo-yo is an offensive tactic in which the attacker maneuvers through both the vertical and horizontal planes to prevent an overshoot in the plane of the defender’s turn. From this definition, the purpose of the maneuver is obvious: To maintain an offensive advantage by keeping a nose to tail separation between the attacker and defender. In other words, the high yo-yo is a counter for the break turn, the barrel roll defense and the scissors maneuver. That sounds good, but how does it work?
As an attacker, when it becomes apparent that it will be impossible to stay inside the defender’s turn radius, you should employ the high yo-yo. To perform the maneuver correctly, timing is essential.
For example, if an attacker is conservative and does the high yo-yo too early, the defender can simply lower his nose and dive for separation in order to equalize energy so that eventually the attacker will be forced to disengage to avoid an angles fight. If the attacker yo-yo’s too late, it will be difficult for him to maintain his rear aspect. He will still overshoot his opponent’s flight path so that the defender can either reverse or pull up into the attacker.
Correct timing means that the moment the attacker realizes that he will be unable to stay inside his opponent’s turn radius, he should roll away from the defender’s turn and pull his nose through the vertical plane. The purpose of this action is to diminish his turning component and vector velocity in the plane of the defender’s turn. To acquire max effectiveness, the attacker must maintain back pressure and employ ailerons as primary control for directional change in the vertical plane. The attacker rolls toward the vertical plane so that his flight path describes an arc through both the vertical and horizontal planes (assuming that the defender is turning, more or less, through the horizontal plane). As a result, the attacker’s turning component and vector velocity are diminished in respect to the defender’s turning and velocity components in the plane of the defender’s turn. This allows the attacker to maintain his rear aspect while turning inside his opponent. At the same time, the control technique employed (back pressure and ailerons as primary control for the maneuver) not only allows the attacker to reduce his turn and velocity components to their smallest value, but also reduces his yo-yo apex. This provides the defender very little maneuvering freedom with which to counter the high yo-yo. By maintaining back pressure on the stick throughout, the attacker prevents the overshoot, thus defeating the barrel roll defense and scissors, and also denies the defender the option of diving away to gain separation.
Hope that helps…
Badboy
