I certainly do not agree with all said above... only flying for a little over 2 years now and i still have trouble hitting the enemy... but its getting better.
Make sure your graphics settings, resolution, texture and AA matches your computers performance. If you get choppy graphics it will make hitting hard, better to have it fluent at low quality than beautiful and choppy. I have a not to bad computer, still if i put AA on or move one of the details slider out of the right halve i get a lot of trouble. Try having the object & ground details sliders one third from the right (definetly on the performance side low distance/small).
I recommend setting the convergence of all guns of one type to one point, and that point being something between 300 and 150. When you have 6 or 8 guns of the same type you can try to spread them in a distance of 50 yards. If you are really into zooming,bomber attacks or ground attack try 350 but youll have a hard time getting kills in close in combat.
Force yourself to fire only if the target is at 200 distance when its maneuvering or max. 400 if its a big plane and steady. With some planes you need to get in closer but the planes with good guns and firepower you can get kills from 200. Do NOT fire if the plane is further out.
I would definetly fly a good plane with some engine power and good guns. Stick to one plane or at least one gun type. A powerful plane can get you some speed and altitude back fast after a fight, also its easy to get some altitude after takeing off.
Good planes for beginners in my book have either 6 cal .50 mgs or 2 or 4 canons, preferrable hispanos. 4 Canons of any type work too. You should fire to kill, while some mg hits that damage or weaken the target are a nice success they are not good enogh AND they show the enemy that he is in a bad place and needs to be more careful. If you get to ping him, you might not get another ping but if you shoot him down you dont need another one.
If you start off in a bad plane you struggle with getting in positions where you have much less energy than you opponent, come in slower and lower and if you get a chance to shoot and hit it aint enough to kill the other guy. In my eyes much better to start with Spit8, Spit9, HurricaneIIc, N1K, P51D, 190A5, Typhoon, Ki84,C205.
You can learn how to get kills in these AND in any of them you have an definite advantage in certain areas agains most other planes. You still need to see which plane you are fighting and choose to fight a way where you have the advantage, but you can learn how to use the advantage. Once you get there using your advantage you will see some success.
When you fly a hard to fly early way plane you have either no advantage or always the turn radius as your advantage and simply must fly better than the opponent in every way. It sure teaches you your mistakes but it will seldom show you what move could proove successful since it is still a far way till it works. Of course, if you are sensitive you can sense a diffrence between getting shot down right away, getting shot down after the merge and getting shot down after nearly having a guns solution.
It is correct that when you grab an (no specific ueber plane mentioned) and try to shoot down all enemys head on / "stright zoom cherry pickin" / vulching you get some kills while not learning anything, but when you choose a real bad plane where all you can do is high level in close dog fighting the frustration factor is pretty big.
Try to be at least equal altitude and speed than your enemy, or slightly more. Also level out before the battle and get some speed. The worst thing to do is to climb into a fight, then you are slow. When you meet the enemy you must have some speed to be able to maneuver left/right/up. If you are slow you can barely go left or right and only down, not up. That makes you an easier target and you are on the defence straight away.
A good advice which i have, if anyone manages to read that HBWOT untill down here is try to get into combat and fly home without getting shot down. Do not try to get any kills, try to engage, disengage and fly home without getting anyone latched onto your six. Be happy to land 0 kills but LAND after being in 10 minutes of dogfight and 20 mins overall flying.
cu schutt
