Hi Yarbles,
i am German and i have a hard time to understand english, for the case that i did not understand correct what you intended to explain please forgive me.
Now, if i did see that correctly there are about 3 or 4 questions in your initial post, which will put this thread verry lengthy and complicated, since most posts will adress parts of some questions and others will refer to replys further away without makeing it evident which question is targeted or which reply. It is probably easier and more rewarding if you focus on one theme.
The fastest way to turn around is, as others have noted, to pull up on the stick and do a halve loop close to blackout. What i did not read anywhere is that if you cut throttle you will turn around eaven faster in some cases but loose a lot of energy.
Others already hinted it, i will try to make it more clear, turning around fast wont win you the battle in a lot of cases, so while it is good to know you will have to learn more about merging/energy/angle/trading AND also being able to apply it in the heat of the combat. I for example know some of it but get slaughterd the whole day long because i can not apply it and have a hard turn learning since i dont fly enough.
While using the rudder will help you in some cases I think you can get far by flying the spit16 more or less without it, but it really helps to dodge the enemy (got to see him first though). Roll rate with the spit16 is plenty, so I think it is not necessary to use the rudder there. But you need it in stabilizing low speeds, aiming, dodging, slowing down etc.
Trying to shoot down the enemy as fast as you can during the turn fight is not a bad plan. But if you pull for a shot, miss it and then loose your position you will loose. What i am trying to say is that trying to shoot from any position is NOT working, since you miss 90% and then get shot down because of bad position.
Trying to get a killing shot in bouncing a furball, unweary pilot or a bomber is a good plan, but when your in a fight and always try to pull for a shot youll loose. You need to get a feeling where the line between "pressing for a kill" and "forcing a shot with no chance" is.
There is also a way to fight and engage where you always FORCE a HO attack, if you time your engagement and turns that you always get straight on HO passes on the enemy. That will give you some frustration since the enemy will shoot there often. Then you think evryone HOs you but in fact your flying forces a direct HO merge of the other pilot.
When an enemy con is desperately trying to fight 3 of your friends and you come in to bounce him, that will generate some evil blood since the enemy is probably unhappy with the situation and the friendlies are also unhappy because you got the kill without taking the risk.
Also killing an already disabled plane will not make you friends, shoulder shooting is not nice if you dont give a warning and diving between a friendly and an enemy, so that the friendly kills himself with his gun fire, is a bad idea. If you overtake someone who is already shooting it is nice to give him a warning so he doesnt killshoot himself.
Dont worry to much about the complains you get from the enemy... often when someone gets shot down he is unhappy with that situation and will vent his anger, no matter if your kill was perfectly ok or an unfair, cherry picking, HO, hording vulch.
Most times it is, anyway no one will read up until here, good to think a second about what you DID that caused the complain, think how you would have felt in the other guys situation. Having perfectly saddled on your kill and dieing to killshooter after 10 minuts of fight because someone dives into the killing shot i think that guy was not nice. But getting should down with 6 kills while getting coffee will sure make me angry, but its probably a fair kill nevertheless.
ciao schutt
