Snaphook- Thanks for posting the film of the merge above. I ran it a few times and did some more screenshots for everyone and I hope you don't mind me using it as an example.
WHAT'S AN HO?? IS IT A REALLY A MATTER OF PERSPECTIVE?
I mentioned in another thread that in the heat of combat differentiating the difference between an HO or a forward quarter shot can be virtually impossible. Infact what looks like an HO to one guy might not look like it on the other guy's side and what differentiates an HO from an FQ shot may be nothing more than a matter of visual perspective.
So let's relook at Snaphook's film that appears to be an HO setup. Here's the same pic he posted of the merge with the Ki-84 at 200 yards out (with trail turned on).
The original image looks like they have been flying straight at each other for some time. Adding the "trail" to mark the flight path of the Ki-84 makes things a little more complicated. Will talk about that later though.
Looks like at the same setup again, this time from a 0-degree deflection from Snaphook's Spit:
Looking directly behind the Spit we see that the Ki-84 is actually coming in at a slightly above the Spit. So is this really a HO or a FQ setup?
Here's the same view from the Ki-84 perspective - 200 yards out from the Spit (view slid left just slightly because the Spit images doesn't show up when it's in the Ki-84's gunsight - quirk of the ah film viewer):
The trail that shows the Spit's flight path is interesting. Notice again that the last segmet of the trail is at angle relative to the nose of the Ki-84. This means the Ki-84 is actually coming down at an angle on top of the Spit.
Here's the same view, now externally at 0 degrees deflection off the Ki-84's tail.
Besides the angle in the Spit's flight path you can notice that the Spit is at some deflection presenting a portion of it's right fuselage and top of the fuselage to the Ki-84.
So is this really a HO or FQ setup?
Notice the flight as well and you see Spit curving around. Had the Ki-84 fired at the Spit earlier an the approach would this have still been considered and HO or a FQ shot?
Now let's advance it a fraction of a second and see what it looks like:
Here's the view from the Ki-84:
Here's the view from the Spit at the same distance:
Had the Ki-84 fired it would have been an FQ shot. You can clearly see the right fuselage and a portion of the top of the Spit exposed at a deflection to the Ki-84. Looking at it from the Spit's perspective it would have looked more like an HO.
So would this have been an HO or FQ shot? Depends on who's perspective you're looking at.
For grins, here is the same sequence looking at it from a fixed external view:
First frame at the first 200 yards internal pics:
just a moment later...
passing (reverse angle for better view):
For reference it took 5 seconds to go from about 2k out to the initial 200 yard pic above, then another ~1 sec to pass to give everyone a sense of how quickly this pass happened.
Tango, XO
412th FS Braunco Mustangs
