I've been flying forever, started in AW on AOL, switched to AH when they dropped the price, and have been here ever since. I have hit one of those "walls" I think I'm a good pilot of cartoon planes, but I'm not one of those "Killers" that feared in the arenas.
A couple of things I'm trying to learn, to get over that hump to the next level, is to not concentrate so hard on doing the "maneuvers" (ACM). I know how to do them, and have a pretty good grasp of what each is and does, but I think that "thinking about them" is slowing me down. Now I try and concentrate getting the enemy forward of my "3-9 line", letting instinct control the plane.
The second thing I'm working on is "un-loading" when I fire. I've heard of this before, but it never sunk in. 75% of the shots we take in the game are "lead shots, tracking shot, snap shots", all meaning the same thing, trying to put a bunch of rounds into a spot that will meet a passing plane. You get into a position where you are pulling your nose ahead of the enemy plane. For me, I would pull till I thought I had enough lead, and squeeze the trigger and continue squeezing as I pulled more through the turn. All I was doing was laying a path of rounds and getting a "plink, plink, plink" type of hits. Now with un-loading", I pull my lead, un-load the "G" force of my turn for a quick second and fire a burst, then pull back into the turn to stay on him.... just in case I missed
What this does is send a bunch of rounds to one spot. If my aim is right I get a "BLAM" in stead of "plinks".
