Hi guys
I'm going to say something about the original question, but before I do I'd like to say something about this exchange:
Originally posted by Mobius_1
First of all, IMHO if you were being smart, you would not have followed him to the deck. You would have disengaged and come back around. That's Energy fighting.
Originally posted by Raptor
That is flying boring in my book and I'll take the P38 to the deck low and slow any day.
The reason this caught my eye, was that Mobius is absolutely correct here, and your response is interesting because I'm noticing posts involving a similar stance, i.e that energy fighting is boring and is to be avoided (even if it kills you) at all costs, becoming more frequent.
The simple fact is that in every dissimilar aircraft engagement, one aircraft can always be classified as the energy fighter, and the other as the angles fighter. In some cases the difference between the aircraft may be so slight as to make the distinction meaningless, in which case you fight it as though it were a similar aircraft engagement, but that isn't true in this case. If there is a clear distinction, and you happen to be flying the energy fighter and chose to fly an angles fight anyway, nobody should be too surprised at the outcome.
That's not to say it is always wrong to fly it the other way, because even an angles fighter can be flown as though it were an energy fighter for a while given a large enough initial energy advantage. But the point remains.
If the distinction was large, for example in the case of a P-38L v Zeke, the question of flaps wouldn't arise and the choice of fight would be clear cut.
However, in the P-38L v F4U-1 engagement the urge to use flaps and fly both aircraft as though they were angles fighters would be strong for both pilots, because for the majority of engagements both could normally fly that way with great success. But look what happens when you put them together, and when both pilots deploy flaps in an effort to win the angles fight.
The following EM Diagram overlay shows the P-38L and F4U1 in a similar configuration to the one you mentioned. Although these aircraft were tested in different versions, they are both current.
You can see from this overlay that the P-38L in this engagement is clearly the energy fighter, and the F4U-1 is the angles fighter. The P-38L has a higher sustained turn rate and speed, but also has a larger turn radius, in that situation it can still win using its superior energy performance. Given that the P-38 had an initial energy advantage, the outcome could easily have been (and should have been) very different. Unfortunately, wasting energy in preference for the wrong kind of fight was nothing less than a gift to your opponent.
The growing mindset in AH that the only kind of fight worth winning is a pure angles fight is unfortunate, because it is a long way from the reality and purpose of air combat.
As a more direct comparison between the F4U-1 and P-38L, here is an EM diagram overlay where both aircraft have the same 25% fuel load.
The conclusion I would draw from inspection of that EM analysis is that if both of those aircraft were to be flown as pure angles fighters the F4U-1 would have a clear advantage and probably win the majority of such engagements between equal pilots. On the other hand, if the P-38 were to be flown correctly, particularly given an initial energy advantage, the outcome would be very different. That's why real fighter pilots place so much emphasis on that sort of distinction and on flying their own fight, and not being suckered into the kind of fight that suits their opponent.
Regardless of how the real-world comparison being investigated and discussed by Brooke, Widewing and dtango works out, this is the way it works in the only environment that matters if you want to win your next on-line engagement... Hope it helps.
Badboy
