Another option that I find can be quite effective at forcing them to neutralize their own alt advantage, ESPECIALLY if the opponent is new or just plain skilless (so it'll work on about 95% of the guys in the Mains
). This works best if you have at least 2-3000yds of starting separation:
Match their course heading and give them your six. Enter a shallow climb to start working your way up to their altitude. The bandit will most likely enter a dive to drop in on you. He may or may not assume that you've seen him, however this is unimportant.
Wait for the enemy to close to within 1000-1500yds. Enter a hard low Yo-yo at max power and WEP: You don't need to Split-S, but somewhere between that and a level break will work. Ideally, you want to avoid the Split-S because you'll shed too much altitude on the break, and the level break will bleed off too much E, and may not get you clear of his guns. The idea is you want to get yourself out of line with your opponent and at an angle where he can't depress the nose enough to get a shot.
IMMEDIATELY upon pulling through the bottom of your maneuver pick up your opponent's position. This is where their skill level comes into play: Most newbies or skilless picking tards will have made their attack run at full power and, if not compressed, will have significantly overshot and will now be below you fighting to pull out of their dive. They're going to be blowing a TON of E in the process. You want to go vertical here. Put your opponent at the top of your canopy and keep him there as your come over the top of your loop. If he makes a break to the left or right roll to keep him centered. If all goes as planned you'll have reversed and will now be in a shooting position.
Your options are more limited if your opponent is able to keep his airspeed down and doesn't overshoot the dive. Most likely he'll be heading back up in a zoom climb. If you have sufficient altitude and you believe the fight will be untenable use this as an opportunity to egress. He'll lose a lot of separation while he's zooming and you may be able to get out and not present him another chance.
Alternately, you can pull back up into a shallow climb and force him to repeat the process. With enough starting altitude, you can generally force a neutral E state if your opponent doesn't wait to recover at his original altitude: eventually he'll just run out of steam.
I've used both methods with great success against most of the plane set. Typhoons and Tempests seem to be the only ones that this doesn't work well against, however those two aircraft have an irritating ability to seemingly instantaneously rotate more than 90 degrees in place even at 500mph.
