That is my understanding too.
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If you want to "put on the brakes" throw the rudder over to one side and drop your gear too. Also, if you are going too fast to drop your gear, with some planes I have found inverting then pulling back on the stick works well too (that is making the plane go up while inverted).
Anyone else have any "putting on the brakes" techniques?
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Don't drop the gear, simply no point, you will kill more E than necessary.
In most cases you don't want to "put on the brakes immediately" either while diving on someone or getting them to over shoot.
Doing these extra things like cutting engine off and putting out gear severly effect your E states to where you actually put yourself into a disadvantage. Also if you are slow on the bottons your timing will be off and you will burn all your E while the other guy is gaining it. It simply isn't a smart thing to do.
How to "put on the brakes"
If you are diving on someone you should spiral dive first and cut throttle to possibly get inside their nose up or down turn in hopes for a shot. You don't want to put on the brakes and try to stay on their 6 because they could easily barrel roll defense you and if you kill too much E you will die after they roll around you. Simply go full throttle and pull up and around. Next pass will be slower but chop throttle to make a shot and then if you miss gu n it and pull up and around again. You only want to chop throttle completely when you are finally slow on someone's 6 and they are attempting a BRD on you. If you are slow enough after a few pull arounds. Then you can work the throttle to get inside their BRD attempt. No need to turn off engine or pull out gear, as you will have completely lost your advantage and the fight could easily change tides from a skilled defensive pilot. If you get into a barrel roll scissor fight. You don't need to cut engine in order to get around faster, even the best pilots in the game do not ever cut engine unless they get into a flat spin situation, nor do the best pilots roll out gear. The key is timing, anticipation, throttle management, and understanding of your planes top performance in the stalls during your ACM.
If you are in a situation where someone is running up on your 6. You don't necessarily want to put on full breaks to get them to over shoot. This will hurt your E state and they will continue to BnZ you. Instead you want to try to get a little alt and do a nose down turn or attempt scissors technique into a BRD like explained in the first paragraph. BRD allow you to roll around a plane using their E against them. If they try to cut too much E and throttle, you can do the BRD and end up right on their 6. It is much more useful than trying to stick stir and lose all your E by cutting throttle to get them to over shoot.
All in all, it is basically an understanding of using the right ACM and tactics to get on an oppenets 6 or to reverse them if they are on your 6. Cutting engine and rolling out gear will effect your performance negatively and if you have a bad understanding of E, you will give up any chance of winning fights against good sticks that understand certain situations.
