N1K issue - no hijackers please

[kfsone]

The vertical flight profile that I am describing, which is my issue rather than the fact that if I don't perform evasives the guy can kill me, is something like this:

 

I'm trying to clarify in my detail that I am not just seeing an N1K dive in under me and pull a loop; the N1K is climing from the very start of it's visibility at 5.9k, until it pulls straight up into a loop around the time it reaches 1.1 - where based on all my past experience I had thought it would need to recover some energy before engaging me, or that I would be able to perform jinking maneuvers as evasives.

Instead it seems the N1K can pull a steep climb to 22k and, uniquely compared to all other aircraft, engage the buff without any transition to gather 'e' before engaging happily from below, in the same fashion any other plane would after diving under you.

AKDeja - I think many of the guys who've recently engaged me as a lanc at high-alt (who weren't in the N1Ks) will concur that I don't make an easy target.

[kfsone]

P.S. That graph is probably very out of whack, it's supposed to give you a rough idea until I get a film.

[AKDejaVu]

 

AKDeja - I think many of the guys who've recently engaged me as a lanc at high-alt (who weren't in the N1Ks) will concur that I don't make an easy target.

How many fighters have you shot down this tour with a lanc?  You do fly under the handle "KFS" don't you?

AKDejaVu

[Pongo]

I dont know whether the niki is defying gravity or not. But its probably not a good idea to climb away from him. You would be way better off to level and get speed and make him chase you. YOu have only put 1500 ft extra on in your second climb but lost 1/2 your speed I would think. Thats a poor trade.  
I have killed a lanc in pretty much the same profile you are describing. But I was in a P47. I got the first one but stalled out on the second one and never recovered from the stall in 22k of spinning....
boom

[kfsone]

Sorties: 53
Landed:  31 (*)
Kills:   6 (**)
Assists: 1
Bailed:  2
Death:   17 (***)
Time:    28h, 16 min

(*) Doesn't allow for sories landed and refuelled without exiting plane.

(**) Doesn't include kills by my gunners, and doesn't include the fighters I've bounced or who have had to disengage thanks to fuel exhaustion.

(***) This includes my current fetish for NOE b26 raids which tend to be disasterous =)

How many of those kills are in my lanc? Probably 2, since I tend to bounce people and RTB dmg rather than outright kill them with the lanc, but that suites me just fine.

And, AK, all that said, I said I didn't make an easy target, not an unsinkable one. With the lanc's guns, as one might expect historically, it's not so much a case of how many you shoot down as how many you survive =)

[This message has been edited by kfsone (edited 05-16-2001).]

[kfsone]

Just for your enjoyment, no 'point' intended:

 'My 61st operation ended with my becoming a prisoner-of-war. I was  climbing at the time because we were early and still trying to get  altitude. There was silence and then the rear-gunner shouting "Fighter!". Tremendous bursts of cannon fire into the port engine. My reaction was to slam the stick hard forward to drop the nose and pick up speed, and the second burst came just over the top of our head with the gunners all firing. I broke left and he broke left and the only sound was a momentary one of the aeroplane going back off into the darkness. That was the last we saw of him. The battle was over in about 10 seconds.

 'The only evidence of anger was a lot of holes in the engine cowling and
the wing and a great stream of gasoline coming out of the main port gas tank. None of the crew was damaged, no shot actually entered the fueselage. Probably one bullet went through the radiator and shortly thereafter the engine temperature suddenly started to go and BANG!, it ceased and that was it. We feathered the engine and I started back home, but we were just slowly losing height. I crash-landed the aircraft on the beach of the Dutch Friesian island of Ameland about 1.00am. I was  fortunate. The whole crew survived. No injuries other than a broken bone in one hand of the tail gunner, and one who hit the windshield and had concussion. Very short, nothing dramatic except for that 10 seconds and it's all over. That was being shot down.'

 -- Wilfrid John 'Mike' Lewis, Bomber Command pilot
(Taken from Bomber Command 1939-1945)

[kfsone]

Sadly not been attacked by any N1Ks at altitude since posting this; plenty of engagements, mostly the sort of profile you'd expect of "fighter comes up, fighter gets e, fighter attacks" or else "fighter comes up, fighter struggles, fighter gets shot down" =)


And for AKs enjoyment:

Sorties: 76
Kills:    9 } add 5 bounces today
Assists:  2 }
Landed:  41
Bailed:   4
Death:   26 } includes 3 radio-bails
Time:    39 hrs

Ps: 14 kills in 32 vehicle sorties, most of those in the M3 =)
K

[AKDejaVu]

Wow kfs.. I see you do have some kills of N1Ks.. what were you flying when you got them?  Something even more uber?  Seems to me they should have just been able to climb straight up and get away from anything you were flying.... after all.. they can do things other planes can't.... right?

AKDejaVu

[kfsone]

One in the typhoon, one lucky one in a Yak that I caught dosing, and the one I mentioned from the lanc who couldn't pull the 22k loop on me.

K