Maybe it's just the furballers that hate it? I enjoy land grabbing and furballing all together. Furballing, my objective is just to have fun, I usually just up in a capped base, or fight at TT. I would just look for the biggest red blob on the map and fly to it. That's my furballing mentality. About 80% of my sorties are furballing.
My mentality change when I fly land grabbing mission. My objective is to remain air borne over target area as long as I can to provide air cover. The best way for me to do that would be BnZ, which is why I usually BnZ on these fighter cover mission. It's effective, I can kill stuff left and right, keeping the area clear so that bombers and goonies can come in. Here is where I have no problem vulching if it's needed. I usually don't vulch because I just don't wanna face the AAAs and it waste a lot more rounds then air to air kills.
Most people picture bnzmers as alt monkey. I think those are wrong term, we're more of opportunist or picker w/e it's called nowaday. I rarely fly over 7k in D9 at a combat zone. Only time I would fly my D9 over 7k is if I am roping someone. If the ACK are down, I would most likely fly around 4k and directly over the air field. Reason for not flying high is because most fight will be under 5k. The higher you are the longer it takes for you to dive on your target. Even with chop throttle, those high alt dive still creat too much speed for an effective shot. If the ACK are up, I usually would fly at 6k above the airfield or away from the air field. I rely on my aiming and fuel management to maximize my time over target area to provide cover. I only BnZ when I'm on land grabbing mission because it's usually really boring and no challange. However, it's really effective in CAP over the enemy air space, so that's why I usually BnZ when I do CAP.
Lately, since people been frowning on me flying bnz mission=/ I kinda step back and not fly it as much as I used to. Maybe 2-3 BnZ sorties a day then I'd go to TT and furball. Kinda step away from land grabbing stuff and mainly focusing on furball. I do miss it sometimes though, I really enjoy the team work that land grabbing mission offers. It's the other aspect of the game that I really like other then just dogfighting. Strafing building, putting VH out through gazillions of acks and flaks fire.
Overall though, I believe BnZ is probably the best way to fly for CAP sorties over enemy air field. Since the objective is to take the base, rather then furballing. People always talk smash about D-9 pilots, but take a look at 38s, Niki, tiff they just do the same thing but in a different plane. Most good pilot in any plane will do the same thing, they will not just straight up chop throttle to settle onto a target, because in a furball environment you're not just facing one. You will need speed to dodge them other plane that takes passes at ya. So for base capping mission, thumbs up for you bnzmers out there.
I'll post a few film for people to see how effective BnZ is compare to the tnb stuff for land grabbing mission. BnZ sorties in D-9 usually last 40 mins. 25 out of those 40 min are over target area, the other 15 are ingress and egress. D9 surfers from the small fuel tanks and vulnerable radiator (some how that watermelon always go out, almost to any kind of angle). So I always fight with drop tank on and use it til it's empty before I drop them. 25 min over enemy air space is enough air time to be effective in keeping stuff down until the bombers/goons arrive.
My though on vulching, if you're willing to go through gazillion of flaks and ACKs then you probably deserve it.
http://files.filefront.com/Airfield+Capping+2ahf/;11594440;/fileinfo.htmlhttp://files.filefront.com/BnZ+Filmahf/;10815618;/fileinfo.htmlhttp://files.filefront.com/CAP+Airfield+12ahf/;10367677;/fileinfo.htmlDisclaimer
: All these films are just BnZ, Pick, and Vulch. It's not intend to show ACM. It's intend is to show the effectiveness of BnZ as CAP for a base capture.
To be an effective BnZmer you gotta know ACM, but that's another story.
