Howdy Simaril:
I’m out of town for Thanksgiving and have some time to so I downloaded AH on my laptop and took a look at your film. Here are my observations for what it’s worth. We’ll focus on the two merges you attempted against the Bf 109G-14.
First Merge at 3:00
At 3:00 you engage in your first merge. The Bf 109 is on your six. You have about a +30mph speed advantage and at a D 1.0k distance away. You pull up into a vertical turn to reverse. Your first merge attempt results in an angles disadvantage at the merge. Let’s dissect why this happened. There are two major factors.
1) You didn’t have enough initial separation for the turn you’re performingStarting with a bogey at your six o’clock means you’re already at an angular and positional disadvantage unless you have enough maneuver room. Of course you should try to not have the bogey there to begin with but you already know that. Once there if you are going to try and maneuver then you need to have enough separation.
A cardinal rule of air to air maneuver is that the only way another aircraft can get shot down in a turn is if the attacker is able to turn inside the defender.
Let’s look at a specific case of where we have two aircraft at same turn performance (radius and rate) but with the attacker behind the defender.
If the attacker was right up on the exact same position as the defender, theoretically since the airplanes have the same turn performance there is no way the attacker could turn inside the defender and get lead for a shot. However separate the two by a little distance and you can see in the diagram where the separation creates space and angles for the attacker to turn inside the defender now. So separation distance is one of the factors that allow a trailing aircraft to turn inside a defender.
To negate this positional advantage, the defender in this situation must have enough separation from the attacker before initiating maneuver. With enough separation the defender has enough room to maneuver to get around the circle before the attacker can get into a position to turn inside the defender.
The question of course is how much separation is needed before you turn back into the attacker. In short it needs to be enough turning room for you to make your way around the circle and face the attacker. A rule of thumb is for the separation distance to be no less than one turn diameter. For the turn you were executing which was about a rough average of 220 mph TAS at 2 G’s that equal’s a turn diameter of 3733 feet. This would equate to at least a D 1.2K+ distance. You started the reverse at 1.0K which was almost a thousand feet too short.
Don’t take this to mean that you never should reverse back when you’re less than one turn diameter separated from an enemy. You can and sometimes you have no choice. Just realize when you do that you’ll be at an angles disadvantage already at the merge so you’ll have to plan the follow-up maneuver sequences appropriately.
2) You didn’t maximize your turn performanceIn your vertical reverse back into the 109 you entered your vertical turn at Point 1 at 255 mph IAS, 0-flaps, and MIL power. This is actually an optimum condition which is about corner velocity for the P-51D at 50% fuel (your Mustang was about the same weight). Here’s an old chart I did for the P-51D regarding corner speeds a long time ago (back in AH1). Though outdated I assume that it still representative.
![](http://thetongsweb.net/images/p-51d-cornerv.gif)
Inexplicably as you enter into the turn you chop your throttle a few seconds later and your airspeed is down to 175 mph IAS at Point 2. A fundamental concept to remember: maximum turn performance occurs at corner velocity. People often mistake that the slower you go the better your turn performance. In actuality the slower you go below corner speed, the worse your turn radius and rate gets. Here’s an EM chart posted by Badboy that illustrates the concept:
![](http://www.badz.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/images/Yak9UvP51D.jpg)
As you can see turn rate and radius gets worst for the P-51 the slower below corner speed you turn. Chopping throttle was the last thing to do in your case because you wanted to have as much thrust and speed through the vertical turn as possible because the speed you started the turn at was already at corner and you were going to bleed E as you continued through the turn. Cutting throttle both slowed you down and also deprived you of countering the heavy energy bleed in the vertical turn. In fact you left your throttle chopped until about Point 3.
2ndly instead of a turn in the oblique you executed it purely in a climbing vertical which means gravity is working against you for part of the turn. We’ll visit this concept a bit more in the analysis of your second merge.
The end result in your first merge attempt is that the combination of turning without enough initial separation and turning at well below corner speed ensured that as you came around for the merge you were already at an angles disadvantage.
I’m out of time at the moment and will post analysis for the 2nd merge as well as some other general thoughts when I can. In short you did much better with the 2nd merge but just got hit with a low probability frontal snapshot.
Hope this was worth a light bulb or two!
Tango, XO
412th FS Braunco Mustangs