Help needed,,,someone to comment and critique this

[Gabriel]

http://postdownload.filefront.com/13146516//d51c90258deb8ed77ed5a0f7392bc09eb8416eba9e0a545fa9070a336003e69a87a73bd294bb30d3

It is a 45mb or so windows media video taken from BE,  (I fly in this game, Il-2, and BE,,, I suck in all three  ).

I was the 109G-6/U4, the P-39D was a guy I know who is a decent stick. Basically I have no idea whats going on except I was making an effort to 'lag' his movements by just following what he was doing with a slight delay , I am not sure if I was successful.

So..

What was the P-39/Bell doing? And how can I better counter this? I feel as though I was doing a poor job despite the fact I started off with a little more E than he did, and the 109s generally are better than Cobras at that alt.

Thanks in advance 

[Mace2004]

It's a basic rolling scissors.  The scissors lasted until you ran out of altitude where it turned into a lufberry.  At that point it was just a matter of who could out rate who, obviously the 109 had the advantage there. 

In the rolling scissors, your first mistake is that you didn't recognize it for what it was.  The way it developed was that you attacked from high and he pulled up into you.  As you both keep your velocity vectors on each other this evolves into a pair of spiraling flight paths...the rolling scissors.  In the rolling scissors you need to slow your down range travel so that he flies out in front.  The simple way you do that is fly a steeper flight path...i.e., more vertical than he does.  An easy tip is to keep your lift vector behind him and use the vertical as much as possible.  Your problem seems to be that as you were climbing and he was descending, rather than continue your upward path you quarter-rolled into him and flattened out your flightpath.  This created too many angles and resulted in several overshoots which neutralized your advantage in the rolling scissors and prolonged it until you were on the deck.

[AWwrgwy]

How is the torque modeled?  You're turning the wrong way.  You should get a tighter turn, and so should he, turning Left instead of Right.  What about throttle?  Are you balls-to-the-wall the whole time?  Throttle and rudder are important in a rolling scissors like that.


wrongway

[Gabriel]

It's a basic rolling scissors.  The scissors lasted until you ran out of altitude where it turned into a lufberry.  At that point it was just a matter of who could out rate who, obviously the 109 had the advantage there. 

In the rolling scissors, your first mistake is that you didn't recognize it for what it was.  The way it developed was that you attacked from high and he pulled up into you.  As you both keep your velocity vectors on each other this evolves into a pair of spiraling flight paths...the rolling scissors.  In the rolling scissors you need to slow your down range travel so that he flies out in front.  The simple way you do that is fly a steeper flight path...i.e., more vertical than he does.  An easy tip is to keep your lift vector behind him and use the vertical as much as possible.  Your problem seems to be that as you were climbing and he was descending, rather than continue your upward path you quarter-rolled into him and flattened out your flightpath.  This created too many angles and resulted in several overshoots which neutralized your advantage in the rolling scissors and prolonged it until you were on the deck.

I think I understand, so instead of rolling into him I should continue to go up until I have just barely enough energy to roll back down without stalling out? I guess the fear was that if I did this he would get his nose onto me and be able to score some hits with his .50s so I wanted to be 'behind him', but I guess I was just causing myself to shoot past ,,

Thank you VERY much for taking the time to give input   , I will certainly try to work on this because the majority of my high alt encounters seem to end this way

How is the torque modeled?  You're turning the wrong way.  You should get a tighter turn, and so should he, turning Left instead of Right.  What about throttle?  Are you balls-to-the-wall the whole time?  Throttle and rudder are important in a rolling scissors like that.

Torque is modeled yes, I know I should go left but I go right by habit and because vis works better for me this way. For throttle I would cut to half or zero often when I was rolling into him and opening it when I was lagging behind him ....I used almost no rudder  , clearly this is a mistake   

[Mace2004]

I think I understand, so instead of rolling into him I should continue to go up until I have just barely enough energy to roll back down without stalling out?

You want to maintain good control over the top so you don't want to get too slow and end up just "parking" it there.  Ideally, a good sustained pull, maybe as low as 1 to 2 g and a notch of flaps will get you around quickly on the top.  As you go vertical you should roll a bit to put your lift vector on or just in front of him (I'm not talking about rolling AND pulling, just roll to position your lift vector as you're going up), depending on whether you have a lot or little separation in your flight paths.  By going as close to vertical as possible you're arresting your down range travel while he continues to move out in front.  Rolling to set your lift vector while going up will help you begin to align your fuselage with his but as you come over the top you should let your lift vector slide aft of him and then you pull for a lag position on his extended six.  The lag position allows you to accelerate and store e without causing an overshoot (or at least not enough overshoot that he can use it against you).  If you don't get enough separation to convert to pure lag pursuit then you've got the e to go up again and repeat.

What you did was quarter roll into him and cut across the circle almost level.  This closes the distance but when you arrive you have a relatively large crossing angle which causes the overshoot and you're not gaining the acceleration you need to keep your e up.  If you're rolling out at the top because you're too slow then go directly to a lag position with your nose down so you can accelerate for the next loop.  Think of this as similar to a pure vertical looping fight, you lead across the top and lag across the bottom.  You're doing somewhat the same thing here but with the added component of downrange travel which makes it look a bit more complicated than it is.

[Gabriel]

You want to maintain good control over the top so you don't want to get too slow and end up just "parking" it there.  Ideally, a good sustained pull, maybe as low as 1 to 2 g and a notch of flaps will get you around quickly on the top.  As you go vertical you should roll a bit to put your lift vector on or just in front of him (I'm not talking about rolling AND pulling, just roll to position your lift vector as you're going up), depending on whether you have a lot or little separation in your flight paths.  By going as close to vertical as possible you're arresting your down range travel while he continues to move out in front.  Rolling to set your lift vector while going up will help you begin to align your fuselage with his but as you come over the top you should let your lift vector slide aft of him and then you pull for a lag position on his extended six.  The lag position allows you to accelerate and store e without causing an overshoot (or at least not enough overshoot that he can use it against you).  If you don't get enough separation to convert to pure lag pursuit then you've got the e to go up again and repeat.

What you did was quarter roll into him and cut across the circle almost level.  This closes the distance but when you arrive you have a relatively large crossing angle which causes the overshoot and you're not gaining the acceleration you need to keep your e up.  If you're rolling out at the top because you're too slow then go directly to a lag position with your nose down so you can accelerate for the next loop.  Think of this as similar to a pure vertical looping fight, you lead across the top and lag across the bottom.  You're doing somewhat the same thing here but with the added component of downrange travel which makes it look a bit more complicated than it is.

I actually understood this, and even gained some info on how to deal with those Spit loopers to boot. 

At the top of your ascent (while still having enough airspeed to manuever) do you simply roll inverted and pull 'down', or rudder over? I guess the question is what is the most efficient and time sensitive way to get your nose back down in this situation.

[SlapShot]

It appeared that you had a slight advantage during the rolling scissors. You did a good job of maintaining the advantage, but your lack of rudder usage is why the fight devolved down to ground level. Every time you came over the top of your roll ... I was expecting some rudder input ... I couldn't keep my feet still while watching.

Another thing that was driving me nuts while watching the film was the fact that you kept looking back into the cockpit when he was out in front of you. Personally, whenever my enemy is "out in front" ... I NEVER take my eyes off of him ... not even for a second.

A couple of times when he was in front and you switched the view back into the cockpit, he adjusted his flight path and when you finally decided to take a peek at him again ... you needed to adjust ... after the fact ... precious seconds lost while trying to improve your advantage. Had you kept you view on him, and adjusted immediately, you would have pressured him even more and it is under pressure when people make mistakes.

It was nice to see that Aces High is not the only game that has stick stirrers when they are finally cornered ...

[Mace2004]

It's more efficient to do a normal pull and just use rudder to counter torque or increase roll rate if necessary although a rudder roll would certainly not be "wrong" especially if the scissors is very slow.  Consider though that a rudder roll is a very draggy maneuver as you're essentially putting the plane sideways into a skid in order to use dihedral to roll the plane, it's very inefficient from an energy perspective but has plenty of tactical uses and may be necessary if you're very slow.  

As a general rule for the rolling scissors it would be better to top out a bit lower, use the roll then pull technique and lead/lag to maintain or even add to your e but a lot depends on the geometry.  If, for instance, if you've got him pushed out in front a well timed rudder roll can plop you down right in his control zone with fuselage's aligned but if you do this every time over the top you're eating away at your e.  Also, say your opponent dives away and runs, immediately do whatever it takes to get your nose around and down to keep him from escaping.  

[Widewing]

One thing that will help you in all fights....

You took your view off of the P-39 too often, way too often. Practice flying where you look, not look where you fly. In other words, keep the other guy in view as much as possible. Head out of the cockpit. Except to clear your six, always track the bad guy. Don't look back into the cockpit. It takes practice to get accustomed to not having any concrete visual reference while flying, but it will greatly improve your in-fight SA to do so.

You need only check for visual reference (or glance at the altimeter) when you are in close proximity to the ground. When beginning at higher altitude, keep the bad guy in view constantly whenever feasible.


My regards,

Widewing

[Gabriel]

Thank you mace, slap, and ww

Going to work on keep visual, not 'flatenning' out while going down in these situations, and adding rudder input.

Hopefully sometime the next video will be less noob like 

[WMLute]

One thing that will help you in all fights....

You took your view off of the P-39 too often, way too often. Practice flying where you look, not look where you fly. In other words, keep the other guy in view as much as possible. Head out of the cockpit. Except to clear your six, always track the bad guy. Don't look back into the cockpit. It takes practice to get accustomed to not having any concrete visual reference while flying, but it will greatly improve your in-fight SA to do so.

You need only check for visual reference (or glance at the altimeter) when you are in close proximity to the ground. When beginning at higher altitude, keep the bad guy in view constantly whenever feasible.


My regards,

Widewing

best advice so far.

I usually am only in my FORWARD view when I am about to take a shot.