Ok, here's my question on the first vid, the rolling scissors:
over the top of one, and I am probably wrong here because I suck at ACM, but don't you pull up until almost stall? If so, I thought I read an F16 can hit the afterburners and climb straight up to above 50,000. That would mean it has enough power to not stall over the top like we do in AH. Why then doesn't he power up more, get above, and then come back down in a better position? He already was on top if I followed that and had the advantage didn't he?
Nope, you should not be almost stalled over the top in a rolling scissors. You will certainly be slower over the top than coming across the bottom but being at or near a stall means you're hardly turning the plane at all and can have very limited controlability. As eagl mentions, trying to zoom can give your opponent time to get his nose around and he'll just follow you up and energy doesn't mean squat unless you can transform it into an offensive position and kill shot.
While obviously not a factor in AH but relevant to this video, modern fighters have missiles...you may be outside of guns range but that puts you in a missile envelope and you aren't going to outzoom a missile so you must be bringing your nose back down before your opponent can get his nose pointed at you for a missile shot. You can't just "loiter" around above a guy like you can in AH because all he has to do it point at you to get a shot off. A lower altitude, lower e fighter can simply use his ability to point to force his opponent to come down or turn.
To park yourself on top near a stall is sometimes referred to as a "flare shot"...basically you're just hanging out while spewing out a ton of heat for an IR missile to guide on yet can't maneuver to avoid it if one is fired. Much more so than with guns-only fighters, with AAM's you must closely monitor your opponent's nose position during the entire fight, even when you have significant separation (out to beyond visual range), and always preserve sufficient e to maneuver.
When it comes to ACM, the biggest advantage that modern afterburning jet engines give you in a dogfight isn't the show-stopping ability to climb like a rocket, it's the ability to sustain E even while performing almost continuous high G maneuvers. The fundamentals of position, angles and energy remain exactly the same as they are in AH, they're just applied differently taking into account the capabilities of modern technology.
