I'm flying with a couple squaddies tonight in LWO. I'm in an F4U-4 cruising with them along the canyon on the Rook/Nit border looking for trouble. I had just dropped my tank to skirmish with a 190, who broke and ran after missing two HO attempts in order to drag me to a higher ally, but I was having no part of it so egressed out to group up with my squad. We proceeded N along the canyon and eventually sighted several bogies at our altitude and entered a short engagement with multiple enemy aircraft. I make several passes through and am getting low on gas (-4, 1/4 main tank, DT already jettisoned, lot of combat-power maneuvering) so have to withdraw.
As I'm on my way out, a Spit and 109 decide to pursue. I'm going shallow nose-down and moving at a fairly decent clip, hoping they'll decide to return to the general engagement now that I've exited, but they stay with me. They follow me for half a sector, my dive takes all three of us down into the canyon. I don't have the gas to run full power all the way home, ESPECIALLY if I have to turn and fight before I can land, so I elect to engage with just over 1/8 tank.
I pull up into a hard loop, tracking both bandits. The 109 is a K-4, which is the closest so I tag as the primary threat and the Spit is a Mk.XIV. I start up and the 109 passes below and behind me, not quite able to follow my break, and as I pull through the top and start my downward leg I can easily slip in behind the 109, but the Spitfire is now coming up on me almost head-on. Rather than present my 6 to the Spitfire I nose in on him and put him just off to my right, and as we merge shove the stick forward and kick the rudder hoping for a snapshot to put him out of the fight. I fire but can't tell if I hit as I'm near a blackout. I pull through my first loop and pick up the 109 trying to come over the top on me, and pull back up into a second. The 109 fires but aims short and his tracers zip harmlessly past my tail. As I come over the top I drop a couple notches of flaps, roll slightly and kick insider rudder into slightly more of a barrel roll back down. The Spitfire is trying to follow me but fails to acquire a guns solution. The 109 pulls back up into another loop and I follow, just a little short of a guns solution myself.
The 109 rolls himself out of phase with me, and as we each pull through our oblique loops he presents with with a brief snapshot as he crosses my gunsight at nearly 90 degrees deflection. I'm pointed nose-down, while he's flying nearer to level with the horizon, passing left to right across my sights. I rake his flank with .50cal and pull back up. As I come over the top again and pull around on the 109 I can see him falling out of the sky without his tail.
I immediately pick up the Spitfire again, who has been attempting to follow me through my maneuvers. He's behind me, off to my right side. I roll towards him and kick my inside rudder again, and snap my nose around. He fires and overshoots. I keep him in view as I continue rolling and pull back up into another loop to pursue. We loop around each other slightly out of plane once or twice more, until I finally roll myself back into phase and follow him through a high yo-yo just lagging in my pursuit angle. I add a notch or two of flaps and slowly begin sneaking up into a lead shot as we come around to the right, bringing up my flaps slightly as he straightens out and attempts to extend. He then reverses again and starts to dive. I'm 400yds out and about to put my pipper on him when he begins to roll, still diving and bearing around to the left. I'm just about in firing position when I see the ground coming up on us quickly. The Spitfire is still rolling, but he's too low and his dive angle is too great to recover. I pull out and listen to him slam into the ground behind me.
I level out and turn for the nearest friendly base, and make it home with a few gallons of gas left.
The moral of the story: There's some days where persistence just doesn't pay off. Next time it may be better to just let that con egress than to chase him for a sector.
