Odd Situation

[JunkyII]

First off, I don't HO so please take that into consideration with your responses please.

What should I do if I find myself diving towards an opponent HO and he is going up?

This often happens to me in low speed fights where the E isn't too off even with me diving, I find if I pull back up I give a "decent" opponent a pretty easy shot to make and even if they miss they often have great position on me. I have tried extending away from my opponent but he can often still get close on my six where it is hard to reverse him off and even when I do he has a great advantage in the scissors that would eventually play out.

Is there anything I am missing which I could use in this situation? I think I'm probably messing up to get in this spot but when it happens Id like to know my best option.

Any suggestions? I think the extending away from him works the best but still is a hard fight(which isn't bad ) 

[humble]

1st off there is no such thing as a "HO" once you are engaged (IMO). Now in a fight with a known opponent or someone you feel will respect the 3/9 line then a FQ shot is inappropriate. However the vast majority of the time you are in fact presented with a clean front quarter aspect well before the con can get his nose around on you...this is true in the vertical as well. If in fact the bogey can and does get around 1st flying the under position then this is a sign that either you cut off your vertical early or misjudged E state. If however you've timed your move at the top and the guy is pulling up into you then you have a valid shot prior to his ability to square up. As a general rule if you are +E and higher then your best bet is to turn against his direction of movement into a spiral climb. The goal is to either make him fly the long way around or pull enough g's to stall out. Diving on thru surrenders any angular parity or advantage and gives him a measure of relative E state. If your in the faster plane (go back to the spitty vs hog) then this is valid...but if his potential E is higher keeping the high ground is always preferable....unless doing so will get you killed. To me the decision point here is early before you have closed to guns range. If I close inside of D800 here I am either shooting or blowing on thru with not intent to engage...in effect making the bogey fly the long way to engage by reversing...so I'm setting up a rope or just flying by.

Otherwise I'm going to dip down and then pull up into a spiral climb well before he gets a reasonable shot window. Ideally I want to stabilize at 1.2 or so out and then control my climb rate to keep him in the 1.0 range. Once you reach the point you described you've put yourself in a bad spot since you either take or give up a front aspect shot and surrender some initiative...

[WMLute]

You DO want to go back up.

Just change your vector before you do it.  (i.e. roll it 90 degrees then nose back up)

9-10 times they won't even come close to landing a bullet.

[JunkyII]

You DO want to go back up.

Just change your vector before you do it.  (i.e. roll it 90 degrees then nose back up)

9-10 times they won't even come close to landing a bullet.

Yea when I do I try to be unpredictable by changing my flight path back up.


humble,
This situation happens a good bit when Im in a vertical reverse where the con almost got around, like you said I mis-judged E. So maybe I should work on not getting to this position by working on my reverse? I do snap turn pretty slow I need to get my bird around..

[BaldEagl]

Don't trust me but I'd turn 25-40 degrees to get seperation then roll my inside wing toward the bogie to give him a side profile at best then roll up into a hi yoyo to try to come around on him.  After that the fight is on without a HO and he's likely in trouble.

[CAP1]

First off, I don't HO so please take that into consideration with your responses please.

What should I do if I find myself diving towards an opponent HO and he is going up?

This often happens to me in low speed fights where the E isn't too off even with me diving, I find if I pull back up I give a "decent" opponent a pretty easy shot to make and even if they miss they often have great position on me. I have tried extending away from my opponent but he can often still get close on my six where it is hard to reverse him off and even when I do he has a great advantage in the scissors that would eventually play out.

Is there anything I am missing which I could use in this situation? I think I'm probably messing up to get in this spot but when it happens Id like to know my best option.

Any suggestions? I think the extending away from him works the best but still is a hard fight(which isn't bad ) 

although you're somewhat slow, if you're pointing down at him, you still have enough control to go back up. if you don't turn, but simply pull out of the dive, he has to pull harder,....as if trying to pull over the top of a loop. more than likely, he doesn't have the e to do this, and maintain a good shot.

[JunkyII]

Heres a film example of what I mean and Krup gets me with a nasty tator after it, I could have popped him when hes coming up but thats way to close to HO for me

http://www.mediafire.com/?kdz3bztx4kj

[CAP1]

Heres a film example of what I mean and Krup gets me with a nasty tator after it, I could have popped him when hes coming up but thats way to close to HO for me

http://www.mediafire.com/?kdz3bztx4kj

ooo...need go no further........that's who ya were fighting?


make it harder on him. fly straight, level, and slow. 

[JunkyII]

ooo...need go no further........that's who ya were fighting?


make it harder on him. fly straight, level, and slow. 

Im not sure how to take this, but at that point I tried making my flight path alittle less predictable and also climb up out of his gun sight.

[CAP1]

Im not sure how to take this, but at that point I tried making my flight path alittle less predictable and also climb up out of his gun sight.

i was joklin with ya

i can't watch the film till i get home......but i was just tryin to be funny.

[humble]

Junky, the answer lies further back in the fight. 1st your fighting a very very good 109 driver so some of this is what your doing as a result of his influence. To me your not in an advantageous position at the start of the clip. I'd rather be the other guy. Your at a point where your ability to use the vertical is exhausted and he's got you in a climbing right hander against your torque so control input further scrapes off E. I'd level out and reset the fight or convert to a left handed spiral climb based on my perception of E state....the last thing you wanted to do is nose over. I don't think you ever had a real shot window there. He's flying the under waiting on you to roll in. When you do he has the speed to climb up inside our arc and then roll over on you. Technically your move at the top is incorrect. If you freeze the film at the 3 second mark you can see (using external view) that you are more or less level to the horizon with no rudder input at all. In effect your turn at the top is very flat.

If we look at relative lift vectors he's right in your up view. You look to be in his front up...your almost in plane to him but he's nicely out of plane to you. So you in "in plane lag" and he's in "out of plane lead" from my interpretation of the positioning. In effect at 3 seconds without further change he's got the shot coming. To me right here you need to pull a "wingover"

You suck in flaps hit wep roll level and pull the nose up stepping flaps down and ruddering over to the left as the bird stalls out (chopping throttle to control torque for a sec at top). Basically you got reversed in the vertical. You can see this to a degree from the other side in the film I posted in Ardys "wing over" thread. As a general rule you want to avoid any type of a "top down" shot into a bogey with vertical maneuvering speed if you do take one you need to roll 90 degree's away from his counter and keep the nose down and extend...convert back to an E fighting stance and use his evasive to build a +E position.

[humble]

Just happened to have a suitable set up so I filmed this for you. This is a pretty conservative +E attack. when spitty turns into me and initiates a -E merge (for him) it gives me a "tell" that he's entirely comfortable engaging from a disadvantage...he just wants to get a measure of my E state and style. Normally I'm gonna unleash all kinds of ugly ASAP since I'd rather deal with that type of pilot now rather then have him catch me otherwise occupied later. The flips side is that with other cons, close enemy airfield and multiple friendly (to him) V bases and a relatively heavy bird this was also a good time to be a bit careful. So I flew to parity and set sail for smoother sea's. As a trainer (in the way back when) I always wanted guys to master this type of attack before learning to get down and dirty. You want to understand the options and the point of no return and get in the habit of controlling this type of encounter. Once you know when in fact you are no longer in absolute control of a fight then your much better positioned to decide when and if you want to move "all in" vs having that choice made for you.
http://www.az-dsl.com/snaphook/+E attack.ahf   

This second clip is at the end of the same sortie. Here I'm tooling around and have a higher spitty inbound. The initial defensive moves are not intended as a prelude to attack...my only goal is to determine and hopefully diminish his E state while picking up the other spitty buried under me somewhere. Once I get a better measure of the 1st spitty and reacquire the 2nd I'm on the 1st train out of dodge. Now once I get them strung out and otherwise occupied the guy closest to me is outnumbered 1 to 1. As a general rule I think most good sticks in "their ride" are going to feel that they have an advantage regardless of initial positioning. To me the guys that are going to kill me normally do regardless of initial advantage either way. The hog is such a potent swiss army knife kind of plane that unless a 2nd con complicates things you have a tremendous number of options...basically a con 1.2 behind you is just as good as the one 400 in front of you {obviously relative pilot skill is a big variable in any one on one}.

Going back to your original film the point of reference is as follows. Neither of the spits land a single shot despite multiple passes from superior positions. If they had/have film I think it would look a lot like your clip above. When I teach this stuff to folks I generally label this type of defensive flying as flying to the donut hole. Basically I'm trying to manipulate the bogey so that I have the ability to sneak inside his turning circle to a place he cant reach regardless of how hard he turns. As he presses harder and harder he literally ends up flying around me entirely with me sitting in his "donut hole" This is as much a function of relative lift vector as innate plane performance. It is the heart of a barrel roll defense/reverse/scissors as well. You can go back and see it in the initial move vs the spitty as well...in effect he's pulling hard but cant get lead...burning enough E so that when I roll out he's not in position to close on me.
http://www.az-dsl.com/snaphook/film56.ahf   

[Sonicblu]

First off no it isnt a ho. If you commit yourself to a shot take it. If you try to be "fair" and pull off what will be a ho shot you just screwed yourself. In my opinion you were at angles first he had to keep turning it to get a solution. Make him fly through your bullits.

Unless you killed him on the snap shot there the end result would have been the same though. Here is why i think so.

 If you ride krups cockpit in the film you see him pulling lead merge flying 90% to your wingline setting up the barrel roll he knew what was comming. If you would have tryied to take the shot. You would have been blind as you waited for him to fly infront of your nose. At that point though the key is for him to be starting his barrel roll. What you will see is "hey he is not coming right it front of my nose he is coming out to the side". At this point its to late he is barrel rolling for a snap shot or worse to a six postion. Look at the video as he comes through your left nose he is alreay barrel rolling look from in your cockpit  he never had an intention of shooting you there. The key here is he started it while you were blind you have no time to react you are waiting for him to come in front of you.

Here is what you can do:
1. NOt be in that position do like humble said pull a spiral climb right where the video starts. in my opinion.  Then dont just turn into his circle.
Use a displacement lag roll. So if he is turning under you to the right the instinct is to turn to the right also to get on his six. Do the oposite go as close to 90% to his turn and roll to the left unerneath. So if he turns to the right in a flat turn go up as much as posible the roll to the left. The reason i say as much as posible 90 degrees is ideal but you might not have the e just get as much displacment as possible.

2. you are in the situation for what ever reasons you miss the shot or dont kill him. YOu have to go to guns defence. the only one that I know of is the barrel roll starting a rolling scissors. Think 3D here. YOU were coming down on him he flew 90% to your wing line then barrel rolled. you Have to use the same move on him. its just more horizontal now. This is how i think. Oh toejamake mussrooms i missed the shot i look back and up and start turning with his wing line. Staying as close to 90 degrees to is as i can. Now for him to get the shot he has to keep turning with me. Forcing a rolling scissors. Or if he goes of the snap shot he will be blind for a bit if you are turning with his wing line.  Look in the film from Krups cockpit.

you can tell you arent rolling with his wing line because you come throught his right window making it easy for him to line up the shot. Other than those crazy bars on the windows he can view you the whole time making adjustments lineing up the shot easier.

Ride your cockpit in the film as soon as he overshoots you . Use your view to look straight out the top of your cockpit. As you see him he is not only turning he is rolling also. Imaging yourself pointing your nose more to his tail and see yourself rolling to the left with him.

I know you know the move because you have used it on me. Its not a new move for you its just useing it here and getting the timing down.