Tired of being HO'd

[shotgunneeley]

This is a grief. No doubt about it. About 90% of my engagements with an enemy who is co-alt and heading directly for me end with me tore up in pieces. I'll come into a fight looking for someone to pick or merge with and there is always some who wants to fly directly at me with every intention of putting lead into my face. At about 1k from closing in with the enemy, I'll veer off to the right and deliberately try to put myself off from HO'ing him in order to just merge with him and begin the dogfight. But no, the jerk stays on the war path and just turns into me, guns a blazing, and forces me to fly through a hail of bullets. I mean I'm doing everything i can to avoid the HO (barrel rolling, changing alt) and I still get pegged. How does anyone ever fight and win against this without getting into a jousting match with the bigger guns winning? Or do I need to get with everyone else and start HO'ing as well because its usually the higher ranking fighters who do this mess.

[jdbecks]

I try to fly quite a bit to the side of the on coming con, with my nose slightly down..So the other guy has to turn into me and hopefully burning his E in his turn, to try to try give me more of the advantage at the merge. I find it works quite well for me.

[The Fugitive]

At the speeds the planes are running a 1000 feet is too close, you'll barely get any separation.  Break farther out, if the looser insists on turning his nose into you break back and go under him. It forces him to turn harder and with a dive added to it, it could cause him to red out. Another good way is to GIVE them your tail, or a rear quarter, then force an over shoot.

Don't give into the HO !!!

[grizz441]

This is a grief. No doubt about it. About 90% of my engagements with an enemy who is co-alt and heading directly for me end with me tore up in pieces. I'll come into a fight looking for someone to pick or merge with and there is always some who wants to fly directly at me with every intention of putting lead into my face. At about 1k from closing in with the enemy, I'll veer off to the right and deliberately try to put myself off from HO'ing him in order to just merge with him and begin the dogfight. But no, the jerk stays on the war path and just turns into me, guns a blazing, and forces me to fly through a hail of bullets. I mean I'm doing everything i can to avoid the HO (barrel rolling, changing alt) and I still get pegged. How does anyone ever fight and win against this without getting into a jousting match with the bigger guns winning? Or do I need to get with everyone else and start HO'ing as well because its usually the higher ranking fighters who do this mess.

1) Start to avoid earlier (1,500yds)
2) Avoid in two directions, lateral offset and vertical offset by diving 1k or so beneath him and nosing up and to the side to start the fight.

[mtnman]

This is a grief. No doubt about it. About 90% of my engagements with an enemy who is co-alt and heading directly for me end with me tore up in pieces. I'll come into a fight looking for someone to pick or merge with and there is always some who wants to fly directly at me with every intention of putting lead into my face. At about 1k from closing in with the enemy, I'll veer off to the right and deliberately try to put myself off from HO'ing him in order to just merge with him and begin the dogfight. But no, the jerk stays on the war path and just turns into me, guns a blazing, and forces me to fly through a hail of bullets. I mean I'm doing everything i can to avoid the HO (barrel rolling, changing alt) and I still get pegged. How does anyone ever fight and win against this without getting into a jousting match with the bigger guns winning? Or do I need to get with everyone else and start HO'ing as well because its usually the higher ranking fighters who do this mess.

You've got to live through the merge to get to the "good stuff", that's for sure.

Like grizz says, getting under your opponent is a great way to do that, and moving slightly to the left or right helps even more.

If you think about it, getting under him means he now has to lead you for the shot, since you're not flying directly at him.  To do that with you in a lower position, he needs to push the stick forward, which makes the shot much tougher (if he can even do it without redding out...)  As you get closer to him, he needs to push the stick even harder forward...

Now, with you slightly to one side, if he rolls his wings toward you, pushing the stick forward makes him turn away from you, lol! 

All that adds up to a shot that's really pretty hard to make, which allows you to survive long enough to begin the fight...  As you pass under his nose you can begin an immelman or other reversal.

Another key point in avoiding the HO is to recognize the situations that will lead to it sooner, and "adjust things" to foil it.  I honestly expect my opponent to go for the HO at every single opportunity, and just fly to make it fail.  If he doesn't go for it, that's fine, but I never count on that.

Avoiding the HO takes some practice to master, but once you figure it out, you'll probably reach a point where you seldom get hit by it. 

[mechanic]

Another tactic from a completely different angle is to wait longer before you break. If you break early you give them more time to react to your evasive and line up another shot. If you can judge accurately the moment they are going to open fire and evade at that moment, more often than not a HO dweeb will not be able to react fast enough to line up again. Also think about the profile you are giving them. If you break early and turn away you are giving them a larger target to aim at. Sometimes if you fly straight an level right at them they will miss completely anyhow. Try not to be predictable and give away your move too early. It's harder than turning early, but equally effective once mastered.

[WMLute]

to add...

give the idiot what looks like a shot and don't be there when they take it.

takes a bit of practice to get the timing down but that is what I do.

you really don't have to do any super fancy or difficult moves but the timing is critical.

[Dawger]

I used to demonstrate/teach HO avoidance in another game. I could usually turn someone who complained about the HO into someone who welcomed them.

There are two different HO avoidance situations and what you do in each depends on your plan for the fight.

If you plan an angles fight you want a technique that avoids the HO shot and gives you angles.

If you plan an energy fight or plan to extend through the merge you want a technique that preserves energy while avoiding the shot.

Most everyone assumes the HO situation is a co-alt level merge but this isn't always the case. There are lots of pure vertical merges in AH and they are some of the most dangerous.

The key to any successful shot avoidance is to present the enemy with what looks like a good shot while he is outside of guns range and then DO SOMETHING DIFFERENT when he reaches guns range. In a front quarter merge you don't usually have to do very much to make him miss.

The most straightforward method and easiest teaching example is one already presented here. If you get your nose low and force him to unload to keep pointing at you as he closes to guns range all you have to do is convert to any positive G maneuver as he reaches trigger time and you have a very good chance of avoiding the shot. You increase your chances of avoiding the shot if you make the positive maneuver out of the maneuver plane of the bandit. If you are both wings level and slight roll (15-20 degrees) and pull will take you out of the bandit maneuver plane and cause him to require a heavy G load to put rounds on target. At high speeds the bandit will have to be blacked out to get rounds on target in most cases (and many will do exactly that pull to blackout and hold the trigger down...thats why it is important to maneuver out of plane)

If you choose an angles fight with a guy constantly trying to front quarter snapshots you will quickly gain an angles advantage if the planes are fairly evenly matched in turn performance. This is because the act of aiming and shooting requires the bandit be maneuvering at less than maximum performance. His split second relaxation of G to take the shot gives you angles advantage if you stay flying your max performance angles fight. It takes some discipline to stay focused on flying at maximum performance, maneuvering to avoid his snapshots and avoiding the temptation to take snapshots of your own but if you have that discipline you can win angles fights against aircraft with superior performance but undisciplined pilots.

But it mostly boils down to the first step.

The first step in avoiding the HO is not participating in trying to get a shot yourself. If your focus is totally on avoiding his snapshot and maneuvering for position, avoiding the HO pretty much happens automatically. If, however, you are trying to get your own front quarter snapshot in against a guy doing the same thing and he kills you then you just aren't as good at it as he is.

[humble]

As mentioned above avoiding a "HO" isn't all that different. The 1st thing to realize is that 90% of "Head On's" really aren't, they are actually front quarter shots of varying degree's. Most of the time we view HO's as merge specific but they can occur at anytime. I posted this clip over in the FA forum to try and answer a question on padlock views and why so many discourage the use. It does however show to potential "HO" set ups. The 1st is a vertical where the F6F goes over the top. You can see prior to that how I slide a bit right and get out of plane, notice how this adjustment gets me in a position where he has to come further around, in effect I'm denying a "HO" before it can ever happen and forcing him to break off and avoid since I'm literally sitting on his reverse.

That leads me directly to a lead to lag snap shot and lag pursuit...where I nose right over...into an inbound 110 at close range. This is the inevitable "X on 1" and you had to HO we see on 200 all the time. The reality is all he is doing is flying to the fight. You can see how easily his fixation on me as a target works to his detriment.  This is a demonstration of how getting shot fixated gets you killed, however without a clear understanding of the principles and immediate action I'd have been lit up.

Any of the trainers can work with you and give you the foundation you need to turn any potential HO into an opportunity...
[url] http://beachheadcrm.info/snaphook/views.ahf/url]

[guncrasher]

this is from experience, I will ho any plane that comes straight at me.  i dont go out of my way but if his nose is pointing at me, he's gonna get it in the face.  then I hear about 80% of the guys complaining about why I ho them.  I takes two, if early in the engagement you move in any direction then i wont shoot.  it is just that simple, most guys that dont want to get ho'd will fly straight into somebody then whine about it.


semp

[pervert]

to add...

give the idiot what looks like a shot and don't be there when they take it.

takes a bit of practice to get the timing down but that is what I do.

you really don't have to do any super fancy or difficult moves but the timing is critical.

+ 1 timing is everything and it only comes through experience and reading what kinda speed your opponent is packing and how he flys. As a general rule the more speed he packs the less you have to do to avoid him, the more e you can retain in your evasive manoeuvres the more chance you have of surviving this relys on adapting to the situation as it happens and is especially true of you vs many cons.

The big mistake people learning evasive manoeuvring always make is bleeding unnecessary amounts of e by chopping too much throttle. It may work the first pass but further down the line it gets them too slow to manoeuvre and gets them killed.

[shiv]

This is a grief. No doubt about it. About 90% of my engagements with an enemy who is co-alt and heading directly for me end with me tore up in pieces. I'll come into a fight looking for someone to pick or merge with and there is always some who wants to fly directly at me with every intention of putting lead into my face. At about 1k from closing in with the enemy, I'll veer off to the right and deliberately try to put myself off from HO'ing him in order to just merge with him and begin the dogfight. But no, the jerk stays on the war path and just turns into me, guns a blazing, and forces me to fly through a hail of bullets. I mean I'm doing everything i can to avoid the HO (barrel rolling, changing alt) and I still get pegged. How does anyone ever fight and win against this without getting into a jousting match with the bigger guns winning? Or do I need to get with everyone else and start HO'ing as well because its usually the higher ranking fighters who do this mess.

I'm surprised you say it's the higher ranking fighters doing this to you since HOing in general is a poor tactic.  All good advice above, I'll add that I usually don't have any trouble by ducking under and then reversing in the vertical.  His HO will have put him out of position and I'll have gained angles and should be able to put him away.  The key is to have the discipline not to HO back and turn it into a coin-flip.

[Buck]

This is a grief. No doubt about it. About 90% of my engagements with an enemy who is co-alt and heading directly for me end with me tore up in pieces. I'll come into a fight looking for someone to pick or merge with and there is always some who wants to fly directly at me with every intention of putting lead into my face. At about 1k from closing in with the enemy, I'll veer off to the right and deliberately try to put myself off from HO'ing him in order to just merge with him and begin the dogfight. But no, the jerk stays on the war path and just turns into me, guns a blazing, and forces me to fly through a hail of bullets. I mean I'm doing everything i can to avoid the HO (barrel rolling, changing alt) and I still get pegged. How does anyone ever fight and win against this without getting into a jousting match with the bigger guns winning? Or do I need to get with everyone else and start HO'ing as well because its usually the higher ranking fighters who do this mess.

I'm not sure who all has replied to your post, or what they have said, so I'm just going to give ya my tip, rolling and moving about is not going to save you from getting hit head on, if your still rolling and swinging around and going crazy, but still headed straight at him, 75% of the time your going to die and is a bad idea, reason i know this is because I've done many things about avoiding a head on, just play it smart and think, the best way to survive a head on strike is to start a (Fake Dive). drop your nose toward the ground, as you drop about 100 200 or 300 feet below from where you were at, start turning left or right very hard, which ever way is hardest for him to hit you. ( the key to this move is timing, with out that theirs nothing)

Something like this is not easy to point out on a forum, its easier just to video record it and leave it at that.

[mtnman]

I'm not sure who all has replied to your post, or what they have said, so I'm just going to give ya my tip, rolling and moving about is not going to save you from getting hit head on, if your still rolling and swinging around and going crazy, but still headed straight at him, 75% of the time your going to die and is a bad idea, reason i know this is because I've done many things about avoiding a head on, just play it smart and think, the best way to survive a head on strike is to start a (Fake Dive). drop your nose toward the ground, as you drop about 100 200 or 300 feet below from where you were at, start turning left or right very hard, which ever way is hardest for him to hit you. ( the key to this move is timing, with out that theirs nothing)

Something like this is not easy to point out on a forum, its easier just to video record it and leave it at that.

Do you have any film of you doing this? 

I could be misinterpreting your maneuver, but it really doesn't sound like a good idea.  Sure, it avoids the HO (since you're not flying at him anymore), but it sounds like you're taking a good idea and tossing away any advantage you've built.

[Buck]

Do you have any film of you doing this? 

I could be misinterpreting your maneuver, but it really doesn't sound like a good idea.  Sure, it avoids the HO (since you're not flying at him anymore), but it sounds like you're taking a good idea and tossing away any advantage you've built.

Its not just dive dive dive. that would be dumb  . you just have to dive a little to confuse your enemy then bank away hard before he starts firing. rather then staying on the same level of altitude which he is set on range, if he's skilled enough to know where the bullets will take place, he will most likely hit you, which is where this move tops both skilled and none skilled pilots. the dive makes it harder to know where the bullets might hit, there for leaving the pilot with doubt, causing him to miss his chance in order to hit his target.... make sense ?


PS if the pilot which you're facing is dumb, and just shoots, he has a 10% chance of hitting you  .