That is the thing, they never run out of energy. They can always keep it and/or build it up faster than I seem to. The "best" ones won't even attempt to saddle up, they'll just fire a few rounds and zoom heavenward again. The others can go into a climbing right hand spiral that I can't stay with in the Camel if they start to find themselves at a disadvantage.
The really odd thing is that I got into a series of several fights with one guy (one who started off actually fighting, until he lost a couple, then it was just right hand spiral climbing for the rest of them) and it seemed like I could gain on him if we went into a series of loops, but if he just went into a climbing right hand spiral I couldn't do a thing to touch him. There were a couple times when he would go into the climbing spiral when he got into a bad spot and I could manage a low yo-yo or two across the circle and land a couple hits, but after a couple of circles I couldn't even get the energy up to do that. So then I'd straighten out so that he could swoop back down onto my 6 and we'd start fighting again (because if I didn't we would just make two stupid little circles in the sky, like the top and bottom of a can).
I could do a couple loops after he came back down and we'd be back to a roughly neutral state, so then he'd go back into the climbing spiral until I gave up and let him back onto my 6.
It actually wasn't too bad, it was sort of fun. Of course, he wasn't that "good" at what he was trying to do, because when "good" pilots do it there is more or less diddly all I can do about it, they never commit to an actual fight. They'll just sit up above you in their circle-jerk of win until you let them have a bore n zoom pass at your 6, then they'll zoom back up to trace little right hand circles in the sky.
And yea, I could fly higher, I could log off and never come back into the arena too. Both of them are viable options, just not exactly what I was looking for.
Thanks for your wisdom though, I really hadn't though of it.