How to regain lost E? (F4U)

[ink]

You are confusing energy with speed (just the kinetic energy part).

You have two kind of energy: kinetic and potential, but lets call them speed and alt.
You also have a single energy source - engine power
and two kinds of energy sinks: parasitic drag that simply scales with your speed and induced drag which depends on your maneuvering.

Speed bleeds enrgy to the parasitic drag. At low speeds this bleed is weak enough to be compensated by the engine power. You therefore gain energy over time. If you dive and pick up speed, the energy bleed increase significantly (like the square of the speed) and you are not gaining net energy. Therefore if you need mor eenergy you have to be slow.

Alt is banked energy - its is stored and does not bleed. This is why the most efficient way to build energy is to climb - what E you gain, you immediately store in alt so it does not bleed.

When you zoom climb you do not loose energy - you convert the speed into alt. Diving is the was to cash back the stored energy into something you can use, but remember that if your speed is high you are not gaining new energy due to the drag bleed. On the other hand you can actually use this energy to do something. Being low than you opponent is not a disadvantageous position! being lower ENERGY than you opponent is - this means that if you are lower but faster, such that your total energy is higher than his you have the upper hand! You can zoom up to him to his alt and still be as fast or faster than he is. He can dive down to you, but will not catch you because if he cashes his alt for speed it is still not enough to match you.

Speed means that ability to maneuver and the ability to position. So you cash alt for speed and then cash speed into maneuvering. There is absolutely no advantage in being higher when considering maneuvering. It is even disadvantageous. If both planes have the same total E, the higher one is slower (more stationary target that cannot move out of the way), cannot maneuver as well (G limited), and has gravity against him in maneuvers - yes, against!. The plane that attacks uphill (with lots of speed!) can pull more G, can change his actual position in the sky (because he is moving faster)  and the next pull to point at the other guy will have the gravity vector inside his turn, meaning that gravity makes him turn faster.

The rules of thumb are:
* Energy is both speed and alt.
* Higher is just a vertical position, not an advantage.
* You want to go up to store and build more energy in times when you do not need to maneuver a lot.
* The alt is there just as an energy bank, waiting for you to cash it into speed and then into maneuvering at the right moment.
* If you die slow and high you are doing it wrong. It is like saving all your life to die a rich man - what is the point in that?

I pretty much agree with most every thing here..except what I high lighted in red.....

having a superior ALT is an advantage...I am really surprised by your statement that its not....in the MA it is the best advantage there is....a crappy plane with a good stick in it will kill the lower con in any plane most of the time.....if its not an advantage then why try to Climb above to dictate the fight.......the HIGHER con dictates the fight.

one higher con can destroy(if he is a good shot and knows his plane) any number of nme cons lower then him......

to say having ALT on a nme con is not an advantage is very wrong.

[lengro]

to say having ALT on a nme con is not an advantage is very wrong.

Unless of course, the lower one has speed enough to give him more total energy.

[Midway]

I pretty much agree with most every thing here..except what I high lighted in red.....

having a superior ALT is an advantage...I am really surprised by your statement that its not....in the MA it is the best advantage there is....a crappy plane with a good stick in it will kill the lower con in any plane most of the time.....if its not an advantage then why try to Climb above to dictate the fight.......the HIGHER con dictates the fight.

one higher con can destroy(if he is a good shot and knows his plane) any number of nme cons lower then him......

to say having ALT on a nme con is not an advantage is very wrong.

He meant "E advantage".   High and slow = low and fast in terms of energy in many cases. To be sure higher has the E advantage, you need to be aware of the speed of the lower con.  If he is really fast, the lower con may even have the E advantage.  262s do that a lot to me. 

[pervert]

I pretty much agree with most every thing here..except what I high lighted in red.....

having a superior ALT is an advantage...I am really surprised by your statement that its not....in the MA it is the best advantage there is....a crappy plane with a good stick in it will kill the lower con in any plane most of the time.....if its not an advantage then why try to Climb above to dictate the fight.......the HIGHER con dictates the fight.

one higher con can destroy(if he is a good shot and knows his plane) any number of nme cons lower then him......

to say having ALT on a nme con is not an advantage is very wrong.

Hes right it is just a position, and thats a good way to look at it, I'm sure theres a lot of guys who had the alt advantage in a furball commit themselves to say a rope on a lower con assuming they had the advantage and have him climb right up and kill them wondering how they got that E answer is they had it in the first place.

Alt is just a means to temporarily overcome drag which is limiting the thrust of the engine to go faster, having it means you have the potential to go faster not that you are faster relative to a lower con.

[PuppetZ]

Being slow at any alt is asking for trouble. Very good pieces of advice all over this thread. One I'd like to add : use manual trim if you need to go flaps down. In a hog, combat trim is just good to fly to target. It'll fight you by making the nose go way up when adding flaps. So no point in that. I have it mapped to one of the rotary axis on my x45. I take off in combat trim, climb in combat trim and once I get to alt, I trim neutral at 275mph (use level auto pilot to trim ailerons and rudder, set the elevator with the thumb wheel).

 

[shiv]

Now all I have to work on is learning to stall fight and trying to initiate a rolling scissor.

I really need to take a rolling scissors lesson but I do practice them all the time. Generally you want to start a rolling scissors when you're at a disadvantage. One way is to get the con to overshoot your flight path and then roll back at him.

A simple example: faster con is coming up behind you. You pull into a hard left turn. The opponent tries to match your turn but is going to fast to sustain it and is pushed outside of your turn and is now behind and right of you. So if you were looking at it from above you'd see that he has overshot your flight path.

That's when you pull up and roll back to the right, aggressively pulling into the con. With the right timing he'll pull up at you, probably shooting, hopefully missing, and you'll be in a rolling scissors. You've taken a defensive move - the hard break turn - and turned it into offense.

The timing of the reverse is everything or he'll get a shot at you when you roll back. You want to roll back at him right when he's trying to correct the overshoot. You want him committed to turning back into you when you roll back at him so he'll be trapped in the scissors. So reversing back into him too early and no scissors, too late and he's got an easy shot.

That's just one example, but in general any time a con overshoots your flight path is an opportunity to roll back at him and try to get a scissors going.

Excellent thread on the scissors and the barrel roll defense here: http://bbs.hitechcreations.com/smf/index.php?topic=276908.25

[Soulyss]

I pretty much agree with most every thing here..except what I high lighted in red.....

having a superior ALT is an advantage...I am really surprised by your statement that its not....in the MA it is the best advantage there is....a crappy plane with a good stick in it will kill the lower con in any plane most of the time.....if its not an advantage then why try to Climb above to dictate the fight.......the HIGHER con dictates the fight.

one higher con can destroy(if he is a good shot and knows his plane) any number of nme cons lower then him......

to say having ALT on a nme con is not an advantage is very wrong.

Perhaps instead of saying "Higher is just a vertical position, not an advantage" it would be better to phrase it as "Higher is just a vertical position, not necessarily an advantage".  I think the purpose of the discussion was to get newer players to understand and contemplate both speed and alt (kinetic and potential) energy.  I see a lot of frustration from some of the new players because they can't understand what happened and how the lost, and a lot of that frustration comes from statements like "we were co-e" when they meant to say co-alt. 

Having altitude can definitely be an advantage, but I think it's a common mistake to think have more altitude than our opponent automatically equates to having more E.

 

[ink]

Perhaps instead of saying "Higher is just a vertical position, not an advantage" it would be better to phrase it as "Higher is just a vertical position, not necessarily an advantage".  I think the purpose of the discussion was to get newer players to understand and contemplate both speed and alt (kinetic and potential) energy.  I see a lot of frustration from some of the new players because they can't understand what happened and how the lost, and a lot of that frustration comes from statements like "we were co-e" when they meant to say co-alt. 

Having altitude can definitely be an advantage, but I think it's a common mistake to think have more altitude than our opponent automatically equates to having more E.

 

this I can understand and completely agree with.....

the higher con does have an advantage, but yes knowing your nme's E state is vital, I used hear it all the time....damn Hurri no way can you climb up to me...they didn't realize I was doing like 400....


the easiest way to judge someone's E state is the distance counter,  whats the nme's closure rate...this will tell you exactly what E state the nme has.

[bozon]

having a superior ALT is an advantage...I am really surprised by your statement that its not....in the MA it is the best advantage there is....a crappy plane with a good stick in it will kill the lower con in any plane most of the time.....if its not an advantage then why try to Climb above to dictate the fight.......the HIGHER con dictates the fight.

one higher con can destroy(if he is a good shot and knows his plane) any number of nme cons lower then him......

If the two planes have equal total E, then the low-fast one is generally in a better position than the high-slow one. You go across shops and suddenly spot a good "today only" deal - you can take the opportunity if you have your money in your pocket. You cannot take advantage of  the deal if you have lots of money which is locked away in savings accounts in the bank.

You will find that most vets prefer to be lower then the opponent in the merge. You will also find many vets "hiding" their true E in a furball by diving a bit lower than their opponents: It makes them look like low threat and players don't track them with much attention. Attacking from below is the region in the sphere that is least sampled by the pilots when they are looking around - no SA means a quick victory. If players do spot you, most think alt=advantage and will defend by zooming up and trying to rope you - worst move ever, quick victory.

If speed is not considered, Alt alone is just a vertical position.

[Stoney]

If the two planes have equal total E, then the low-fast one is generally in a better position than the high-slow one. 

Depends on the weights of the planes.  The plane with the lower weight has a higher specific energy, which is a better metric than total energy.  From a tactical perspective, "co-e", I'll take the altitude.

[Wiley]

...damn Hurri no way can you climb up to me...they didn't realize I was doing like 400....

I'd be willing to bet this scenario is the single biggest cause of new guy 'cheater' whines in the game.

The plane with the lower weight has a higher specific energy, which is a better metric than total energy.  From a tactical perspective, "co-e", I'll take the altitude.

I've never heard the term 'specific energy' and Google has failed me at least as far as how it applies to aircraft.  What does it mean and how do you apply it to ACM?

Wiley.

[Big Rat]

How to regain lost E? (F4U)

Probably a better question is how to maintain E in aF4U.  The hog is so poor at regaining E, it's better to concentrate on maintaining what you have vs trying to get it back.  A couple trick to this. One is altitude is a great E bank that you can withdraw from when needed, so keep as much of it as you can as long as you can.  Once you withdraw from this bank with a Hog, trying to put a deposit back in is tough, becouse of the hog's poor climb and acceleration.  Two is you have to very quick with your flap work, quick flap dumps to get the high instantaneous turn followed by quick retraction is a must to get the most out of a hog in a dogfight. This keeps as much control surface out of the air as you can, along with still getting the desired results.  If your flap buttons aren't within finger reach you better move them so they are.  The Corsair isn't the hardest plane to fly in this game, but It's one the busiest and takes a long time to get real proficient with.  But it's one of the few planes that can quickly transition from a B&Z fight to T&B and back again, it's very comfortable at both.

 
BigRat   

[Saxman]

The Corsair isn't the hardest plane to fly in this game, but It's one the busiest....
 

Very important point, that. To really get the most out of the Hog you're going to be working a LOT of your controls: throttle, flaps, rudder, trim, even the landing gear come into play (your mileage may vary, but while I recommend against using them IN a fight, they're very handy for preventing overspeed when making your initial dive). I STRONGLY recommend investing in a good set of rudder pedals as you really want to work that rudder, more probably than any other aircraft (I have always maintained that effective use of the RUDDER may be even MORE important than the flaps in the Corsair).

[titanic3]

Thanks for the help and info guys.  I'm understanding a lot more about E management now.

I went into the TA yesterday and asked Stogey for some help. I had the task of sticking on his 6 for as long as I could and I'm glad to say I sat there like glue. He was in a P38 and I was in a -1D.

One more question, for convergence, do you guys do point convergence or zone convergence? I currently set all the guns to 450 and I start firing at the moment 400 appears on the con. It works fine as long as I'm on their 6, but when they fly past me or I have to do a deflection shot, my bullets either shred them to bits or miss completely because they're all coming in 1 spot. With the latter happening more often than I'd like it to.

[bozon]

I've never heard the term 'specific energy' and Google has failed me at least as far as how it applies to aircraft.  What does it mean and how do you apply it to ACM?

In science and engineering "specific" usually means "per mass" (or per other equivalent quantity that describes total amount ), like specific heat.

The absolute total energy is next to meaningless in the context of E fighting. When people talk about relative "energy" states, they usually mean specific energy.