To answer your first question about turns, I have to give the not very helpful and very vague "it depends" answer. There's a couple reasons for this and I'll try and explain what I try to do. I'm very much a layman in terms of the how's and why's things work in here, and I just flat don't understand some of the intricacies of flight physics and ACM's beyond the basic level, but I'll try and explain a few things that I'm thinking about. I've found over the years that a common mistake a lot of newer players make regardless of the plane they are flying is that they equate pulling harder on the joystick with a tighter turn, this is true to a point until that maximum G turn burns all your E and leaves you with nothing left in the bank to work with. I try to find that sweet spot that's just tight enough to accomplish what I want it to do, flaps work the same way if I need to move the nose a little more, out come the flaps once the nose is where I want it, or if I don't need the help anymore they come back in to try and save that extra little bit of E. Sometimes I'll pull back a little more on the stick and try and tighten the turn, sometimes I'll relax that pressure and let the nose dip below the horizon and try and build or conserve a little speed. An old buddy of mine Mathman, who used to play years ago and was a mean F6F driver once told me "let the plane do the work", meaning sometimes you can get more with less input on the stick than trying to hamfist and muscle your way through everything.
To speak to your second question about completing a rope it's a matter of practice, how close you can judge their E state, angles, and when they are going to fall off. You can build a big margin of error in early and be well out of their guns but you probably won't be able to get them going back down before they can accelerate back up to speed and try and set you up for a reversal or extend. Cut it too close and they get the shot, but with practice you can walk that line where they can't shoot you but you can tell when they've just about had it and time that flop and be roaring back down hill as they run out of smash and are meat on the table.
Here's a film from a fight I had vs a A6M in MW a while back, the guy I was fighting has been around for a while, is experienced, and a tough/good fight. I was having a really hard time because he was smart enough to conserve his E, making it work for him. Some A6M drivers will burn E trying to get the fight slow as quick as possible and you can use that against them, this time I was finding it difficult to get on top and control the fight, the first merge he defeated and I had to extend and reset. The 2nd I actually should have had a shot around 3:30 but I over controlled and almost lost it. The third merge I tried setting him up a bit because I knew he had just watched me walk away from him twice and I was counting on him chasing if I threw a little bait at him it worked out and his speed built a little too high and I nailed a lucky shot on the overshoot.
http://www.mediafire.com/?n0w2ldzv6htus3bHope that all makes sense and helps.
