...Or can they? o.O
Sooo Yea, basically turn fighting an A6M with 3-6K of alt on me in a K4, with some karma for a picking spit16 at the end.
RedBull,
Let me preface this by saying that you are a very talented stick, and from the fights I've had with you during my brief stint in the cartoon skies a few months back, I was very impressed.
But it is a disservice to claim this is turn fighting, or in any way utilizing ACM that is in any way remotely realistic.
I don't fault you for using it, since the flight model allows it, but I still question its tactical real life effectiveness.
I am specifically referring to one maneuver (if I can call it that) that is repeated
ad nauseam in the video. I have seen it used by others, and indeed I am guilty of using it to some extent.
I discovered this peculiarity in the flight model when I returned last spring, and cataloged it in almost every plane in my video Kung Fu Fighting: http://youtu.be/06f0GF0VAwA
At the top of the scissors, and indeed whenever the A6M is in a position along the right side of your plane ( 4 - 1 o'clock ) you induce a nose-swinging stall / spin maneuver where the nose of your plane pivots to the right as much as 30 degrees or more. You are departing controlled flight, as the stall horn turns off, and turns back on when you re-enter controlled flight. Because this maneuver can be so quickly executed, airspeed drops dramatically by as much as 50-75 mph, and then bounces back to the previous airspeed almost
instantly when controlled flight is resumed.
I have several films executing this maneuver vs a number of opponents, and it seems most adequate in the 109K4, and to a lesser extent in the Ki84 or F6F. Attempting this in some planes will just throw you into a deadly spin, such as the Ta 152. In the 109K, it is easily recoverable.
My questions to HTC remain:
What forces in flight dynamics allows the aircraft, through simple hard left rudder and hard right stick input to,
1) throw the plane radically sideways without losing forward momentum
2) reduce speed by a significant amount and then regain that speed almost instantly when the maneuver is complete
3) why in some aircraft does this cause nearly unrecoverable spins, and in others is entirely forgiving?
I somehow missed Shaw's coverage of this "maneuver" in "Fighter Combat Tactics and Maneuvering".
