Help, something I just can't improve on!

[Latrobe]

Fantastic film Mace! I will be watching that a few dozen times. The way you handled those two and isolated the threat sector blew my mind! Words can explain so much, but video explains even more.   

[Gman]

Wow.  Does anyone else feel like they're in graduate school for air combat?  Man alive, I cannot believe how much I'm learning by reading and watching these films.  Thanks again Mace, I know you've said you're kept really busy re life and work, I really appreciate the time you put into these long and informative posts.

I've put this into practice in recent nights, the other night we had a practice for the upcoming scenario, and I was flying against some of the best pilots in one of the best squadrons (JG11 and Big Rat's guys).  I flew an hour in the F4 109 vs Spit 5's, and found that isolating multiple threats into 180 degrees, and sometimes even getting them into 90 or 45 degrees of sky allowed me to use the F4's speed and climb advantage to get into pitch overs, and be extremely aggressive against opponents in better turning planes who are excellent pilots and shots.

[Latrobe]

Straight lines are turning out to be just as fun as turny lines! 




In our merge I was at 290, I could roughly guess that the Ki84 was slightly slower than me which I was correct as he was at 250. I fly the more straight line while he turns and as I see his nose coming around I adjust my flight path to be coming over the top of his. This forces him to pull yet another turn while I'm flying straight again. I come down over the top at 57mph and get him as he stalls at 50mph. Am I doing this right?

[FLS]

If anyone is scratching their head over acronyms...  NRG = energy, E = energy, NME = enemy, BRD = barrel roll defense.

[-pjk--]

Best topic i have seen in years. Lot of information(angles and energy and how/why to use) and comments. I even noticed Latrobe figured in practice...

[Mace2004]

Straight lines are turning out to be just as fun as turny lines! 

(Image removed from quote.)


In our merge I was at 290, I could roughly guess that the Ki84 was slightly slower than me which I was correct as he was at 250. I fly the more straight line while he turns and as I see his nose coming around I adjust my flight path to be coming over the top of his. This forces him to pull yet another turn while I'm flying straight again. I come down over the top at 57mph and get him as he stalls at 50mph. Am I doing this right?

Conceptually very similar to the extension pitchback and some of the principles apply but it's not the same.  This would be a vertical extension and works because, like a regular extension, it gives you separation.  Some of the other extension/pitchback principles apply in that at the merge you effectively turn just about 45 degress nose up while the Ki does more like 120 degrees, all probably under pretty high G.  I think your second vertical turn to position yourself directly above his flight path is a nice touch.  He started with a bit less E, burned more E in his high G vertical turn and now you force him to turn again and keep his nose up which bleeds him dry. 

A vertical extension is a nice technique to learn but it's complicated a bit by combat trim.  CT only knows your speed and uses a look up table to set your trim but it's based on wings level flight.  It doesn't know when you're going vertical and don't really need (or want) the nose up trim but the added trim tends to bring your plane more nose up or even over on its back because of the increasing nose up trim as you decelerate.  The best way to do the vertical extension is to set your desired climb angle and then bunt a bit (use some forward stick) to maintain the angle (or turn CT off and manually trim) instead of letting CT turn your vertical climb into an arc.  An arc means your vertical zoom is less effective because trim is turning you and that's creating induced drag.  Also, just simple geometry shows you that it'll cost you some altitude because you're going the long way around..  You won't get as high and, in some cases, if he's close you'll give your adversary the opportunity to point across the circle at you and lead turn you on the way down.  Another mistake I've seen is someone who thinks they're in something like a 60 degree climb and then finds out that CT has brought him closer to a pure vertical climb that he didn't intend (or maybe wasn't prepared for).  The effects of these details are small and don't appear to have affected your fight but they can be an issue at times.

So, question for you.  What were your indicators that he had less E than you?  Had he been climbing? just finished a fight? just have less altitude? or something else?

[Latrobe]

We had been fighting for a short while before that, this was a re-merge as I attempt to perform an extension pitchback (after re-watching the film I noticed this). During the fight before I had the altitude advantage the whole time while he was making turns below me the entire time. This probably subconsciously put the thought in my mind "he has to have less E than me", but the way I determined he had less E was the way I've always done it before. On the merge I watch the icon and how fast it drops from 1K to 0 and at the same time I watch my opponents aircraft and the ground below him. I watch how fast he can get from point A to point B (this clump of trees to that barn), and this gives me a rough estimate of how fast he is going. Of course this only works for me when we're engaged close to the deck.

I probably should post the film as well. Then you experts can tell me how well I perform the extension pitchback (9:40 mark of the film)
http://www.mediafire.com/?ntyc912ya9a09pw

The fight with the Ki84 starts at the 8:30 mark.

---------------
1 more film because why not? Film makes for great learning material!
Has some BRD against a higher P51 about 4 minutes in and then a long fight against a P47 at 7:30 mark.
The 10:10 mark is where before I would have turned hard back into the fight, but then I remembered the advice in this thread and do an extension pitchback to the best of my abilities. Had I turned instead like I used to I think I would have died.

http://www.mediafire.com/?7h3oibu96j0w5u8

[Gman]

or something else?

Heh, instructor hat on with hat one, am I right Mace?  I'll bite, to me it's obvious that the other things you  mentioned aren't the "real" answer to that question, and I really want to know what it is.  I'm usually near the deck in my fights too, and I typically go with exactly what Latrobe described, using landmarks and the distance between them to judge the NME E state.  That only works for me however if he's flying in the horizontal, giving me the opportunity to observe his velocity/time between two fixed landmark points.  

How do you do it if he's vertical somewhat?  I know there is the obvious answer of his nose being up = burning E, and nose low = gaining E, but I sense you have an answer to that posed question that is a little more complex and accurate, n'est pas?  I know you can observe the con distance icon, and the - or + is an indicator of the NME E relative to my E, but that still doesn't answer to what his E precisely is, to me it's still just a relative value to my aircraft.  Is it just something that comes with experience once you start considering this stuff?  I know I can look at my airspeed/altitude/situation and try and form some kind of solution based on the 2 ways I use that I mention, landmark and con +/-, but I still feel like I'm missing something.  

This is something I really struggle with, judging E state, and to me, all this great information regarding ACM can only be put into practice once you CAN judge the NME E state, otherwise you're just skating uphill IMO.  It feels a little (a lot) like I'm trying to run before I can walk I guess with this specifically.  

[mthrockmor]

I certainly don't want to be presumptuous. I drag them out into a chase, ensure they don't get over top of me then turn into them at 1.5k. That gives me plenty of time to get my nose around, burn little altitude in doing this. They will either press hard, which allows me to possibly shift to the offense. Sometimes they will see what is going to happen and straighten out of pull up. The moment I see them do this I immediately straighten out myself.

A bit of a dance but it minimizes my E and alt loss, all the while they are losing both. At some point they have to commit to the attack at which point the knife fight starts.

Maybe not the best but seems to work.

[Mace2004]

Heh, instructor hat on with hat one, am I right Mace?  I'll bite, to me it's obvious that the other things you  mentioned aren't the "real" answer to that question, and I really want to know what it is.  I'm usually near the deck in my fights too, and I typically go with exactly what Latrobe described, using landmarks and the distance between them to judge the NME E state.  That only works for me however if he's flying in the horizontal, giving me the opportunity to observe his velocity/time between two fixed landmark points.  

How do you do it if he's vertical somewhat?  I know there is the obvious answer of his nose being up = burning E, and nose low = gaining E, but I sense you have an answer to that posed question that is a little more complex and accurate, n'est pas?  I know you can observe the con distance icon, and the - or + is an indicator of the NME E relative to my E, but that still doesn't answer to what his E precisely is, to me it's still just a relative value to my aircraft.  Is it just something that comes with experience once you start considering this stuff?  I know I can look at my airspeed/altitude/situation and try and form some kind of solution based on the 2 ways I use that I mention, landmark and con +/-, but I still feel like I'm missing something.  

This is something I really struggle with, judging E state, and to me, all this great information regarding ACM can only be put into practice once you CAN judge the NME E state, otherwise you're just skating uphill IMO.  It feels a little (a lot) like I'm trying to run before I can walk I guess with this specifically.  

LOL.  In all honesty my question was perfectly legit.  Latrobe had previously asked about estimating E and I was just curious as to how he did it in this case.  Determining E is one of the hardest things you can do as there are few good signs.  We were well aware of the E measurement conundrum in the F14 community because an F14 constantly communicates it's speed.  The wingsweep is automatic so someone else could just look at the wings and know roughly how fast you are, it was like flying a big airspeed indicator around while we were left to our best estimates of what he was doing.  Sometimes though we used it to our advantage.  At the first merge the adversary wanted to know if we're going for NRG or angles and then adjust their fight accordingly.  The Tomcat has it's wings out he's ready to turn but they see an F14 come screaming in with it's wings pinned back and he'd go damn, that guy's got some smack and he's going to go straight vertical!  So the adversary would plug in burner and get as much speed as he could and then go straight up after the Tomcat.  Rather, he'd go straight up to where the Tomcat was supposed to have been.  When he doesn't see the Tomcat in front he looks behind just as he get's the Fox-2, Guns! calls from the Tomcat with right behind him with his wings full out . Lots of guys forgot that the Tomcat's wingsweep also had a manual mode and so we could just swing those pretty wings back and let them think we're at Mach .9 when we're really closer to 400kts. When the adversary went vertical you just popped the wings out, pulled up and let him fly out in front of you and shoot him.

[Latrobe]

Just want to say thank you once again for all the amazing help! Over the past few days I've definitely seen an improvement in my ability to survive against the odds. Just yesterday I was landing 3,4, even 5 kills back to back! This is a big improvement over my usual 2-3 kills and die. Now all that's left is to practice what I've learned to the point where I can masterfully out fight any plane without having to think about it.


  Everyone in this thread!

[Babalonian]

Just want to say thank you once again for all the amazing help! Over the past few days I've definitely seen an improvement in my ability to survive against the odds. Just yesterday I was landing 3,4, even 5 kills back to back! This is a big improvement over my usual 2-3 kills and die.

Good luck, enjoy! 

Now all that's left is to practice what I've learned to the point where I can masterfully out fight any plane without having to think about it.


  Everyone in this thread!

We'll see ya at the next La7/Brew/Spit16 whine thread then.   

 

[Mace2004]

Just want to say thank you once again for all the amazing help! Over the past few days I've definitely seen an improvement in my ability to survive against the odds. Just yesterday I was landing 3,4, even 5 kills back to back! This is a big improvement over my usual 2-3 kills and die. Now all that's left is to practice what I've learned to the point where I can masterfully out fight any plane without having to think about it.


  Everyone in this thread!

I'm very glad the discussions have helped, best of luck!