LtCondor - Overshoots, angles, and some other stuff

[Latrobe]

Here are some more pointers from our time in the TA.


Lag Pursuit
At point #1 I'm coming through and pulling out of a dive as you pass below me. You had a 50 MPH advantage on me and you use that speed to start going into the vertical. Rather than try and pull a tighter turn to try and get behind you and follow you with a pure or lead pursuit, I loosen my turn and enter a lag pursuit in order to gain a little E and keep behind you. At point #2 as you reach the top of your loop I am continuing my lag pursuit in a gentle climb behind you. I've now gained up to 210 MPH while you're looping over the top at 100 MPH. At point #3 you are coming down from your loop at 130 MPH while I continue my lag pursuit climb up over the top of you at 120 MPH. I did not enter a pure or lead pursuit at any point because I didn't want to waste any E after seeing the fight was going vertical, and I didn't want you coming over the top of your loop and getting a shot on me as I reach stall speeds. The lag pursuit put me in a position where you are not able to get a shot as you come through your loop as you don't have enough speed to pull lead with just 500 yards of separation.




Merge and Boelcke's Rule #6
In this merge you made the mistake of turning to the right when I was positioned off to your left. What this did was expose your 6 o'clock to me and I was able to easily turn onto your tail.



You could have done 1 of 2 other moves in this situation. One being to just blow right on by me and convert all of your E into altitude which forces me to use my E in a turn if I want to get on your tail...



Or, you could have turned left into the attack. I would of either broke left as well into your attack, or swung out to your right and pull a right turn into you. Boelcke's rule 6 states that you must always turn into the attack and put your opponent on the defensive. This doesn't necessarily mean to turn head on with them, but that you shouldn't turn away from your opponent and give them your 6. Your job as a fighter pilot is to AVOID doing just that. The quickest way to die is to turn away from your opponent or try to run away.

[Latrobe]

What to do with an E and Altitude Advantage
At point #1 you are coming down in a diving attack on me. I can see you have the altitude and E advantage, but I do however have some time to work with as you are nearly 2K away so I level off in order to gain E. At point #2 I see you are starting to position onto my 6 and are slowly gaining on me. I want to put some pressure on you and start my turn back into you now that I've gained some E. You see me turn back for you and you start to climb up and over the top of me. At point #3 you use up a bit of E rolling over and pulling into me. This is a mistake as you are giving up your altitude advantage to try for a difficult shot. I have plenty of speed to pull up into your attack and deny you the shot and now you no longer have the altitude advantage.



What you should have done is use your speed to gain an even bigger altitude advantage and force me to use my E in a turn to try and climb to you. I however have less E than you and less altitude and trying to climb with you will just result in me being roped and killed as I stall. If I don't follow you up then you can just convert some of that altitude back into speed and dive on my 6 again.




How not to get shot when you overshoot
In this next picture you tried to follow me through a turn and get a shot but I denied you the shot and forced an overshoot. I then reversed my turn into you and got a perfect shot opportunity on you. When you overshoot you have to be aware of which way your opponents nose is pointed and which way you are going. In the image you saw my nose go from pointed away from you to towards you as I reversed my turn for a shot. You continued your path and flew right into my guns. The green lines represent where I am able to get my guns to. You want to fly to the areas where I can not get guns to. You could have gone with option 1: see that overshoot coming, break off your turn, go vertical, and make your opponent bleed E in a larger turn when he reverses his turn. Or, you could have gone with option 2: Know your opponent will reverse his turn, tighten your turn into him as he does, position yourself on the other side of him, climb away, and watch as your opponent uses more E trying to reverse a 2nd time for a shot.



In this next example I am the attacker and you are the defender. My initial attack is denied by your well timed turn. As I overshoot at point #1 I notice you loosen your turn. I know you're saving E and waiting for me to continue my turn into you so you can get a shot, so I deny you that shot by simply loosening my turn and staying off to your side. At point #2 you finally reverse your turn into me for a shot attempt. I see this and make my move and turn into you to deny you the shot. In the little window showing your cockpit view we can see I am successful and you do not have a shot.




Rolling Scissor: What do I do when my enemy is going up and I'm going down?
The one thing you seemed to struggle with the most was when the fight turned into a rolling scissors match. In a rolling scissors your goal is not to line up a shot, but to fly to your opponents six o'clock. In this first image I am climbing while you are diving. I can see the exact path you are going to take and I roll my plane over the top and outside your turn to try and get on your six. As I read a trainer explaining the rolling scissors in another thread, you want to put your lift vector behind your opponent to get behind them. (Lift vector might be the wrong term, I'm not a real pilot   )



This second image we can see you are turning trying to get a shot on me. This puts your lift vector in front of me and causes the overshoot. What you want to do is turn in below me and put your lift vector behind me in an attempt to get on my 6.



We can see in this last image that you have overshot and my roll over the top, positioning my lift vector behind you, has given me the shot.



In this side shot I've marked the same amount of flight path we both flew through the rolling scissors. Mine is a lot shorter than yours because of my steeper climb which was a result of me positioning my lift vector behind you. I travel foward a lot slower than you and force the overshoot. As the saying goes: "The shortest distance between two points is a straight line." You're path was straighter than mine so you reached the next point before me.




Links for anyone interested. Maybe you trainers and experts can tell me if I did good?  
http://www.mediafire.com/download/kowhhris6wbcny6/Lt.ahf
http://www.mediafire.com/download/6lox78qyao5ttjj/Lt2.ahf




Random Latrobe Thought
When you're dogfighting, you're not flying your plane because you can. You are flying your plane in response to whatever move your opponent makes. If someone is diving on me from 5 o'clock high, I'm not making a right turn because I think it looks pretty. I'm making a right turn because someone is diving on me from the right! And, that pilot diving on me isn't pulling back on his stick to climb because he likes altitude. He's pulling back and climbing because I've turned into him and foiled his shot. So in a weird way you are flying both your plane and your opponents plane. You're 800 off his 6 and you want him to break right? Position yourself off to his right and he'll break that way (if he's smart that is). Boelcke's rule #6 says to break into the attack and don't expose your six, so he will break right or he will expose his 6 to you. It's kind of how I force a lot of people to auger when I'm fighting on the deck. They're looking for an opening to dive on me, so I give them the shot they want... only I positioned myself beforehand so they have to make a steep approach to me. Then when I foil their attack at the last moment with a BRD they are going too steep and too fast to pull out of the dive and smack into the ground.  

[Oldman731]

That was very nice and quite a lot of effort, Latrobe.  Thanks to you, and to LtCondor, from all of us.

- oldman

[wpeters]

Thanks a lot for the lessons.   It has gave me a lot work on to be successful.  Thanks a lot for the time and screenshots.   

 Wishing you to be on many sixes. 

LtCondor

[JimmyD3]

I see school is in session.

Very well done sirs!!! 

[FLS]

Latrobe you might find it simpler to explain dogfighting in terms of pursuit curves and turn circles. The trails on AH film make the circles clear even to new players. The turn circle in this case is defined as the minimum radius turn the bandit can make at that point in time. If you fly into that turn circle then the bandit cannot shoot you. To shoot at the bandit you use lead pursuit. To get on the bandits flight path you use lag pursuit. Depending on the situation you'll either point your aircraft nose or point your lift vector. Lift vector can be imagined as a line straight up from the cockpit, your "up" view, and is roughly the direction that lift is applied to the aircraft. Using a few general principles is easier to understand and easier to apply to different situations. For example you'll notice that the rolling scissors is basically both aircraft turning into each others turn circle.

[Latrobe]

Latrobe you might find it simpler to explain dogfighting in terms of pursuit curves and turn circles. The trails on AH film make the circles clear even to new players. The turn circle in this case is defined as the minimum radius turn the bandit can make at that point in time. If you fly into that turn circle then the bandit cannot shoot you. To shoot at the bandit you use lead pursuit. To get on the bandits flight path you use lag pursuit. Depending on the situation you'll either point your aircraft nose or point your lift vector. Lift vector can be imagined as a line straight up from the cockpit, your "up" view, and is roughly the direction that lift is applied to the aircraft. Using a few general principles is easier to understand and easier to apply to different situations. For example you'll notice that the rolling scissors is basically both aircraft turning into each others turn circle.

I'm not that smart. I never had a single lesson from a trainer or real pilot and the only reading I ever did was on the basics (Split-s, Yo-Yo's, Pursuit's, etc). Everything else I learned from trial and error so I don't know any of the proper terms or when and how to use them. 

A good example of my limited knowledge of combat terms is a while back I just knew that if I pulled my plane this way then I can get behind my opponent. I had no idea it was called a rolling scissors or why it worked. 

[FLS]

In this case it's not so much a matter of terminology. It's an efficient way of thinking about and analyzing fights. Players turn the wrong way because they don't know where they should be going. Visualizing the bandit's turn circle, both current and potential, shows you your options.

[bacon8tr]

Good stuff Latrobe, thanks for the time you and ltcondor put into this.    

[blkblade]

Thanks for all the time you put into this and ur films. Always helpful.
 

[The Fugitive]

Latrobe you might find it simpler to explain dogfighting in terms of pursuit curves and turn circles. The trails on AH film make the circles clear even to new players. The turn circle in this case is defined as the minimum radius turn the bandit can make at that point in time. If you fly into that turn circle then the bandit cannot shoot you. To shoot at the bandit you use lead pursuit. To get on the bandits flight path you use lag pursuit. Depending on the situation you'll either point your aircraft nose or point your lift vector. Lift vector can be imagined as a line straight up from the cockpit, your "up" view, and is roughly the direction that lift is applied to the aircraft. Using a few general principles is easier to understand and easier to apply to different situations. For example you'll notice that the rolling scissors is basically both aircraft turning into each others turn circle.

I've been playing these games a long time. I am no where as good as I should be with all the practice I have. However, from my point of view what Latrobe said and how he says it makes far more sense than what you have said above. What you posted just makes my head hurt 

Perhaps you could take the pictures he used in his explanations and edit them to show what the heck.... umm.....what circles and lift vectors your talking about. That way us guys in the shallow end of the pool may learn what you guys in the deep end take for granted.

[FLS]

I've been playing these games a long time. I am no where as good as I should be with all the practice I have. However, from my point of view what Latrobe said and how he says it makes far more sense than what you have said above. What you posted just makes my head hurt  

Perhaps you could take the pictures he used in his explanations and edit them to show what the heck.... umm.....what circles and lift vectors your talking about. That way us guys in the shallow end of the pool may learn what you guys in the deep end take for granted.

It's easy to understand, you probably just aren't used to the terms. When Latrobe says to turn into the bandit's turn he's telling you to fly into the bandit's turn circle. Every time you aren't flying straight your flight path is curved and that curve is a section of a circle. The circle we're concerned with is the circle implied by the smallest radius turn the bandit can make. When you are inside that circle you can't get shot because the bandit can't pull more lead, he's already maxed his turn and pulling harder will stall him. You've seen this a thousand times, you just think of it in different terms. Turn circles and pursuit curves are the keys to understanding dogfighting.

I don't know if you've trained with anyone but I'm sure you realize that getting lots of practice is more productive after training than before training.

[The Fugitive]

It's easy to understand, you probably just aren't used to the terms. When Latrobe says to turn into the bandit's turn he's telling you to fly into the bandit's turn circle. Every time you aren't flying straight your flight path is curved and that curve is a section of a circle. The circle we're concerned with is the circle implied by the smallest radius turn the bandit can make. When you are inside that circle you can't get shot because the bandit can't pull more lead, he's already maxed his turn and pulling harder will stall him. You've seen this a thousand times, you just think of it in different terms. Turn circles and pursuit curves are the keys to understanding dogfighting.

I don't know if you've trained with anyone but I'm sure you realize that getting lots of practice is more productive after training than before training.

I've trained with a number of people on a number of things. The point here is the way Latrobe explained things. To us guys who don't "do this for a living" what he says make sense, but what you say doesn't.... well to me anyway.

He used simple english, where you seem to be using Klingon  That's why I thought if you took the time to add the "circles" and vectors" to his pictures it could help a lot more people understand what your saying and so be able to use those "keys to understanding dogfighting"

[BaldEagl]

It's easy to understand, you probably just aren't used to the terms. When Latrobe says to turn into the bandit's turn he's telling you to fly into the bandit's turn circle. Every time you aren't flying straight your flight path is curved and that curve is a section of a circle. The circle we're concerned with is the circle implied by the smallest radius turn the bandit can make. When you are inside that circle you can't get shot because the bandit can't pull more lead, he's already maxed his turn and pulling harder will stall him. You've seen this a thousand times, you just think of it in different terms. Turn circles and pursuit curves are the keys to understanding dogfighting.

I don't know if you've trained with anyone but I'm sure you realize that getting lots of practice is more productive after training than before training.

I understand what you're saying but there's a saying... A picture's worth a thousand words.  Note the number of positive responses to Latrobes pictures vs your words.

[FLS]

I've trained with a number of people on a number of things. The point here is the way Latrobe explained things. To us guys who don't "do this for a living" what he says make sense, but what you say doesn't.... well to me anyway.

He used simple english, where you seem to be using Klingon  That's why I thought if you took the time to add the "circles" and vectors" to his pictures it could help a lot more people understand what your saying and so be able to use those "keys to understanding dogfighting"

Which word don't you understand? You know what a circle is? Lift vector was explained as your "up" view. What are you confused about?
Take any of your dogfight films and turn trails on, watch from the fixed view, zoomed out enough to see the geometry of the fight. You will see that you can only get shot outside of the bandit's turn circle and you can only shoot the bandit when he's outside of your turn circle. This tells you where you need to fly to avoid getting shot. It's really that simple.