(continued!
)
Just a second or two later and we can see the P-47 I attacked goes into a turn and is also possibly diving. This either means he's going to land his damaged plane or he is a lesser skilled pilot who isn't quite sure what to do. Knowing this and the fact that he is now going to bleed more speed and altitude (or possibly landing) means he is not as big of a threat anymore. Instead, the second P-47 has become the major threat. He was the least threatening thing in the skies to me at first, but after one attack run he has become the most threatening! What we see in this image though is his flightpath straighten out. I see him roll his wings level and away from me. This lets me know that my plan has succeeded. He did not have the speed to climb to me, realized it, and broke off his attack. Now is my time to strike before he builds up any more speed!
I roll over the top and start my diving attack onto his 6. Looking at the image in the corner we can see how my turn was rather loose at first as I turned slowly into him in order to conserve speed, and then as soon as I saw him break off his attack I tighten my turn as I go on the offensive. NOTE how its a gradual increase and not a sudden tightening of my turn. This also conserves speed and energy. An immediate drastic or jerking of the stick will bleed more speed than a gradual increase.
Now, this Jug pilot was not stupid. He knew exactly what to do and pulled a textbook defensive move on me. He pulls into me at 800 yards, pointing his wingtip at me to create some angles to work with, increase closure rate, gets me off his immediate six, and dives below me. What diving below me did was use my advantage in speed against me! I am already going pretty fast. Turning into me creates a sharp angle. Diving will force me to dive as well to get a shot, but I am going way too fast and will never make that shot.
What would definitely have happened if I tried to make this shot is I would simply have been going too fast and wouldn't be able to pull lead at all. I wouldn't even get the gunsite ON his plane let alone IN FRONT of it! The P-47 could then execute a barrel roll defense or some other type of reversal move as my greater speed carries me out in front of him, and now he has a short window of opportunity to fill by butt with bullets before my excessive speed carries me out of his gun range.
So what do I do? Well I break off this attack and I re-position to attack from a better position! Looking from his cockpit we see I use my greater speed advantage to climb to regain an altitude advantage. Climbing will bleed that excessive speed I had and store it in the altitude I gain so I can regain that speed later by diving.
What this climb is going to do for me is get me into a position where I can attack the P-47 from his 6 no matter which way he goes. If he tries to reverse his turn back to the left, I can drop down onto him...
If he tries to continue his turn then I can roll over the top and drop down onto him yet again...
And if he tries to straighten out to either climb or dive then I can attack him yet again from his tail.
Here is the film file of that very engagement if you want to watch it in real time from other pilots perspectives. (And some extra stuff afterwards!
)
http://www.mediafire.com/download/11wtmd47cbd3mmz/P47D11+2_0958.ahfAnd here's the YouTube video from my perspective with TrackIR. What I saw and how I saw it. (3:00 mark)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KHznnJ04JcY
