What could I have done better in these two engagements?

[Iamtheknight]

I'm considering the first engagement with the Corsair and the last engagement with the Zeke. In both cases I feel I made mistakes that wasted opportunities.
http://www.mediafire.com/download/yg7h0bgwiar1vfy/2014MaineacCVfight.ahf

[The Fugitive]

First, your flying as a Bish this is a BIG mistake. Second your flying an La7, this is almost as big a mistake as flying as a Bish. 

All kidding aside, With the hog it looked to me like you eased up off your break turn too soon. Holding it a second longer gives the hog a harder target to hit (pointing your wing at them gives them a small plane silhouette to shoot at plus they have to pull more Gs to get the lead for the shot). Practice the timing of that "point the wing, pull up and roll as they shoot and grab a shot as they go by" can get you an early kill. The biggest problem with the hog is he made the fight last long enough for the P47 to come in and get you.

The zero is going to try and make you over shoot, then try and pop you as you go by like you should have done above with the F4. To stay away make a few passes to get him to burn E as you roll up and over in a tight barrel roll keeping as much speed as you can and cutting the corner by going up over the top and rolling into his flight path.

You aim is as bad as mind. Look into Rynos course and start leading targets more. If the shot isn't there dont waste the ammo....like the shot as you rolled 1200 out is just a waste of ammo. If you push too hard for a shot you can push it into a wing stall and loose the fight that way.

[Iamtheknight]

You aim is as bad as mind.

True dat! Some of the time... 

[Iamtheknight]

At about 1:02 I am on the C-Hog's six. He pulls a hard turn I cannot follow. I decide you high yo-yo. He then unloads his turn and goes vertical with me, and hangs there within guns range. I did not think he would be able do do this because he turned so hard in the first place and because my aircraft climbs better. The P-47 distracted me a bit here, but looking at the film the hanging C-Hog (Irishone) actually had guns and got the kill on me. I didn't think continuing to turn in the same plane would have worked in my La against his Hog, and going into the vertical didn't work either, so I'm a bit  about what I should have done.

[caldera]

Trying to rope any Corsair is a dicey proposition.  They are stable as a rock and can shred you from long range, just hanging on the prop.  A more relaxed climb, with a spiral might have helped.   Keeping your speed, while taking things more gradually uphill would be to your advantage.  An La-7 can easily beat a Corsair in a climb but you have to factor in the crazy zoom capability they have.  A slow climb will work better than a steep one.

[bozon]

Trying to rope any Corsair is a dicey proposition.  They are stable as a rock and can shred you from long range, just hanging on the prop.

Real Corsairs were known for their great slow speed handling and benign stall characteristics. They were nick named the "fluffy ensign lovinator" you know  

If you really want to rope F4Us (vs. spiral them), you have to treat them like Zekes, spit16s and Yak3s - that means make them cross the vertical*. When they are vertical the wings & flaps are out of the equation and they are moving purely on kinematics & power loading. Holding vertical with lots of flaps out and combat trim on is actually very inconvenient. So pull up, cross the vertical by 20 degrees, and if they cross it too and you are still going up, roll 180 and cross the vertical again. If they are shooting wildly and tracers fly everywhere except into you, this is the sign to start heading down - do it early to give them the false hope that if they can just hang in there a little more... but they can't, and you get to blast them out of the skies while their stupid flaps are hanging out like a dog's slimy tongue on a hot day.

* the above applies to just about any plane trying to rope any of the helicopters, La7 included. La7? really dude?

[Iamtheknight]

Thanks to both of you gentlemen. Like I say, I didn't think just following his flat turn would end well, and after he went vertical on my yo-yo chopping throttle and going nose on seemed a bad idea, 4xHispanos. So it seemed like vertical was my only option.

Cross the vertical? You mean sort of loop over them instead of going straight up and then roll and pull up into the vertical again? Like an "S" shape kinda?

La7? really dude?

*Shrug*, it seems like a good plane to use for certain jobs. Can force the engagement or disengage most of the time, while still turning well enough to fight a wide variety of other planes. It's not Spit or Corsair maneuverable of course, but an angles fight against those isn't hopeless in the LA either. Though handling slow with flaps especially can feel a bit dodgy sometimes. If Hitech didn't want people to up La7s he would perk them

[caldera]

Real Corsairs were known for their great slow speed handling and benign stall characteristics. They were nick named the "fluffy ensign lovinator" you know  rolleyes

You're preaching to the converted.  I hate the way Cosairs can float all over the place at low speed.  Doesn't jibe with it's real life reputation.  Actually, I just hate Corsairs period. 

[Latrobe]

All F4U's (with maybe an exception to the 4-Hog) do not climb very well once they've dropped flaps. They can hang very well and the flaps give them tons of lift to keep the nose up, but they don't go very far and bleed enormous amounts of speed doing so. A spiral climb would probably have worked against the C-Hog. Look at the flightpaths in the image below. The C-Hog is coming around his turn and is getting onto your 6. All he has to do now is use his ability to just hang in the air and get his shot. You want to keep him turning so he bleeds off all of his speed and stalls. You have a much better climbing plane than him, so keep your lift vector behind him and spiral climb up. The C-hog will have to turn tightly and climb all while his flaps are out to try and get a shot. He will be out of speed in about 2-3 seconds while you continue to climb up. Once he stalls then you can drop down on him and force him to turn before he regains his speed.

[bozon]

Cross the vertical? You mean sort of loop over them instead of going straight up and then roll and pull up into the vertical again? Like an "S" shape kinda?

Sort of. Instead of pulling up 90 degrees, pull up 110 degrees and you'll be tilted a bit on your back. This is what I mean by cross the vertical. To shoot you, your opponent will have to do the same. After you cross the vertical again it will look a little like a very thin "S". The effect is a little like the spiral described above in that it makes it hard for the lower-E plane under you to follow and aim for a shot. Instead of rolling for the second cross he may try to use his rudder or negative elevator to get a shot which will make him stall even faster. Unlike the spiral, this is better used when your enemy has better climb rate/angle than you and he can "out spiral" you. This is the typical situation in the planes that I fly, but in your case, the La7 can spiral the heck out of the F4U, as long it is not a -4.

Nothing is guaranteed, he may still get a lucky shot in.

[bustr]

You aim is as bad as mind. Look into Rynos course and start leading targets more. If the shot isn't there dont waste the ammo....like the shot as you rolled 1200 out is just a waste of ammo. If you push too hard for a shot you can push it into a wing stall and loose the fight that way.

You cannot teach shooting in an La7 from a wing mounted fighter or, from a wing mounted fighter's perspective. Either ryno or a guest like Latrobe will have to give a separate clinic on inline centric shooting requirements. The ShVAK and UB 20mm in La and Yak from 200m (218yd) are flat shooting rounds. Holding fire until then, and maneuvering with that range in mind will make your La and yak gunnery lethal. Unlike the crossing stream paths with wing mounted guns, small course corrections multiply rapidly with distance into wide misses with fuselage mounted inline guns. Especially when any amount of E is involved in a deflection shot during maneuvering.

You get a profound example of this when K4 instructors try to teach you to make your tater shots as often as possible in an unloaded state. Fortunately with the ShVAK 20mm and UB 20mm you have enough rounds and speed to target to indulge in deflection shooting or snaps shots. Make sure you lead with the wind screen uprights as a rule of thumb. Relative crossing angles 45-90 at 50-300yds. Experience will take you from there as most skills in this game require practice. Oh, and the reason for the PBP1 reticle structure in WW2 is the same reason in our game with Hitech's physics.

[Kingpin]

You cannot teach shooting in an La7 from a wing mounted fighter or, from a wing mounted fighter's perspective. Either ryno or a guest like Latrobe will have to give a separate clinic on inline centric shooting requirements.

Bustr,

While the course is taught with a wing-mounted gun platform, I believe the vast majority of fundamentals discussed and practiced (other than "one-wing" shooting) apply to all aircraft and gun platforms.  Two things I stress repeatedly in the Intro to Gunnery course are 1) firing at close range (convergence or closer) and 2) being unloaded while shooting.  Both the "Shoot Around the Clock" and "Aim Small, Miss Small" exercises done during the course focus on attempting precise unloaded shooting, which is of course useful with either nose-mounted or wing-mounted gun platforms.  Those exercises are also meant to expose issues with nose bounce, stick scaling, torque effects and over-correction (especially over-ruddering), which can affect aiming and the bullet stream, regardless of gun platform.

You make an important point that the single bullet stream in nose-mounted guns is affected by small angle changes and that is magnified with range.  I definitely could mention your point specifically during the course, so I appreciate that input.  I do suggest during the course that everyone try the shooting exercises on their own, and at different ranges, in the aircraft they tend to fly, so that might be a good item to mention at that point.

I do see a lot of ammo wastage in Bat's shooting, largely due to a lack of precise aim and a good deal of over-correcting.  Those issues could possibly be improved by working with some shooting exercises.  I think that was Fugi's point, and I would agree as the exercises I showed him are not just for wing-mounted guns.

<S>
Ryno

[bustr]

ryno,

Fly the La7 and La5 and the Yak3 and Yak 9u as your only rides for a week or two. You cannot teach wing centric gunnery as the catch all for inline gunnery. Dispersion is your friend with wing centric and your detriment with inline. Small nose corrections or being slightly off in wing mounted due to the dispersion are not as much of a problem as inline centric aiming. Also the far smaller number of rounds you send at the target from an inline centric gun.

When you describe 1\3 of a second to 1000ft with inline centric and hold off in Mil, it is a very exacting description because you lack rounds to be wrong. Wing centric guns cover your misjudgments due to dispersion and convergence unless your convergence is way past 325. Then the missing is for nearly the same reasons snap shooting at 1000ft is for inline.

There is a very real reason the PBP1 and Revi12\16 reticles are constructed the way they are to relate to an inline centric gun mounting.

[Kingpin]

ryno,

Fly the La7 and La5 and the Yak3 and Yak 9u as your only rides for a week or two. You cannot teach wing centric gunnery as the catch all for inline gunnery. Dispersion is your friend with wing centric and your detriment with inline. Small nose corrections or being slightly off in wing mounted due to the dispersion are not as much of a problem as inline centric aiming. Also the far smaller number of rounds you send at the target from an inline centric gun.

When you describe 1\3 of a second to 1000ft with inline centric and hold off in Mil, it is a very exacting description because you lack rounds to be wrong. Wing centric guns cover your misjudgments due to dispersion and convergence unless your convergence is way past 325. Then the missing is for nearly the same reasons snap shooting at 1000ft is for inline.

There is a very real reason the PBP1 and Revi12\16 reticles are constructed the way they are to relate to an inline centric gun mounting.

I think you are under the impression that I am disagreeing with you about nose-mounted gunnery.  I'm not.  I only disagree with your notion of what I am teaching in the Intro to Gunnery course.  

I understand that wing and nose mounted gun platforms are different.  I mention and discuss that point during the course.  I am NOT teaching wing-centric shooting, as you call it.  What I am trying to teach are some gunnery fundamentals that include:

1) how to test and visualize your bullet stream and dispersion at different ranges (in ANY aircraft and with any convergence setting)
2) the benefits of unloaded shooting and a way to test and practice unloaded shooting and
3) an exercise designed to help develop precise aiming and a sense of using a sight-picture for aiming.  

You already stated in your comments above that these points are important for nose-mounted gunnery. I agree with you that they are.

<S>
Ryno

[ink]

I think you are under the impression that I am disagreeing with you about nose-mounted gunnery.  I'm not.  I only disagree with your notion of what I am teaching in the Intro to Gunnery course.  

I understand that wing and nose mounted gun platforms are different.  I mention and discuss that point during the course.  I am NOT teaching wing-centric shooting, as you call it.  What I am trying to teach are some gunnery fundamentals that include:

1) how to test and visualize your bullet stream and dispersion at different ranges (in ANY aircraft and with any convergence setting)
2) the benefits of unloaded shooting and a way to test and practice unloaded shooting and
3) an exercise designed to help develop precise aiming and a sense of using a sight-picture for aiming.  

You already stated in your comments above that these points are important for nose-mounted gunnery. I agree with you that they are.

<S>
Ryno

would you explain #3 in detail?

I would go to the clinic but time is hectic....

10 years here and one would think my aim should be good....
its opposite of good.....

I have studied my films and see a lot of nose bounce...and over compensating...

an exercise that will help that would be very cool indeed.