in a more densely populated area.
Ideally more dense than one person

I, for one, would love to have a few rumbles with you..
Yo Jimmy, thane of the superior Spitfires and than little gravely patch behind the officers kharsie. I trust you are well my friend? You are on NZ time correct?
Dang it, that's true... fair enough
How long would it have taken to reach out ya think?
Just say hello next time. In my experience the convivial atmosphere that night is quite typical unless there's a grudge match going on. In the olden days there was plenty of help unless you were a dick.
Goto hanger and find same ride as enemy -> reduce fuel to min -> try again thinking I'm testing a more true representation of skillz because rides are the same -> Go back to Tower wondering what went wrong. . . 
In all fairness I do have quite a few hours in that particular aircraft. From what I was able to observe in our brief exchanges you seem to be pursuing the 'ideal' approach walking the EM relativity line. That's probably the most versatile strain of ACM. I would advise spending a little time on the energy assesment of your opponent. Use a dead reckoning approach from initial merge through a sequence of manoeuvres and beware of people hiding energy.
Overall what Erich (Blinky) said - try to become your own trainer and use a reflective-transitive approach. It's a shame he can't post anymore otherwise he'll have to start flying twin-engined German planes (look at his post count, lolz).