180 degree turn with NO E burned??? Please explain the physics and how to...

[Wiley]

But always brings into question, at least in my mind, the recorded data is from what is happening on the front end of my machine, and may not exactly correlate to what is happening on the front end of the other online players.  <<< Technical stuff that I know nothing about...... and even less than I do about chandelles and wingovers.... 

It'll give you enough granularity to see what's going on.  The ideal would be film from both ends, but it should be close enough.

Wiley.

[mustng2]

Always record (set to auto record in flight options) and always save.  Saving is a reversible decision, not recording or not saving is not reversible.  Please see my post in the wish list forum.  Almost every time I had questions about an occurrence in the game, the film answers it.

[Chilli]

Please take a look at both my cockpit view on first merge and his cockpit view on merge.

What I saw was a ratchet like movement putting his nose Head to Head with mine.

All that I am asking here is if it is possibly a function of lag that has my front end out of position / unable to read other player's true heading???

http://bbs.hitechcreations.com/smf/index.php?action=dlattach;topic=390708.0;attach=29012

[Puma44]

The answer is “corner velocity”.

[The Fugitive]

Please take a look at both my cockpit view on first merge and his cockpit view on merge.

What I saw was a ratchet like movement putting his nose Head to Head with mine.

All that I am asking here is if it is possibly a function of lag that has my front end out of position / unable to read other player's true heading???

http://bbs.hitechcreations.com/smf/index.php?action=dlattach;topic=390708.0;attach=29012

It looked like a pretty smooth immelmann to me, he loses about half his speed. After the merge you lose your speed much faster than him.  The view from anothers plane in the film view is approximations so that is why it isn't as smooth as the view from your cockpit. 

[bustr]

Is there any chance his position and the strangeness being seen has the same issue as the collision model screen shot examples of what two player's screens showed them the moment player "A" runs into player "B". Player "A" sees player "B" 100ft from him while player "B" sees player "A" ram his plane.

I did an experiment this week on Oceania furballing at the center island. I was in a spit16 merging with an FM2, I kept flying straight past the FM2 at about 300mph on the dial, 2 hundred and something IAS on my HUD. The FM2 dove behind me on my line of travel, pulled up while turning and stayed on my tail 600 by the Icon for 30 seconds. I stayed in my 6 view from the merge through his icon change from 600 to 800. Quite an amazing thing to watch. How did I know my speed, I have the HUD readout set in the center of my screen and it follows my PoV as I look around. I was gaining speed around the time his icon changed to 800. So yes the icon range cycled 600 to 800 during all of this but, I've watch FM2, F4f, A6m and Brewsters pull this off many times over the years. And it's criminal how the Yak3 can do this......

I hear many players make the same remark on range over and over again, how can he do that when I'm at speed, gaining speed leaving him behind me and he had to turn 180 just to follow me. So just like with collisions, does player A not see something player B is doing that allows him to turn 180, keep his E, and then catch up with player A who is flying at speed away from player B during all of this? And a film, the only way to see this is if both parties submit a film of the same fight unaware the other party was running a film capture of the fight. Humans are very fallible and the knowledge that you are actively experimenting to film this phenomenon by two parties interferes with the experiment.     

[8thJinx]

"Rate Kills."

A plane flying at maximum turning rate at sustained corner speed will have the upper hand over a slower plane trying to minimize its turn radius.

[Kingpin]

180 degree turn with NO E burned???  Please explain the physics and how to... please 

Hi Chilli, 

You've posted 2 questions in this thread, so I will address the original posted question (above) first.

Based on what you described, what you are likely seeing from many players making a 180-degree turn with apparent closure after the maneuver is just a form of a Basic Flight Maneuver (BFM) called a Half Cuban 8:




Done correctly and smoothly, you can actually GAIN E while performing a Half Cuban-8 maneuver because it is a very E-conserving maneuver.  It briefly trades speed for altitude while performing the vertical turn (180), then trades the altitude back to speed while accelerating in the downhill leg.  You also have both gravity plus your engine thrust accelerating you in the downhill leg, so this can allow you to end the maneuver with more E than you started.  (While waiting for players to show up for appointments in the TA, I often pass the time practicing Cuban 8's and noting my speed as I pass a given point (runway) over the airfield.  I can judge how smoothly I have performed the maneuver, or what certain variations of the maneuver do, by monitoring my altitude and speed each pass.  Thanks to Morfiend for teaching me this practice method many years ago!)
 
Employed into Air Combat Maneuvering (ACM) if you come into a merge faster and only slightly lower than the enemy (a tactic I call "hiding E") and then employ an early/lead-turn as you pass under his nose/belly while making your climbing turn, you can often complete the half Cuban eight quite close to the enemy and with some closure speed.
 This will leave him wondering "how did he do that?", which is why I expect it is what you saw.

This is the reason it is important to record and save any films where you have a "how did he do that?!" moment. AH films definitively tell you the relative energy states (speed and altitude) at any point in a fight.  This can often answer the "how" in what someone did.  Then there is the SA question that films help to answer: "What did that enemy do just BEFORE he engaged you?"  This is an important thing to know.  One clue in your post is that you were "tracking another target", so perhaps the enemy in question had just dove to gain some energy or had gone level for a while to reach his max level speed and he was faster than you expected.  Judging an enemy's speed based solely on closure rate is very difficult -- one reason the "hiding E" tactic works so well. If the enemy comes into the merge faster than you (or faster than you anticipated), what can appear as an "impossible" maneuver could really be just as simple as his performing the BFM in the picture above.  A film will tell this for certain.

Hope this helps!

<S>
KP

[nrshida]

All that I am asking here is if it is possibly a function of lag that has my front end out of position / unable to read other player's true heading???

No. It's a function of something else.

[nrshida]

Chilli - oversimplifying quite a bit - you lost this fight most pointedly because you did not neutralise a perfectly in plane nose-to-nose arrangement against an opponent at a momentarily faster turn rate and smaller radius and pressed the first emerging 50/50 shot you got, unnecessarily while holding all the advantage.

In ACM, energy, position and tactics are all relative not absolute. Being higher is not necessarily having more energy and having more energy does not guarantee a win if you don't know what to do with it. When you saw him turn into you, you should have gotten out of plane and used your superior energy to chase him down and out manoeuvre him.

Things you can work on:

Observing relative altitude is easy and a component of the relative energy states. Take some time to observe your opponent. Is he moving fast against the landscape? In this case he was. In a nose-on merge is the closing speed twice your airspeed or more? What would that mean if it is more? Is the closing speed less than twice yours, what would that mean? What does being faster suggest? Slower?

Go quietly to the TA or book an appointment with a trainer or read on the internet until you understand what corner speed is and the implication of your opponent being closer to his than you are to yours, both above and below.

Start filming. If you see something strange, upload it here and ask for suggestions.

Try to become less reactive. Integrate experience to being able to anticipate what's coming next. What is he doing, why is he trying to do that?

[Chilli]

Yes, very helpful.  I have been watching commercial training films on BFM and at least becoming more aware of what they are and what they are called.  The Half Cuban 8 is not one that I have encountered, but one that I will attempt to practice.  Thank you.

Bustr most correctly examined my film question in my opinion.  Again, thank you.
 

So just like with collisions, does player A not see something player B is doing that allows him to turn 180, keep his E, and then catch up with player A who is flying at speed away from player B during all of this? And a film, the only way to see this is if both parties submit a film of the same fight unaware the other party was running a film capture of the fight.   

In this film the original question posted was altered, to "how can I tell what he is doing?" (sort of).  After my examination of the film I can see that he is "looping" over into a nose to nose position.  During the encounter it was only evident that he was zoom climbing.  It wasn't until I had to push my nose downward to track him, that his climb had flattened out, and a split second later that I noticed he was nose to nose (airspeed for me 465 and his 265; so closing speed 730). 

The limitation of the film, also produced further evidence of "a function of something else"  I clearly landed more rounds  in or near his engine compartment.  I assume that I received a cannon round in my engine, as the engine quit and my windscreen was oiled  but the damage did not occur until all of he was well past.  For the lack of any other word, I say lag.  It looks very familiar to what I was seeing when I attempted to play on satellite connection. 

So, back to the question, is the internet playing a part in foggy SA?  Sure I could have done things differently.  I didn't include the entire 28 minute film to take up your time.

Lesson learned:  Keep practicing and expect the unexpected, also.

[nrshida]

I have been watching commercial training films on BFM and at least becoming more aware of what they are and what they are called.  The Half Cuban 8 is not one that I have encountered, but one that I will attempt to practice.  Thank you.

BFM is great to let you practice manoeuvres at the edge of your plane's envelope. Contiguously pay attention to what they do to your altitude, energy and position. Especially be mindful of the effects of gravity. BFM is the notes, ACM the music.

but the damage did not occur until all of he was well past.

If I have understood the modelling correctly, that's just lag. On his end it's a clean shot, his machine sends that to the server which in turn tells you running version of AH that you get this kind of damage. Incredible we are able to fight people all over the world at all really. But the cause of your damage was poor tactical execution and a misread of his energy state coupled with some shortcoming of tactical knowledge. Sorry if that stings a bit but injections can do that. You'll feel better later.

It would be penny wise and pound stupid to conclude your gunnery needs improving from this experience. Expanding your ACM will give you unpressured shots while your opponent's guns are pointing safely away from yourself. In a fight the relative angles and energy (which gives you angles) is a good way to start thinking about your overall tactical options.

[Kingpin]

Lesson learned:  Keep practicing and expect the unexpected, also.

Actually, I was going to say that you might have expected this.  Always expect an opponent to try to pull his nose onto you at every merge, if he can.  Had you come into that first merge expecting the HO, you could have prepared for that with a little vertical or horizontal separation.  Had you expected and avoided the HO, you would have owned the fight from there.

By the way, I am not pointing this out as criticism, as it was hard to tell when exactly he was pointing at you. However, I wanted to make a point about SA.  That with a little Situational Awareness thinking, you can "anticipate an expected move" based on what the enemy has just done previously.

In the case of your film, let's look at what you know coming into the fight and how to employ that information:

1) He just dove from a few thousand feet, shot the radar and extended low out of the ack.
2) Given that he just dove from several thousand feet and is in a Spit XVI, he is fast.
3) Fast means he has some energy, and energy means some maneuvering options. 
4) He is on the deck (low), so only some maneuvers are available. (He can't split-S!) 
5) You are 1v1 and near your own base, so additional immediate or unseen threats are unlikely (you should know how many cons are in the area, as the dar just went down)
6) He was porking the base and seemed to ignore the threat of your presence, so he may not be the "dogfighting type" (the last part of this is an assumption, or possibility, but I think a reasonable one).

You know all these things coming into the fight, without really having to think about them. Most importantly, they tell you a lot about what can and should happen next.  Yes, he could go into a zoom climb, but why would he do that?  You were higher, so you'll easily catch him and kill him.  Assuming he knows you're there, he's far more likely to try to turn into you and put his nose on you (again, a reasonable assumption to anticipate this for a "non-dogfighting type" opponent at a disadvantage). 

So, the next thought process in the SA analysis is: "Do I need to HO him? Do I have other options?  Do I have time to kill him in a couple passes, rather than joust him on the first pass?" Given that you are next to your own base and don't have any other nearby threats, you have time to maneuver with him.  No need to go for the first pass kill.  So, set up for HO-avoidance, be ready for him to turn, and know you can easily kill him after his first turn.

This brings me to my overall point.  I think many players fall victim to trying to kill everything in one pass. There are times when that is necessary, but there are many more times when it is not (as is the case in your film).    When I was taught virtual dogfighting, I was taught to approach an offensive fight (with advantage) in 3 steps:

1) Assess their Energy and Awareness.  How the con reacts to you on the first merge will usually tell you these two things.  Think of the first merge as "feeling the con out" and seeing how he reacts.  If he doesn't react at all?  Great, you're shooting him and he's dead (he failed his awareness test!)  If he does he react, his first maneuver can then tell you a lot.  He pulled hard for the HO?  Great, he bled E and is probably going to be an easy kill.  He did a hard, flat break turn away?  Great, he bled E, but now I have to make a vertical turn and get back inside his turn circle.  He used a Barrel Roll Defense or S-break and tried to reverse me?  Great, I can spiral up and set up my next move... and I may be in for a good fight!

2) Maintain an Energy Advantage then convert to an Angles advantage (or shot).  In your film, if you force the opponent to miss their opening HO attempt, you hold all the cards.  He sold out a lot of energy for that first shot, so now his options decrease and yours increase. Now use your Energy advantage to set up shots (lead angles) and if they are not there (the enemy can avoid), then continue to maintain E or gain position until you have the shot.  This is the art of ACM and the most fun aspect of virtual flying in my opinion.

3) Take the Kill Shot when it's there.  This means you have positioned for a shot that he can't avoid. (He also can't shoot back at you!).  This could be on the second merge with a deflection shot or after several merges wearing him down and possibly saddling up for the shot.  They key is you are shooting when you expect to hit him, he can't avoid and he can't shoot back.  Patience will usually improve your gunnery.

It is my belief that the "shoot on the first pass" mindset is what often leads to the things players complain about most, such as HOs, collisions, long extensions ("running away") due to lost E advantage, etc.  Coming into a fight expecting to NOT shoot on the first merge (especially when it is not necessary under the circumstances) can lead to much more interesting fights, fewer HO's and greater survivability.

<S>
KP

p.s. I don't think lag played a factor in the outcome of the fight, just the fact that the hit registered a few second later (which is normal).  It was just a tough situation to read visually, which is where the anticipation factor and thinking about your options (part of SA) can help.

[Max]

Good posts Kingpin! Printed out the former and the latter. The Half Cuban 8 diagram was an "A HA!" moment for me. Can you suggest an online source for more BFM diagrams?

<S>

[DaddyAce]

Good posts Kingpin! ........

Agreed, thank you KingPin, I enjoyed your analysis!