What to do....

[Seagoon]

Question, whats the best ACM for the following situation?

My favorite fighters are Japanese, in this example I'll use the A6M5.

I'm toodling along gaining alt at say 160 mph in a Zeke, I notice a Mustang about 4k above me and headed towards me. Remembering my AW RR days I just make sure my nose remains pointed towards the bogey and try to put myself in a position to initiate a turnfight. In AH however, I quickly find myself repeatedly stalling while he continues over my head and then dives while Im winging over yet again, and ratatatat I'm dead.

At present I've actually started diving for the deck when I have an e-fighter approaching me from ahead and above. What should I be doing?

- Seagoon

[majic]

Since the other guy has such a serious advantage, you may want to think about trying to not give that mustang a shot.  Chances are you won't be able to touch the mustang if the pilot doesn't want you to.  Make him miss you, and hope he makes a mistake and burns his E.  (Personally in that situation, I would turn slightly away in a gentle dive, if he makes a good run on me, I'll jink back towards him but down.  Even so, a good deflection shooter may make the shot.)

[SlapShot]

Seagoon ...

I doesn't matter what plane it is, pony or not, if you are trying to gain alt at such an angle that you are stalling trying to get to co-alt, you are in "deep yogurt".

I have only been flying AH since January, never flew any sim before, and like you, I learned quickly, that you cannot just point you nose up and go.

majic has the same outlook as I do. I will maintain my alt and try to get as much E (speed) as possible, at the same time watching the position of the higher plane waiting for them to try the "bounce". Once the "bounce" begins, I try to create a miss and hope that the opponent will make the wrong move and burn all his E. Now we are on even ground, or I might have the advantage.

If your opponent is a good "bouncer", they will accept the miss, regain alt, and try to setup for another "bounce". If you are the only one around, this "miss / rebounce" could repeat for quite awhile. If you have other friendlies around, the "bounce" will probably not be repeated multiple times, because he will then expose himself to a possible "bounce".

[Kaz]

If you are the only one around, this "miss / rebounce" could repeat for quite awhile

had this happen to me 3 times maybe 4. i don't stray away from the main fight into areas with high alt bogies alone anymore. ok so i'm a hard learner and boy is it tiring, not recommended for the underskilled/impatient type like myself.

[Fester']

You'll find very quickly that these single pass BnZ attempts are very easy to spoil, if you see him it's easy not to die.  If he wants you he'll have to commit to a more aggressive fight and then you're on your way to kickin his bellybutton

If you see a higher nme, at a minimum level for speed or shallow dive if he is close.  Dont get too fast in that zeke though or youll be meat on a stick.  Let him come in from your six and when he starts to get within guns range roll one way or another and turn.  He's too fast to stay with you through the turn and will blow by.

Reaquire the target and repeat as required.

[Dead Man Flying]

Originally posted by Fester
Reaquire the target and repeat as required.

As a quick side note, don't get predictable when you perform evasives.  If the P-51 pilot sees that you always wait until he's a certain distance, and you always roll the same way, and you always pull a certain amount, he'll eventually just aim for where he knows you're going to be rather than where you are.  You'll wind up pulling a turn to evade and end up right in his guns.

-- Todd/Leviathn

[SpinDoc1]

A similar manuever to Fester's was one that I pulled the other day. While intercepting in a Spit9, I had about 16k alt. n F4U and an N1k came from about 20+ k and I had my hands full. So when the F4 came on my tail I simply rolled inverted, pulled, and recovered. This worked them both to the ground from that alt and eventually I started a cautious turn fight. I brought some guns to bear on the F4, but didn't kill him. The N1k eventually got me with his *superb* abilities (the plane's abilities, of course). But that's a whole different story and one that does not deserve a response, so please, don't flame me...

[akak]

Originally posted by Seagoon
Question, whats the best ACM for the following situation?

My favorite fighters are Japanese, in this example I'll use the A6M5.

I'm toodling along gaining alt at say 160 mph in a Zeke, I notice a Mustang about 4k above me and headed towards me. Remembering my AW RR days I just make sure my nose remains pointed towards the bogey and try to put myself in a position to initiate a turnfight. In AH however, I quickly find myself repeatedly stalling while he continues over my head and then dives while Im winging over yet again, and ratatatat I'm dead.

At present I've actually started diving for the deck when I have an e-fighter approaching me from ahead and above. What should I be doing?

- Seagoon

When you see the high bandit on your 6 and it's looking like he's tracking you, you can trim your nose slightly down, like 5 degrees to build up some E while masking it from the high bandit.  To him it will look like you're still flying level, so when he makes his committed attack on you, he'll be under the assumption that you are still slow and an easy target for him.  What he doesn't know is that you've built up some much needed energy by trimming your nose down while "running" and that can cost the enemy bandit big time.  When the bandit is closing and is about d2.0 away, roll over and go into a split-S, then pull into a lead turn into the bandit.  In most cases, the enemy bandit with, what he thought was his overwhelming energy, will then pull into a climb to regain his altitude for another pass or for the rope attempt.  What the enemy bandit doesn't expect is you pulling a lead turn into him from the split-S evasive you did and latch on his 6 while he's in his climb.  If you time it right, you should end up with a good guns solution on the bandit's 6 while he climbs up.  If you've built up a lot of energy, you may even have enough energy to follow him through his vertical maneuvers and force him into a turn fight as he loses all his energy in the vertical maneuvers.  

This is usually how I force bandits with overwhelming energy or altitude advantage into a turn fight flying my P-38.


Ack-Ack

[airhap]

Yes what they said. lol.  In a zeke, don't go nose up; make them come down & use your superior turning ability to bleed off their e.

If you're up against an enemy who'll help you, they'll b-n-z you until you're turning with him.  Then he's yours.  Otherwise, when you see anything higher than you that looks like they want you, you go nose down to get them down to you.

Airhap

[Pei]

Even in a stall fighter like the zeke don't dig yourself into an energy hole by yanking on the stick indiscriminatingly; you just need to spend enough energy to spoil the shot and once the pony extends then you can try and grab some energy back.
If you blow all your energy you will end up with two choices:
a) manuever, stall and then auger
or
b) don't manuever and eat a truck-load of .50 cal
neither  of which are too much fun

The other situation you need to avoid (not that it will be easy to achieve ) is getting into a high-speed fight: the pony handles best above 250mph and will probably try to keep the fight above that speed (if he doesn't then he deserves everything he gets), while the zeke is near it's top speed and handles pretty poorly.

As the other guys mentioned you are basically going to have to hope that some help arrives or that the pony driver is foolish enough to bite on your evasives and get low and slow (at which point you should be laughing). A sensible P-51 driver is going to stick to BnZ and a good and aggressive P-51 driver might be able to use some lag persuit to get a decent deflection shot no matter what you do.

[Kweassa]

Just remember the "51-Zero dilemma"

 Unless the P-51 pilot has superhuman gunnery which can knock out a Zero on a single pass or has hours and hours to fight just one Zero, most usually when two planes perform so drastically different, and both pilots do not make any silly mistakes and fly strictly to their advantages, such a fight ends up in a deadlock.
 
 The chances for the Zero to shoot down the P-51 is incredibly slim, but much the same, the pilot in the P-51 will have hell of a frustrating experience.

 Just besure to save your energy as much as possible, and do not break turn in a flat 2nd dimensional sense. change your bank angle while in a break turn so the flight path is hard to predict. After a 5~6 passes 9 times out of 10 the P-51 will get bored and go away some place else.

[Oldman731]

Originally posted by Kweassa
Just besure to save your energy as much as possible, and do not break turn in a flat 2nd dimensional sense. change your bank angle while in a break turn so the flight path is hard to predict. After a 5~6 passes 9 times out of 10 the P-51 will get bored and go away some place else.

Or, if you find that you are the one getting bored with this, try to time your lead turn so that you end up on the Mustang's tail in time to get off a quick shot.  Sometimes this even works.

- oldman

[Kaz]

10 passes hehee yeah if i ever get myself into that situation again i'll try to remember that # coz when it's happening to u it feels like it'll last all eternity. as for trying to get off a shot during the lead turn that's a given for me, i'll be spraying the sky and ground hoping for a lucky shot lol. thing is that the times when i was caught by a BnZer i was too low to do split s' but then i haven't been caught since so i guess i've learned... now if i can stop getting shot down every single sortie i'll be ok