So last night I decide to avoid the big furball action and find a little remote corner of the desert terrain to fly some early-war planes. In the northeast corner of the Knight pie slice I found a few Bishops that wanted to dogfight and a few fellow Knights to help take them on, so I grabbed a P-40 and up I went.
Now, at the end of the runway that I was using there's this ridge that extends right to the edge of the airfield, and in order to clear it I had to turn off the auto launch and bank to the left parallel to it, then go to full max climb while stowing the gear and trying to keep the plane from torqueing over because of the slow speed and extreme manifold pressure. The ridge is looming in my windscreen as I start to see dots zipping around down low along the desert floor, so I pull the nose up to clear the ridge peak and then drop the nose to gain some maneuvering speed to engage the bandits.
Now, I know you're thinking that I busted the prop on a desert rock as I cleared the dunes, but I'm not quite that bad of a pilot. I did something much better.
As I'm coming down on the opposite side of the ridge, I realize that the dogfight isn't on the deck - its in the canyon. I roll to the left and right to spot the fight and judge my attack, then push nose over and get some speed. I make a pass on the bandit and then pull up to avoid the wall on the other side, blacking out as I pull the P-40E into a vertical climb.
When my vision clears, I'm inverted and my nose is starting to drop back down into the canyon. Ok, that's not bad. I can see the enemy below me so I let the P-40 continue its loop and drop down into the canyon again. But wait, there's something not right here. Why does the edge of the cliff look funny...
Whammo! "You have been killed."
Tonight I learned that there are cliff peaks inside the valleys, and in a blackout-clear-blackout loop fight its easy to get disoriented with exactly where the edge of the cliff is.
Let this be a lesson to you!
