While the subject post is beginning to "age" I would like to offer one suggestion.
A lot of folks talk about deflection shooting and distances. They all have good points about shooting. IMHO the most important thing you you should be thinking about is the "number" of bullets hitting the target.
You plane carries a finite number of rounds. Spray and pray uses up alot of them. High deflection shots throw out maybe 95% of the bullets fired. Even with somewhat close shots. One well placed bullet might hit something critical but you are still playing the spray and pray game.
There is a way to dramatically increase your hit percentage. It's also easy to test the difference.
Here's how. Set your convergence to whatever you like. Go find yourself some water to shoot at. Come in from an oblique angle and spray the water pulling 5G's in a nose low turn. Now try it again pulling 3G's and again pulling 2G's. Look at the bullet spread as the rounds hit the water. Now take your plane and dive on a shallow angle at the back of a shore battery and open fire. Point right at it and let fire! Watch the rounds hit it.
Here's what you'll find out. Pulling the G's and firing spreads the rounds out so far if you stick a plane out there maybe one or two will hit it. Point straight at a target and shoot without turns puts all the rounds on target.
Sounds simple, right? It is.
The type of shot that will "up" your hit percentage is called an "unloaded" shot. Basically, you align your crosshairs on the target so it's as if you can release all pressure on the stick and fire. In fact, that's what you do! Close, align, unload and fire. If he jogs you gotta make the decision to stay with him and wait for the shot or spray and pray. But if you practice it your hit percentage will go way up.
