Good and valid comments, guys.
Just to clarify matters...this was not an article on how to fly BFM so much as it was an attempt to describe one form of a BnZ using snap views.
The #5 view is definitely the view for lift vector control...what I was trying to explain about the HnC is that it is a maneuver where your lift vector is not on the bandit for much of the maneuver.
That, of course, is true of all BFM. One of the generally accepted truisms is that the only time your lift vector is on the bandit is just prior to the trigger pull. This statement refers to the importance of out-of-plane maneuvering...and, indirectly, to the significance of not flying in-plane with the bandit, in other words with the bandit at the top of your canopy.
The number one weakness in all of our sims has been in the way they provide a visual display of how to fly out-of-plane maneuvers. In this regard, the snap view has always been the least effective. The most effective is the external view, but too many of us believe that view to somehow be too 'unrealistic'. Padlock lies somewhere in the middle.
As for the folks that are so eager to tell us of their many kills, I only want to remind them that pilots don't win fights so much as others lose them...for whatever reason. So the guy with the 8:1 ratio has put eight other fellow pilots on the losing end. Perhaps our ace ought to help the rest of us out. I'd like to see something written that explains how these experts get this 'good'. I don't want to hear 'what' so much as 'how'.
Maybe they can help us out here...spread the wealth...you know what I mean.
If they can pick themselves off the floor.
Andy
