Aces High Bulletin Board
Help and Support Forums => Help and Training => Topic started by: Randy1 on September 30, 2014, 02:29:30 PM
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Yesterday I lost a good fight to LilMark. I was in a P38L with a good fighting weight with say 50% fuel left. He was in P47M. We were co-alt and speed, I am guessing, was about equal. Pretty much as fair of a fight as you could ask for in the MA with no other reds or greens around. I knew it was going to be an E fight. We merged several times until he got a good guns on pass and I got a pilot wound. No shame in losing to LilMark, he is one fine stick, but I want to learn from this fight.
My thought during the fight was having spent several tours in a P47M that I had a slight advantage in climb so I wanted to work the fight up. It was working slowly but I blew a loop pulling too much g to get a guns on and lost more E than I could survive without.
What do you look for in a in plane and out of plane maneuver dive angle and speed to set up for the next merge. Does one just shoot for the dive and speed recovery to reach a given speed in the 38 as an example of say 300mph for a vertical move or 250mph for a more flat turn? Do you glance at the G meter and use that number?
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There are just too many variables to say do this or do that!
It would help if you supplied a film of this fight to see what exactly happened and where things went wrong or what you could have done differently.
Given the matchup I would have taken the 47 up,up,up! Use the climb of the 38 and never give up a foot of alt. If you used a spiral climb the 47 would eventually run out of E and have to level out or stall. That is when you could capitalize your position and rolled over and killed the 47,although I think Mak wouldnt fall for it and just followed in a lag pursuit but without film I'm only guessing.
Also with film you can see the speeds of the planes,that would tell you if you were infact co-E or not!
I know this isnt much help but when it come to combat and ACM there are just too many variables to say do A or do B,there is "NO" magic move that always works!
:salute
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I do appreciate your reply Morfiend . Helpful as always.
I have used the spiral up move before but if the M still has wep then can pick at you with a wide pattern of those eight fifties. I did try to pull the 47 straight up in a rope but he countered with a good move that gave me a bad angle coming down and gave him a lead move coming up.
I do have a good throttle-rudder reverse with the 38 I can use on the spiral but it teeters on a bad stall if I over shoot the turn.
In a more wider scope question which might work better here is what I was wondering was how much attention do folks pay to speed and G gauges when in a good fight?
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I don't fly by the number either, I go more by feel.
If he's following you hes either saving E or already low enough that he isn't going to pull for the shot. If he is on you and pushing for the shot then he has E to spare. Those are the biggest clues I go by. After each merge you have to see what hes doing all over again. I try not to push for a shot until I think I have him on the ropes. The rest of the time Im working to stay out of his guns, conserve my E and watch him for any sign he's slipping.
With out film it
s hard to say what you did wrong, and you may not have, LilMak just may have done things a bit better, and in those tight fights thats all it takes.
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Your best sustained turn is the speed and load factor that give you the best turn rate and radius. When you maintain this turn you do not lose E. This is true in flat turns and vertical turns.
What makes vertical turns more complicated is the gravity vector changing in relation to your flight path. This is the energy egg concept. You can imagine it as gravity increasing and decreasing your weight and thrust in different parts of a loop. That's a simplification but it works. As you go up you slow down, over the top gravity decreases your g load, descending your speed increases, and on the bottom your g load increases.
Flaps lower your best sustained turn speed. When you get too slow for your best sustained no flaps turn you may be at your first or second notch best sustained turn speed. Remember you only lose E when you exceed your best sustained turn. Also, flaps mostly increase lift for the first 50% of extension and mostly increase drag for the remainder. Don't use full flaps unless you want to slow down.
Combining these concepts will let you maintain or increase E in a fight.
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Yes I am familiar with the egg concept. At the top I use one notch but on a flat turn. I use one notch of laps in one second burst you might call it to pull the nose around a touch more. Sometimes I do burn more E than I need too by not backing off the elevator when I extend the flaps. Delirum got me backing off on the throttle on the downside and that helps rounding out the egg.
Thanks for the reply FLS
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Keep in mind if you use one notch over the top it should ideally be because your speed requires one notch for sufficient lift for your best sustained turn.
When you descend your speed is only a turning problem if it's over your corner speed. You can limit your speed with throttle reduction but you can also limit it with drag from lift. If you slow enough from hard turning you don't need to reduce throttle.
Note the speed differences across the top and bottom when you compare oblique loops at different angles to pure vertical loops.
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I was wondering was how much attention do folks pay to speed and G gauges when in a good fight?
I use my G meter to make sure that I'm not pulling too many G's and burn energy needlessly while maneuvering.
ack-ack
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You can also just pull to the stall horn as long as you don't go below the minimum speed for best sustained turn.
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Better to pull to the tunnel.
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Better to pull to the tunnel.
Good point. If he's fast enough he'll get tunnel vision before the stall horn. Hopefully he won't pull harder at that point. :D
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Yep, total blackout and a stall, bad combination. :O
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I use my G meter to make sure that I'm not pulling too many G's and burn energy needlessly while maneuvering.
ack-ack
I will start to develop and eye for the G gauge ack-ack
Is there a G reading you hold too in a E conservation maneuver in the P-38?
Better to pull to the tunnel.
At that G level Puma and FLS, are you not committing to a guns on or lose situation in that merge?
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Wait, where is the G gauge in the P38?
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Wait, where is the G gauge in the P38?
To the left of the trim indicator panel, lower right hand side.
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To the left of the trim indicator panel, lower right hand side.
Ah ok.
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At that G level Puma and FLS, are you not committing to a guns on or lose situation in that merge?
The G level is a variable dependent on speed, weight, and is tailored to what you are trying to accomplish with your next move. Hopefully, it's not one of those "one size fits all" moves. Individual aircraft performance charts will give you best corner velocity and g available values. So, it's hard to accurately say, pull this many Gs to accomplish this. There are just too many variables. One ride that I flew in an air to air unit had a max positive G limit of 7.33. After landing, if the fights were always offensive/wins, the G meter would read 5 to 5 1/2 Gs, indicating pretty reasonable energy management. If there was a defensive fight in the mix, the G meter would read 6 to 7 indicating a lot of hard pull to defeat guns/missle attacks. The G meter was quickly glanced at in a hard pull so as to not over G but, it wasn't a primary reference during the fight. "Feel" was.
Randy, my point being it's better use of your potential energy to, when necessary, pull to the tunnel vs the stall warning where energy is definitely being burned off along with airspeed. The merge can go a lot of different ways. Although, from observation, the vast majority of opponents will immediately pitch up and turn. Another method is to do something that confuses the "pitch up and turn" opponent in such a way that he/she is wondering what you are up to and makes them abandon their canned merge maneuver and spend time and energy reacting to what you have presented them with. The key idea here is to never be predictable. The vast majority are very predictable. :salute
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I will start to develop and eye for the G gauge ack-ack
Is there a G reading you hold too in a E conservation maneuver in the P-38?
At that G level Puma and FLS, are you not committing to a guns on or lose situation in that merge?
If you want an easy turn a 3 g pull will usually do it but generally on the merge you will be watching the bandit not your gauges. You want to go into the fight with a plan but the bandit may fail to cooperate with it.
If the bandit makes an aggressive turn for position you either have to turn with him or give up your 6 and hope to drag him up to a stall. Whether you pull to tunnel vision on the initial merge or make an easier climbing turn depends on the situation.
Tunnel vision is simply your max sustainable turn when you're over your corner speed. You won't get tunnel vision and the stall horn together unless you are at your corner speed. If you are below corner speed then you can't pull enough g for tunnel vision so that's when you're using the stall horn to indicate near max turn rate.
Puma flew jets so he may assume a higher engagement speed where I'm assuming most maneuvering after the initial merge is below corner speed.
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Puma flew jets so he may assume a higher engagement speed where I'm assuming most maneuvering after the initial merge is below corner speed.
Good follow on to the previous discussion about being unpredictable. Assuming a high engagement speed may or may not work because I strive to present the unexpected.
There seems to be frequent discussion about stalls. Obviously, a stall is not a BFM/ACM maneuver. When a stall occurs in a fight, it's typically a lack of situational awareness leading to a loss of control event, a stall and/or spin. In a fight, intentionally stalling transforms a fighter into a stationary target, akin to a hot air ballon.
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Good follow on to the previous discussion about being unpredictable. Assuming a high engagement speed may or may not work because I strive to present the unexpected.
There seems to be frequent discussion about stalls. Obviously, a stall is not a BFM/ACM maneuver. When a stall occurs in a fight, it's typically a lack of situational awareness leading to a loss of control event, a stall and/or spin. In a fight, intentionally stalling transforms a fighter into a stationary target, akin to a hot air ballon.
I wasn't suggesting that you were predictable, just that jets usually maintain higher speeds in a fight than Randy1 will typically see in Aces High. We tend to use WW2 aircraft to fight WW1 style dogfights.
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Tunnel vision is simply your max sustainable turn when you're over your corner speed.
I think you meant "attainable" not "sustainable". Sustainable means that you can hold this turn without losing speed or alt, which is never the case for 6G turns in WWII planes.
In a knife fight, turn rate alone is not very decisive - it is the combination of turn rate and turn radius, and what is "best" is very difficult to define. Going fast enough to pull 6G (blackout) will give the best turn rate, but the turn radius will be large. One cannot get a gun solution on opponent, no matter how quickly he pulls around, if the opponent is inside his turning circle.
And here comes the "conserving E" part in the merger - many opponents who go for position on the merge will chop throttle to lose speed fast and pull a tighter (i.e. smaller radius) turn. With that they are giving up their energy in the hope of a quick victory, or that you do the same and you both end up in a slow stall fight. Against such an opponent, if you can keep your E and enter a low-G zoom, and with a good climbing plane, you can build a significant E advantage. This is a risky move because your opponent will get behind your 3/6 line initially and will attempt a difficult shot that just may connect. If you survived, they next moves are all yours.
In the P47M vs. P-38L the 38 can gamble on such a move. The P47 will pull a smaller initial turn when starting from blackout speed simply because it sheds its speed quicker - don't try to beat him in his best move. The 38 on the other hand is one of the best zooming planes and handles much better is a stall fight. A P-47 that will gamble everything on a first sharp turn and not make the shot will be in big trouble. Trying to follow a zooming/spiraling 38 down to speeds below 150mph will get it killed. but no one guarantees that this is what the 47 will do! If he predicts your move and thinks that you completely give up initial angles to save E, he can pull a much less sharp turn, keep WEP on and zoom after you, at least close enough to shred you with 8*0.5s - In that case, chopping your throttles and going all-out of angles would have won the fight for the 38... Being unpredictable is very important as said by the previous posters.
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Good stuff. I have enjoyed reading each reply.
Let me ask y'all this with E conservation in mind. I am looking for just a rule of thumb level answer because of the wide variety of situations that have to be dealt with in an engagement. I am at 300mph+ in plane x. It's best turn rate speed is 250mph. Should one consider dumping E before the first merge to get to a better turn-rate or does E conservation as a rule of thumb trump turn-rate?
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I actually did mean to say sustainable. Consider cruising at altitude at 400 MPH then diving and turning to a bandit. As long as you are above corner speed, above say 265 MPH, the best turn you can sustain is pulling to tunnel vision. Once you hit corner speed you have both your best turn rate and your smallest no flaps radius. You can decrease your radius with flaps but your smallest radius turn without flaps is at corner speed. Going faster at the same load factor will increase the radius, going slower will not allow the same load factor so your turn rate decreases.
If you pull power at speed you won't slow down quickly, it's the turn with no power that slows you down and a climbing turn without power slows you quickly.
If you want to lose speed for a merge go up with full power, you will still slow down while maintaining more energy then you would by reducing thrust.
There will be exceptions but there always are. In general keep your energy as high as you can.
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Good stuff. I have enjoyed reading each reply.
Let me ask y'all this with E conservation in mind. I am looking for just a rule of thumb level answer because of the wide variety of situations that have to be dealt with in an engagement. I am at 300mph+ in plane x. It's best turn rate speed is 250mph. Should one consider dumping E before the first merge to get to a better turn-rate or does E conservation as a rule of thumb trump turn-rate?
Randy, that's another "it depends" situation. Are you 1 v 1 or 1 v many? Are you high or low? What kind of opponent aircraft are you facing? What are the environmental factors, i.e. sun in your face or in his, etc? Are you feeling lucky today? Energy conservation is like runway behind you, altitude above you, and gas in the fuel truck. Once it's lost, hard to get it back and you are most likely going to lose the engagement. You are well ahead of the average AH player if you are energy and corner velocity minded. :salute
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Many of these questions are (as Puma mentioned) very dependent on situational factors.
I'd be willing work with you in the TA anytime, just let me know. We can work on 1v1 similar and dissimilar aircraft versus the P38.
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Many of these questions are (as Puma mentioned) very dependent on situational factors.
I'd be willing work with you in the TA anytime, just let me know. We can work on 1v1 similar and dissimilar aircraft versus the P38.
Randy, this is where you'll learn energy management, practice, practice, practice! Knowing the concepts is good but, application is the hard part.
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Many of these questions are (as Puma mentioned) very dependent on situational factors.
I'd be willing work with you in the TA anytime, just let me know. We can work on 1v1 similar and dissimilar aircraft versus the P38.
I will take you up on the training offer in the near future for sure.
In the session I had with you we talked about merge entry speed for the P-38 to be around 300mph which I assumed was for a better turn performance.
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Many of these questions are (as Puma mentioned) very dependent on situational factors.
I'd be willing work with you in the TA anytime, just let me know. We can work on 1v1 similar and dissimilar aircraft versus the P38.
!!!!