Head-Ons: Taking a shot

[bozon]

Above 15k the P47M outclimbs and out runs the P-51D on WEP. All jugs can be pushed very deep into the stall and maintain full control. The final component of the package is the jug's ability to dump energy and cut a corner, better than most planes. This does not make it a turn fighter, but it does not mean it cannot turn fight, or perhaps a better term is knife fight because there's a lot more than turning that is going on. It has the full capacity to engage in a co-E fight with a better turning plane, stay for a few moves and then either win or disengage.

Jug's knife fights are short and intense, it's an all or nothing game and that's what makes it so much fun.

[Wiley]

Wiley I did roll hard though and survived the head-on albeit I started pouring smoke from the P47M.

And that's going to happen every once in a while.  Guys with good gunnery will sometimes anticipate right and tag you.  If that happens and the fight continues, make sure you don't evade the same way again on a guy like that, or he'll probably really nail you the second time.

I had forgotten about the situations Bozon mentioned where you're low E and you pull into each other close in because usually in those situations by the time you're head on in a turnfight, you both have nowhere to go.  Usually when that happens to me, I am out of E and that is about the only spot I can be without stalling out.

For me, I can usually see them developing for 2-3 seconds before either of us have the shot.  At that point I just try to change my vector as much as I can to get off his center line.  Usually with rudder going low if I'm really at the edge, but I'll go high if I have the E to do so.  Whatever I can do to slip his guns.  Sometimes relaxing the turn so you go out a bit wider can help if you're close enough that he's not going to get a good snapshot and you can get below his nose, but it's risky particularly against cannon birds.

Wiley.