Hi,
I'm not too far advanced from where you are now.
I'm a loner. I'm not much into groupy stuff. My signature is from Eugene Levy's character in the movie, "Splash" . That's me.
I usually go up at least one base back from where the action is. True there could still be somebody vulching, but not likely if the white circle radar is up (right click clipboard for that option). I immediately go for altitude, 10,000 feet minimum. Most everytime I've been jumped I was low. Then I move into position depending what I want to do. I admit it and I am following the advice of a pro---Johan Kylander in his book, "In Pursuit," I look for the alone guy, the straggler, the guy not paying attention. Furballs are suicide. I operate here like I have ONE life. Just learned a trick finding guys going to and fro from fights to get me more trophies on my tally list.
Radar?
It has already been stated, don't trust the radar to be accurate. I have gotten pretty good at making educated guesses where the bombers are just by using the Bar-Dar map. In tower, before I leave hanger with a plane, I study the area map. Last night I was watching a guy in the rear bases take out radars of a bunch of bases, and I guessed where he was going, what he was doing, and chased / met him at 30,000 feet in a BF 109-G6. He had 3 B-17's. It's a lot like cat and mouse like tanking is. It is a lot like chess!
Watching my rear?
I get a lot of kills sneaking up behind guys. Again, SA (Situation Awareness) I see a base flashing. I go to tower and watch. I hit my left/right keys and go out on the veranda, hit F3 & F8 keys to get a 3D perspective. 2 Spits jumped a P-38 that was low, he probably just took off or was returning to base, these guys were vulching. I got my plane all set to go. I watch as they split apart after one guy gets the kill. They both headed away, but one left, one right. I went out back side of field and circled back to creep up on the lone guy going left, back to his field. I took a guess that was his intention as to the visual info I was observing. I followed him from my base to his base, making sure the other guy was no threat. He never saw me, about 5 miles from his base he was history. (Exception, I was low, nap of the earth to try to stay hidden---neon light! Being that low is very risky.) That's how I do it.
Kylander's book, his experience is WWIIOL and WarBirds. I don't think his rear views there are as sophisticated as here. He would make lazy turns left, look over his shoulder, then lazy turn right, looking over his shoulder, while also looking over his wing and down each way, every 5 to 10 seconds. I'm lazy! I'll get zapped again one of these days. I setup my views to include looking down aft and out the rear sides. It is rare, but some guys do their fighter sweeps higher than 10,000 feet and pounce on me, too.
At my age I tend to forget easily, day to day. My reflexes are nowhere as keen as the younger guys here, my brain is mush in comparrison. 28 years old back in WWII a fighter pilot was considered an old man due to his reflexes being off, I'm twice that, and not that old. I slowly digest this guy's book, step by step, and go into MA to experiment. I train a lot in the TA (training area). And I meet guys sometimes, in the Arenas that are just plain friendly and I pickup trinkets of this and that to tweak how I do things. I'm still not very good, but I'm getting better. At least, I think I'm getting smarter at it.
My missions, I'm usually good for one or two well thought out adventures to totally concentrate on and I do good enough. One kill is good enough for me. When I get tired, I get sloppy. Then I will go play and get killed over where the furball action is and I do it just for fun.
This game is fun. There are so many aspects to explore and maybe someday get good at just one. It is like machinist work and the many varieties of the trade doing different things with just a lathe, mill, drill press and surface grinder---yeah, that's a good analogy. You got to know your machines inside out.
