Aerial combat is very simple.
Don't make it too complicated.
ALL you are trying to do is join into formation on the bandit. Nothing more, nothing less.
There is no magic pill except practice doing just that and start from the beginning.
The first and most critical skill is keeping sight of the target. Without that everything else is useless.
Look
HEREOnce you have the ability to track the target visually, then comes a very easy two step process.
1. Predict where the bandit will be in the future.
2. Maneuver to put your airplane there
And that is all there is to know about aerial combat. Of course there are many names for many things that help accomplish the two steps but that is the essential process. The farther in the future you can predict the target position, the less violent the maneuver to get you to that spot.
Here is my recommended training sequence.
1. Learn the basic maneuvers without reference to another aircraft. Loops, rolls etc.
2. Learn to join into formation against a non-maneuvering target from all angles. This is the one everyone skips and its pretty obvious. It can be quite dull but it teaches the 3D relationships most effectively. There is a reason every air force in the world spends many hours on formation joins and they plainly state the reason in the training material they publish.
3. Fly against a maneuvering target without guns. Essentially duel without guns. Knock it off and re-engage when the fight becomes static.
4. Fly hot duels with the guns.
Repeat. and Repeat again.
In between the steps you should be flying in the arena and working with a trainer who will help you learn specific maneuvers for common situations. If you have been flying for any length of time you will discover that stuff you did by instinct has a name. The name is important for transferring knowledge from one to another but a deep understanding of the 3D relationship will lead you to every possible maneuver without ever knowing any of the names. I'm not implying you shouldn't learn them. Just don't view them as some sort of bag of tricks. The are small pieces of a whole and you must be able to string them together like notes of music.
Just because you can play a C and a G, you aren't a pianist. The music is the goal, not the individual note.
Feel free to PM me if you want assistance and here is a link to the front page of my training site.
475th FG training stages index