Just to mention one more thing that I didn't see here. The essence of BnZ and any energy tactic is to conserve your E and encourage your opponent(s) to blow theirs.
This means that normally you should be economical in your control inputs. All control inputs, no matter how small, chisel away at your available E. All control inputs are not created equal. Things that tend to present the flat surfaces of either the wings or the fuselage, like pulling on the stick or slipping by holding the rudder, eat up more speed and energy by creating drag. You also lose E by pulling high Gs (essentially increasing the force of gravity if your are familiar with the 4 force of flight). Pure aileron rolling tends to eat up less energy in comparison.
This means that pulling out or turning hard tend to bleed E quicker. You want to hold that to the minimum necessary, which calls for a little planning and anticipation in your attack and egress routing. As you alt out, avoid a lot of turning and changes of direction. If you need to keep bad guys in sight, a bit of judicious rolling should give you vision without cutting into your E.
I've seen a number of people blow impressive E advantages by keeping their plane under a G load all the time and I'm betting that a good number of them are not aware of the effects of maintaining high G all the time.
I hope that helps!
