For Danny

[Latrobe]

Here you go, as requested. 

Our first fight was my 109G2 vs your Hurri2.



I know my 109 has a better climb rate and is also faster so I plan to use those advantages by going into a steep climb away from you. This will force you to pull a tighter turn than me if you want a shot on me. This tighter turn will burn off a lot of speed which you already have less of than me. I don't want to pull to hard back into you since this will give you a possible shot opportunity and will burn off more of my speed when I want to be putting most of my speed into altitude. I don't want my climb to be too shallow either since this won't be putting my better climb rate to use. You would be able to easily come around your turn and be on my 6.



Note in this next image how my flightpath is pretty straight while yours is a sharper turn? This sharp turn is what I wanted you to do so you bleed of the rest of your speed.



Now that I have made you bleed off the rest of your speed you enter a stall. This is the moment where I roll my plane over the top and dive down to attack you from your 6. I have also gained the altitude advantage and that along with my faster plane and better climb rate means I can quite happily BnZ you until I can get a killing shot in.



You make a mistake as I come down for my first attack by not making your move until it's too late. See how your flightpath is relatively straight while I'm already diving in for an attack? You wanted to have made your move as soon as you saw me come over the top and start diving on you. Being too late on your move means I now have a fairly easy shot and I end up putting a good burst into you.



What you really should have done is recognize that my plane is both faster and has a better climb rate. On the merge when you see me go into the vertical it should be very clear to you that I am going to exploit these advantages. You are slower than me and do not have the climb rate to match me so you shouldn't have even tried climbing with me. Instead, break off, go into a shallow climb away from me to gain some altitude and keep your speed. Wait until I start coming over the top and start my attack run. At that moment you want to start your evasive maneuver. Remember that if I break off my attack run for whatever reason, then you should stop your defensive maneuver. There is no reason to be wasting your E in a defensive maneuver when no one is attacking you. Instead, level off again, keep whatever speed you have left and start regaining your speed.



Now here's our next fight in the same planes. Looks a lot like the first fight doesn't it? I use my speed and climbing advantage and get above you. This time though you realize you are not going to make that climb and you break off.



Now this time you do the right thing and start your turn much earlier than last time. This is going to make the shot for me fairly difficult.



I do however correct myself for this initial turn, but you can still deny me the shot if you use your planes advantage of having a better turn rate (or is it radius?  )



You do continue the turn and it does deny my shot. Now here's where I start using my advantages again. I have a lot of speed from that dive, more speed than you currently have, and I also climb better. I'm going to go back vertical and reposition for a second attack run, but I'm going to be a little tricky about what I do.  I can afford to waste some speed since I have quite a bit of it and I also have a better climb rate so I'm going to turn into you while you reverse your turn into me, but I'm going to go a little vertical to stay out of your guns. My goal is to try and fool you into thinking you can get a shot and try and get you to continue to use up your speed instead of letting you regain it.



Here we see me turning into you but keeping above you and you turning back into me just like I predicted you would.



Now as we pass each others I go back into the vertical again. You have taken the bait and are trying to reverse yet again into me. You will have almost no speed left though as you have been making some rather tight turns. What you should have done is seen I was going vertical again, realized you do not have the aircraft to climb with me nor the speed and leveled off to regain the speed you lost. You don't need to immediately worry about me since I am in a climb, my nose is not pointed at you so I can not shoot you. Once you see me coming over the top of my loop and coming down for another attack then that is when you start to maneuver again.



What happens is I drop down inside your turn and get another shot on you. Again, what you needed to do was loosen your turn or straighten out while I went vertical. Regain some of the speed you have used and get some separation from me. When you see me rolling over the top for another attack then you should have enough speed and separation to turn into me and deny the shot.

[Latrobe]

Next fight now and I'm still in my 109G2 and you have gone with a Spit 8. This is a very nice and classic merge.



At the top of our first loop I feel that I do not have the speed or the positioning to make a second loop safely. So what I do is go into a slight diving turn back around and into you while you go vertical. I am waiting for you to come over the top and start diving on me. Me going into a more flatter turn while you loop over the top means I'm going to have plenty of horizontal separation. I just have to wait for you to come down for a shot and then I can pull up into you and deny the shot.



Eventually this takes us into a rolling scissors fight. At this point in the rolling scissors I see that I am in great position to pull off one of my favorite moves where I use the torque of my engine to roll my plane for me (Is it called a Torque Roll? I think it is). While you come down from your loop and I am going up I don't follow the natural rule of rolling scissors and try to keep my lift vector behind you. Instead I have predicted what path you are going to take and have seen I am in perfect position to cut the corner with a torque roll. Instead of turning into you, I roll and turn away from you as I start to cut the corner. As I climb and pull back into a tight turn I bleed a lot of speed. Meanwhile you are building up speed as you are coming down from the top of your loop.



Your speed carries you out in front of me as I slow down massively. As I slow down my engine torque starts to take over more control of my aircraft making it impossible to roll right, but that's ok because I WANT to roll left.   As I go up my torque at first rolls me upside down. This gets my nose down mostly level with the horizon and prevents me from stalling out. Since I'm still at really low speeds though my engine torque (along with some aileron help) continues to roll me until I am right side up again. Now I am flying level again and you are pulling up right into my gunsight.



What you needed to do is see that you are going to be pulling up right in front of my guns and change direction. You could either have rolled and turn left into and under me thereby denying me a shot, or roll right and swing out wide to yet again deny me the shot. This is a mistake that you make several times in our fights. Instead of changing your flightpath to avoid a shot you continued on with your current course and flew right into my guns.



Here we have a second mistake that I saw quite a lot in our fights and that's positioning your lift vector in the right location. In this next image we can see I am keeping my lift vector well behind you. This is because I am trying to fly to your 6 oclock position and not to your aircraft.



From your perspective we see your lift vector is pointed at me instead of behind me. The only thing that kept you from overshooting more often that you did in this fight was the fact that your spit8 can turn tighter than my 109G2. Had you positioned your lift vector behind me then that combined with your better turn rate would have given me some serious trouble!



Now we get ourselves back into another rolling scissors fight and again I see a perfect opportunity to use another one of my favorite moves, a wingover. Again, I am predicting your exact flightpath but this time I don't roll away from you to use my engine torque like in a torque roll. Instead I'm going to take my engine torque completely out of the equation by chopping my throttle back quite a bit. As you come down from your loop and I go up you are building up speed while I am losing speed. I'm going to roll into you but not all they way like I would to position my lift vector behind you. Instead I'm going to point my wingtip at you and chop my throttle. This will bleed off my speed and severally reduce the engine torque so it doesn't roll my plane left on me. Then I'm going to use full right rudder near the top of the loop just before I stall and this is going to swing my nose around and pointed downwards.



Getting my nose down will prevent me from stalling and will let me cut the corner on you and line up a shot as you overshoot with too much speed and pull up in front of me.



Again, you make the mistake of not changing your flightpath and you fly into my guns. Again, to avoid this shot you wanted to either roll left and turn into and under me to deny the shot, or roll and turn right to swing out wide and out of my guns.

[Latrobe]

Now the second of our fights in the 109g2 vs spit8 matchup. This time on the merge I did have the speed and position to go vertical again and I'm able to get above you.



Yet again you make the mistake of flying into my guns instead of changing your flightpath and again you take some damage that could have been avoided. You could have loosened your turn and pulled up into me just outside of my guns, or do what I did to you in the spitfire fight before and turn into and under me in a diving turn and then go vertical as I come down for an attack.



Little later on in the fight and I make a little mistake. I was trying to do a torque roll again but this time I misjudged my E state and stalled out. This is going to give you quite the advantage in speed, altitude, and positioning.



Now, how do I recover from this mistake? Well first and foremost I have to dive and build up speed. Next I also have to turn back into you so I can give you the most difficult shot I can. I don't want to turn away from you and try to extend because you have the altitude and speed advantage right now. I would just be giving you a very easy kill.



Now as you come down for an attack I make my defensive move. This is a good example of how to change your flightpath and not get shot, a mistake that you made quite often in our fights. Just like you could have gone left or right against me in those situations, I have a choice of going left or right (I should point out that between these options one of them always uses up more E than the other in order to get the same affect so picking the right choice depends on the situation you find yourself in.) In my case I decided to roll and turn left. This does expose my 6 to you but I am certain that you will be going too fast to make the shot so it's ok.



From your cockpit we can see that if I continued my current path then it is very likely I would have been shot. Since I changed my direction it is going to make the shot a bit more difficult for you.



Now we can see that I have created a little horizontal separation from you. It's not a lot but at this range and closure rate it's enough. You try to correct for me turning to deny you the shot and this is where I start pulling hard up and into you.



Just as I guessed you have too much speed and can not make the shot. Now I reverse my turn and attempt another torque roll to try and get a shot on the overshoot, but I am very mindful of the fact that the last time I tried this I stalled out so if it looks like I won't get the shot then I won't push it.



I could not get the shot so I broke off my attack and dove to regain the speed I lost in my climb. Notice that I also turning back into you as well as you start coming over the top? Again I want to set up for giving you the hardest possible shot.



As you come down from your loop on an attack run I notice that you are in a good position to get a very possible shot if I continue my right hand turn. So, I stop doing a right hand turn and instead reverse my turn back into and under you!



We see that you have rolled back into me try to reposition for the shot but it is looking a lot more difficult than the shot I was giving you before if I continued in a right hand turn. This is also where I start pulling hard up and into you again as you close into gun range. Pulling up and into your turn will deny you the shot at this steep of an angle.



You can not pull lead for the shot and are starting to overshoot. This is where I start another wingover maneuver. As you pass below me with more speed I pull up and chop throttle to lose speed.



As you pass below me I point my wingtip at you, kick hard right rudder, carefully balance the ailerons and throttle control, and line up my shot. I am using my elevators to line up the shot. My ailerons are keeping my wing pointed at you. I'm working my throttle carefully in order to keep as much speed as I can but without flipping my plane with too much engine torque, stalling out, or having too much speed and not getting the shot. I'm using my rudder to actually turn my plane into you. If you try to pull up and away from me then I can pull back on the stick and try to keep the shot. If you roll into me and try to turn in and under me then I can push forward on the stick and try to realign the shot or, I can snap roll my plane in order to keep my lift vector pointed in your direction if I see I won't make the shot. The orange dotted lines represent roughly where I can correct my shot with my elevators to get a shot on you. You want to fly out of this area so I can't shoot you by either pulling hard up and away from me, or hard into and under me.



Once again though you did not correct your flightpath to avoid my shot. Once again, you should have either rolled right and pulled up and away from me or rolled left and pass below and under me.




The things you should definitely work on are:
1. Lift vectors - Keep that lift vector behind your opponent and fly to his 6 unless you see that you can cut the corner like I did in some of the examples above by using angles, throttle work, and positioning.
2. Lag pursuit - Kind of plays off of lift vectors. Sometimes you want to swing out wide since this can conserve speed and help you fly to their 6.
3. Horizontal separation - You did well in the vertical separation category, though that might have just been because we were constantly in rolling scissors fights?   but you need to create some horizontal separation in order to create more angles to work with and make shots more difficult for your opponent. This is directly linked to the last bit you need work on.
4. Change your flightpath! - By far the biggest problem I saw for you is when you didn't change your flightpath and just flew into my guns. If you see your opponent turning into you and he's going to get inside your turn for a shot, then do not continue that course! Roll and change your direction and turn out of his guns!

(Don't know why the images are blurry, sorry.   )

[danny76]

Thank you for your time Sir, much appreciated and I will have to make some changes methinks.