Tactics: when enemy doesnt immel

[Murdr]

Like everyone else, Im not quite sure what the enemy actually IS doing in your scenerio.

Judging from your Idea#1 though....This unfinished document, might lead you in the right direction.   If you look at imlvflat.ahf closely, neither widewing or I in either example actually peform an entire immelman.  In both cases, we intended to do a pure immelman, but looking back at our enemy, we adjusted to their position.

Given equal planes, an immelman (adjusted immelman as noted above) can get inside an initial flat turn that transitions into the vert.  It will be close to a HO merge, but the immel plane should have the angle (as shown in the first film example).

Given equal planes (immel vs chandell), a chandell should have a snap shot going into the 2nd merge, and will also 'win the merge' with the lower position.  But if the immel plane did not chop thottle excessively on the first turn, and avoids the 2nd merge shot, it should have the E advantage at that point.

Given equal E, and planes with comparible excess thrust.  You cannot expect to out vert them (after turning 90 degrees) beyond gun range after 1 merge unless they burn excessive E in their first turn.  There are many situations where I personally can expect to out vert a co-E first merge with a lazy immelman, or extention at a 45 degree climb.  But there are a lot of varibles that go into that.  What is the plane match-up?  Did the other plane pull a tigher immelman or chandell than they should have been able to do considering the merge speed (read chopped throttle)?

[Booz]

I'll always double immel, half the time it ropes them, the other half you maintain commmand of the fight

[x0847Marine]

Originally posted by Krusty
It's the "I-don't-want-to-type-the-entire-damn-word" version of it. It's quite obvious what I meant, though.

Its a move some dude came up with, I found out. I wasnt sure.

[Simaril]

Sorry for the silence -- I had a sudden bout of something called "real life," that got in the way of the virtual one!



Appreciate all the feedback, and sorry for the lack of clarity in the setup.


In the situation I'm talking about, while I start the immelman the opponent is either heading straight (a la the HO, which misses as I immel) or noses down slightly as if to merge -- but continues with that slightly downward path straight forward. Once he sees that I've gone above him, he pulls back and tries to get nose on, 12 oclock on me again.  His path is a much larger curve, but he often maintains enough E to zoom into shot range (much to my "I just died to a dweeb move" frustration).

As for plane matchups, I tend towards E-efficient planes just because my instincts are more at home with E concepts than with anticipating angles. Lately I've been flying F4Us almost exclusively. High wingloaded enemies dont pose me much trouble in this situation, simply because at these speeds energy retention puts me so far ahead situationally that even I can see what to do. So, the question I posed was looking at energy or E/TnB transitional type fighters, whether Ponies or Yaks or La's or F6Fs.

Bat: I think I do tend toward the energy conservation side in Immelmans, rather than working hard for angles.

Thanks for the advice and suggestions. I'll post more later, when real life cn move into the background where it belongs!  

[Murdr]

Sim, when they do that, try minimizing the separation, and treat the next merge as a new merge.  I usually end up turning my immelman into a 1/2 cuban (not nessacerily going back to starting alt unless they continue to extend at that alt) when I see them extend through the merge.  What I am doing is trying to convert some alt back to speed to close up separation and make it difficult for them to reverse and still have time for proper merge setup.  

If they extend into the vert, then it's a matter of judgment call on whether you can hang with them, or opt for a "safe zone" defence.  If they simply loop over to reverse and merge, you now own the low position on the merge, and if the merge is going to take place toward the vertical plane, it may even be possible to sucker them into inverting into the merge.

[Simaril]

Oooooo.....I actually get that! Thanks, Murdr.


And Marine -- I don't think Krusty was being mean. He probably thought you knew what an Immelman was, and were just smarting off at him.

BTW, here's a great illustration of what the half cuban looks like. In this picture, which was on a RC aircraft site, they also show the RC controller position at each spot in the maneuver. The MODE 1 left hand circle shows where YOUR joystick should be at each step along the way.

[Murdr]

That's a reverse 1/2 cuban. I was refering to this

Which is basically what you described by saying "From the side, my track would look like 3/4 of a loop, then there would be a 180 degree airelon roll to level and either the track shot or snap shot as the opponent heads vertical in front of me."

[Simaril]

Lol. I almost posted that image -- which looks much better with the background -- but liked the stick information the RC site gave.

Murdr:
1. Is the first image "reverse" just because you exit lower than you enter, while the standard Half Cuban is the other way around? Or is there more to it than that?

2. And while we're at it, I've always been a little unclear about the Chandelle. Is that essentially a flat turn with a climbing component?

BTW -- Stick information might be a nice tweak to add to the instructional stuff at the Trainers' website. A lot of the newer guys I've helped out like getting concrete controller instructions, when first learning a move. Maybe somebody could make up a block of image icons with controller positions, and paste them onto the existing ACM images with a key like the RC site used. It would be VERY cool to have a PIP window doing that in the basic ACM films, but that would be tough to do I'd think.

[Murdr]

Well, it comes from a "cuban 8" which basically doing that last image I posted x2 back to back....would look like a sideways 8 slightly flattend out on the bottom.  

The one you posted, the flight path diagram would look the same, but you're flying through it in the opposite direction (doing 3/4 underloop rather than a 3/4 loop)  hence reverse.  Much like a split-s could be considered the reverse of an immelman.

Gues you could consider the cuban 8 as the basline maneuver that is used to describe what a 1/2 cuban or reverse 1/2 cuban is.

[Murdr]

Originally posted by Simaril
2. And while we're at it, I've always been a little unclear about the Chandelle. Is that essentially a flat turn with a climbing component?
 

Did you see this film example?

Edit: Here is a screenshot showing how an opening immelman stacks up vs a chandelle for 2nd merge positioning.

[Krusty]

Side note: Yes, I thought he did know what an immelman was. sorry.

[Blagard]

Originally posted by Simaril
BTW, here's a great illustration of what the half cuban looks like. In this picture, which was on a RC aircraft site, they also show the RC controller position at each spot in the maneuver. The MODE 1 left hand circle shows where YOUR joystick should be at each step along the way.


 

AS an ex RC flyer I should point out that Mode 1 is Aileron and throttle on right stick with Elevator and Rudder on the Left.

Mode 2 is classic joystick (I flew this RC) Aileron and Elevator on right stick Rudder and Throttle on the left.

The illustation starts at half throttle, pull up roll left and some top rudder, roll inverted with some down elevator then the half loop out ending on half throttle again. Right stick Mode 2 is the one to look at!

Cheers Blagard

[Benny Moore]

Originally posted by Blagard
AS an ex RC flyer I should point out that Mode 1 is Aileron and throttle on right stick with Elevator and Rudder on the Left.

Mode 2 is classic joystick (I flew this RC) Aileron and Elevator on right stick Rudder and Throttle on the left.

What kind of sick person would use mode one?

[Blagard]

Originally posted by Benny Moore
What kind of sick person would use mode one?

Ah, that would probably people who either had a basic two channel setup once, often with left/right movement on right stick and up/down movement on the left stick.  There are also people who have never flown and didn't know any better or just preferred it!

Oddly Mode 1 has quite a following, but not as big as Mode 2.

When I was younger I must admit that I thought Mode 1 flyers couldn't be real aircraft enthusiasts - I know now different, but it does seem strange still!

Going onto the RC pattern manouvre was really a bit off topic. Forget the stick diagrams, the picture is fine on its own.

[Simaril]

Serves me right for roughing it in when I didnt really know the field.