We had a good little fight late in the frame.
The 49th met two good sized groups of 109's around 10-10-5 about an hour in a half into the frame. We came out ahead in the fight, taking down 4 and losing 1 pilot. I unfortunately came out of the fight with damage so was diverting to a close field for RTB.
I broke off from my group which was headed into a new fight went low and headed home. I was approximately 15K. Was being a little too chatty on squad and had my head down in the cockpit looking at text when I looked up for a sec to find a 109 at my 1 o-clock low. He was passing by at a slight angle, so I dipped my nose took a pot shot at him as we passed each other, and just kept on booming away. My hope was to get a hit on him get in some damage and discourage a fight. My plane was down an aileron, and anyone will tell you that dragging a P38 through the sky with aileron damage is not easy.
So I took the pot shot and kept on going.
I am guessing I missed as Leek came about and followed me. He was at 5K when his icon disappeared. So I figured "Cool he's going home." And realized a little bit. Pointed my nose for home and put her back on auto pilot. A few minutes later I looked back and he was there again at 4.5K and closing slowly. Well I knew I couldn't out run him so figured I'd better turn and fight.
Did a split-es reversed back in and came at him from ahead and underneath him, shooting for his underbelly on the merge as I went into my immelman. I missed but the lead turn worked out well. Leek had nosed down into me on the merge and did a splitt-es. Which he turned into a loop again. So coming over the top of my first immelman I just turned it into a loop and shot up his underbelly as we passed on the second merge. Me coming down from my first loop, and he upside down at the top of his loop after his split ess.
After taking the hit he went for the deck and I dropped in to pursue. Bd aeleron though put me a bit out of position and I initially overshot him, but immediately reversed with the rolling scissors and started picking peaces off of him.
What I did not yet know but was about to find out was that he had help coming.
ODL1Cav had rolled in on the fight during our second merge and was coming in behind me. He overshot on his first pass, but a high barrel roll brought him around for a good shot on his second pass. With me still in the rolling scissors with Leek. I was hoping he'd miss on this particular pass so I could reverse again but he didn't. Knocking out my left elevator just at a moment when I needed it. Coming out of the bottom of a barrel roll of my own, and I nosed into the ground.
I got a film of the fight, and am clipping a few pics now. I'll post em later during one of the half times or something today.
