A film for critique/discussion. High spit vs lower F4U.

[mtnman]

Great input guys!  Hopefully Dazy will stop in and get some ideas.  Hopefully I can get him into the TA too.

Boozeman, that's much more in line with what I was looking for.  Thanks for expanding on your ideas.

wgmount- I'm not sure what to tell you.  I don't understand what would cause those problems.  Do you have the appropriate terrains in your AH file?  If you can figure it out, let me know and I can send you any films you'd like...  I open films by going right to my films file and double-clicking on them.  I don't open the viewer first, and I close the viewer after each film.  I'm not sure if that matters, or why it should.

[Sonicblu]

 ill just make some points.

1. the F4u out weighs the spit so dispite a higher climbrate at that alt. When it went to a zoom climb at the end you have all that energy pushing you up. + the fact that you dont have to climb as high you just have to be in gun range.

2. Someone pointed out that Dazy is a pony driver. I remember when i first started Death by Dazy over and over again  He was one of the first players to give me pointers on flying.  I dont know if he has flown the spit alot first time ive ever seen him in one. But if your used to the pony on the zoom climb and you think  well the spit has a much better climb rate it should be no problem,( Dont know what Dazy was thinking that used to be my thinking.) Well we can all see the result zoom climb and max climb rate are two different things. I think if he would have gone to a sustained climb until  his  max climb rate evened out the e states then roped. I think this is what he was tryin by the look of it. He just misjudged it. He knows the diff in my opinion.

3. Some of these things get to be subconscience in one plane and we have to rethink all aspects in a diff plane and sometimes we misjudge e states and angles because it worked in the other plane.

4. A few mistakes can come back to haunt use  later, even one mistake will make the diff in a fight.

5. Thanks for the post these kind of things give you new ways to see ACM and how they actually work. Not how I think it is working from inside my plane.
6. I know i lost some fights and looked at the film later to think "thats it" thats all he did or didnt do to win the fight and i was flying by )*(& off and he made it look to easy.

<S> Dazy and Mtn always a great fight

[humble]

I'll have to go look at the rest of the fight to have an intelligent comment, but as I stated above the fight was really over before it truly began. A co-e Hog (well flown) will totally dominate a spitty (unless you have an exceptional spitty driver). The hog is the only plane that can not only E fight the spit but actually beat it in an extreme angles fight as long as the hog driver doesn't let the fight truly bottom out to the point he loses the ability to go vertical with the spit. The only way (IMO){other then a snap shot} the spit can/will win is if he can convert a-E fight to an angles fight on the deck and then use his superior climb & acceleration to convert back to an E fight on the deck. Dazy is an outstanding pony driver and a good all around stick. From my view he simply didnt have a solid grasp of what type of fight to fly and he's not the type to "run". The natural inclination to "stalk" the F4U is probably what did him in. I think it would be an interesting fight to see him vs Mt (or any good hog driver) in a pony instead of the spitfire. All he did "wrong" in the spitty is 100% correct in the pony...

[wgmount]

I have all new terrains and a new download of AH but i still can't play films made before 12/2 or the last 3 or four you posted mtnman. I am trying to learn how to do the rolling scissors and I believe you posted one with you and SHawk that i could play the first 3 minutes of before the player crashed the one with the P38 overshoot wouldn't even load.

I still haven't won a rolling scissors fight. I have changed a little in the -1a to dropping 2 notchs of flaps and cutting to 1/4 throttle on the top then pulling the flaps back in on the way down but always get beat. not sure what to look for or which way to point the nose or what to look at to know i am making progress. I don't know if it is throttle manipulation of if my rolls aren't tight enough or loose enough or what.

[mtnman]

I have all new terrains and a new download of AH but i still can't play films made before 12/2 or the last 3 or four you posted mtnman. I am trying to learn how to do the rolling scissors and I believe you posted one with you and SHawk that i could play the first 3 minutes of before the player crashed the one with the P38 overshoot wouldn't even load.

I still haven't won a rolling scissors fight. I have changed a little in the -1a to dropping 2 notchs of flaps and cutting to 1/4 throttle on the top then pulling the flaps back in on the way down but always get beat. not sure what to look for or which way to point the nose or what to look at to know i am making progress. I don't know if it is throttle manipulation of if my rolls aren't tight enough or loose enough or what.

Well, I'm at a loss on how to resolve your filmviewer issues.  I see from some of your other posts that you've been researching and trying to fix it...  Eventually, I'm sure it'll be resolved one way or the other.

But until then, maybe we should just do some 1 on 1 time in the TA?  I'm sure that would be more helpful than a couple of old films anyway. 

I plan to be online tonight and tomorrow night from roughly 10pm until 2-3am (Central).  Those are estimated times, I'm not sure what-all I've got going on at home yet.  If those work for you, just log in and toss me a PM, and I'll hop to the TA with you.  I've also got a few other people that may be doing that as well.

If those times don't work, let me know, and we can work something else out.  Toss me a PM through the forums, or toss me an email through the trainers site...

[mtnman]

I'll have to go look at the rest of the fight to have an intelligent comment, but as I stated above the fight was really over before it truly began. A co-e Hog (well flown) will totally dominate a spitty (unless you have an exceptional spitty driver). The hog is the only plane that can not only E fight the spit but actually beat it in an extreme angles fight as long as the hog driver doesn't let the fight truly bottom out to the point he loses the ability to go vertical with the spit. The only way (IMO){other then a snap shot} the spit can/will win is if he can convert a-E fight to an angles fight on the deck and then use his superior climb & acceleration to convert back to an E fight on the deck. Dazy is an outstanding pony driver and a good all around stick. From my view he simply didnt have a solid grasp of what type of fight to fly and he's not the type to "run". The natural inclination to "stalk" the F4U is probably what did him in. I think it would be an interesting fight to see him vs Mt (or any good hog driver) in a pony instead of the spitfire. All he did "wrong" in the spitty is 100% correct in the pony...

Definitely a better fight strategy for his pony, but still too much horizontal separation in my eyes.  I've fought him a few times when he was in P51's and F4U's, where he started with an alt advantage.  The fights played out very much the same.  The problem I see is that in his caution, he allows me to turn it into a tail-chase, which eventually leads to very similar E-states.  With a pony, that's not terrible, because he's still behind me.  I'll lose E when I turn, and he can zoom up.  In an F4U, I'm going to turn it back into a merge of sorts, where he has no significant advantage.  Generally, though, IIRC, I dodge and draw him into a rolling scissors, made all that much easier (in my eyes anyway) because his E-advantage is reduced, and all I need to do is reverse the angles-advantage.

To me, it's not an efficient use of an E-advantage to loiter behind me until it's squandered.  To start with E and angles, and trade it for just angles...

I'll look for films, but i suspect they're too old for the viewer.

[wgmount]

I can be on then. was up all night and just woke up. I have been working with BigRat but he says he has taught me all he knows Somehow I am not so sure because he still out turns me most of the time And TC sent me his head position files then went and hurt himself.

[mtnman]

I can be on then. was up all night and just woke up. I have been working with BigRat but he says he has taught me all he knows Somehow I am not so sure because he still out turns me most of the time And TC sent me his head position files then went and hurt himself.

Well, I can see it from BigRat's position.  He very well may have reached a point where he just doesn't know how to take you further.  That exact same thing happens to me all the time.

I can feel like I teach someone "all I know", and still beat them in a fight.  One of the things I've noticed is that it's actually extremely difficult for me to teach someone to kill me.  I'll show them the "chinks in my armor", but at the same time, in an actual fight, I'm extremely aware of those chinks myself, and protect against attacks on them...  It's even worse when, for example, I teach someone how to kill me in a particular plane.  As in, when in a 109G14, do this...  Now, in an MA fight, when I see the 109G14 icon, what do you think I'm looking for?  And when a second or two later, I see the beginning of that move, how dangerous is it for that pilot to continue on with what is now a "predictable" fight?  It's almost like I've seen the others teams play-book...

I'm quick to realize when someone is using my own "stuff" against me, and shift into a slightly different fight. 

Teaching someone is also the best way (IMO) to really learn something yourself.  You'll think you know it all, and then a student will ask a simple question for which you have no answer.  That forces you to go and learn some more.  And, while teaching something, you may find that what you thought were "the" answers, don't really pan out under scrutiny.  You're forced to look at something from a lot of different perspectives.  You get a depth of knowledge on a subject by teaching it that I've seldom reached by just "learning" it.

A lot of my training is more a matter of discovering what you're doing to allow me to kill you, and then helping you avoid those things, while teaching you to take advantage of better options.  Something as simple as rolling left when you should have rolled right, can make a big difference.  Helping you understand why doing that makes a big difference is huge.  I'm not so hot with a lot of the technical terms/aspects of ACM.  I'm much more of a "red-neck" trainer.  I explain things as I see them myself, even if I don't know all of the big words, hehe!

Killing me in a fight will still probably (er, hopefully) still be pretty difficult, but killing many of the others in the MA will be much easier...  When I run into my students in the MA,  I recognize right away that they're "dangerous" (but not that they're one of "mine").  As such, they immediately draw a huge amount of my effort.  I always go after whomever I deem as the biggest threat, and try to kill them as quickly as I can.  That often leads to me feeling like I've been a little "overly harsh" when I fight a student...  I build their confidence in the TA, and then take it away in the MA.  I'm not sure how to avoid that.  My attack on someone I see as dangerous is much more intense than on someone I see as average, or "new".

And that leads me back to my fight with Dazycutr.  I'm guessing he "knew" he was fighting either me or Saber, and was more cautious as a result.  That caution is what initially let me build my E, and set up the fight.  There's a fine line between too cautious, and too reckless.  Both will get you killed.

[humble]

Normally my focus is/was to try and identify misconceptions or add a fundamental building block. If we look at Dazy as an example you and I both feel the excessive horizontal separation is the biggest weakness in his flying style. So is this a result of a misconception or a lack of fundamental 3 dimensional awareness? In one case he's attempting to do something he feels is "right" in the other he just hasn't taken the next logical step in the progression. This plays out in shaping a fight that creates succeeding +E merge like situations and an ever decreasing window of opportunity vs actually seizing control of the fight from a position of advantage. If I see 2 or 3 fights devolve along the same lines I'll immediately begin focusing on what the trainee is thinking at the very beginning of the encounter. I think this plays very strongly to your comments in the sense that in the TA your role is to teach. Accordingly your offering a series of well defined looks and counters, your not trying to fly easy....but you are trying to teach. Now in the MA your trying to kill the other guy, the greater you perceive the threat the more aggresive your actions will be. If you have the edge you exploit it. If at a disadvantage you'll do everything you can to entice a decisive encounter quickly...better to fight a 1 on 1 at a disadvantage NOW then get dragged into a fight that turns into a 1 on 3 or 4. So everything is a bit cleaner, tighter and more lethal because of the respect you have for opponent based on the tells. In effect the guy you've been teaching lights the early warning threat detector and gets your best stuff from the git go....

[Big Rat]

I still haven't won a rolling scissors fight. I have changed a little in the -1a to dropping 2 notchs of flaps and cutting to 1/4 throttle on the top then pulling the flaps back in on the way down but always get beat. not sure what to look for or which way to point the nose or what to look at to know i am making progress. I don't know if it is throttle manipulation of if my rolls aren't tight enough or loose enough or what.

Flushed,

(hope I'm not hijacking this thread too much ),  I don't know if what I was doing with ya last night helped or not.  The one thing to keep in mind is that in a rolling scissors the idea is to have the opponent overshoot in front of your guns.  There is also a fine window in which a rolling scissors can be escaped, at a certain point the E states will be too low and it's a fight to the death (first mistake dies).  Last night when we were practicing and we actually got into a rolling scissors, you'll notice the fight started off pretty even, and the longer it went the more advantage I got.  How was I doing this?  I was doing almost all of my turning in the verticle part of the fight and I was gaining my E back when I was nose down.  AS I would start pulling up I would throttle way back 1/4 throttle or maybe less and full flaps, I would throw in the rudder hard to help my rotation over the top.  When I got the angle I wanted, I would relax the controls a bit and come down for the lower part of the "barrel", and pick up some speed as I acclerated down.  On the downward angle I would open the throttle back up and maybe pull in a little flap (1 or 2 notches).  This I would repeat until I was behind you.  In a rolling scissors with a hog that big rudder is probably your best friend.  A good way to practice for rolling scissors in a hog is practicing low alt, low speed rolls using your rudder.  The low alt will force you to keep it in plane (same altitude), and try it at ever decreasing speeds.  You'll find at very low speeds, you'll have to use that rudder to get rotation in time before smacking the ground or at least dropping a lot of alt.  So two things I think you need to work on is more flaps over the top and get that big rudder into the equation. 

On a seperate note, when I downloaded Mtnman's film it wouldn't play for me either (crashed).  So I saved it to another file and open up my AH viewer,and dragged the film into the viewers film file.  Then it worked.

Flushed the important thing is to remember is this game is hard, so don't get frustrated. 

 
BigRat

[mtnman]

Flushed,
On a seperate note, when I downloaded Mtnman's film it wouldn't play for me either (crashed).  So I saved it to another file and open up my AH viewer,and dragged the film into the viewers film file.  Then it worked.

Flushed the important thing is to remember is this game is hard, so don't get frustrated. 

 
BigRat

wgmount = Flushed in game?  I was looking for the wrong guy on the Roster last night, hehe!

When I download films, I never even put them into my films or filmviewer folders.  I just download them to My Documents and double-click them to play.

[Bosco123]

From what I saw, and nothing wrong with this, I saw alot of extending in the intial. I would have pressured him into getting him into trying to pick me, and that's were I would have eventually got it to were I want it and won. It's a risk, but if you have a good enough technique, you can force shots that are not at all favorable, and to the point were he has no shot at all. Versus a spit, your favorable fight would be in the turn fight, slow and flaps extended. In this fight, if the guy knew what he was doing (No offense) he had all the cards, the way you were fighting him. He could have roped you and he could have finished you very quickly, he chose to dive and make the big mistake as to letting you get the E.
If I were spit, I would be fighting with the what I had, and that's E and alt. I would push him down and try to get him to rope were then it would be easy kill. F4U's are one of the biggest targets in the game IMO, and it would be rather easy to hit. If he dosn't go for the rope, I would get him going up with you fighting him. F4U's have a low E retention, and you can get it to your advatange rather quickly, if you just maintain your E.

[wgmount]

When i first singed into the game I was wgmount and signed up for the forums that way. Some reason I was banned from logging into the forums, without ever posting a thing, and was trying to get some help. I got mad instead of calling support and cancelled my account. I went about 2 days and missed getting to play and called support and they let me into the forums but my wgmount account could no longer be used. I liked to fly in the DA and from the air that lake looks like a big toilet and I ended up getting shot down into it every night so I became Flushed.

I think it helped a little BigRat but it's gonna take a lot of practice. Got into a rolling scissors tonight with AKAK in his p38 and me in a jug. He got shot down before I could see the results but it lasted about 4 turns and that is 2 longer than they have been lasting. One of these days I'll win one to be sure.

[Noah17]

Mtnman,

First thanks for all the great work on the BBS and in the TA. Very motivational for a new guy like me that gets tired of getting killed so much (AH is my first flight sim of any sort and I started in June). It keeps me hanging on hoping that I'll turn the tables some day.

I am a dedicated F4U guy and I have 2 comments/questions based on things said in this thread that also have been said in some others and I can't quite understand them.

First...Mechanic said and many times I have heard that the F4U turns better than the Spit 16 (and others) at medium to high speeds. I must be doing something wrong because I can't seem to duplicate it. I used Badboy's calculator to measure sustained turn speeds for the F4U-1A and the Spit 16. This of course had to be measured in a flat turn. Both aircraft were measured at a steady 350MPH with 75% fuel and at 5k'. The 1A at 350MPH had a sustained turn rate of 3.1 degrees per second and a radius of 9477ft. The Spit had a sustained turn rate of 4.2 degrees per second and a radius of 7026ft. I will add that the F4U did this on military power and the Spit had to use WEP. After the Spit ran out of WEP the highest speed it could maintain in a turn was about 320MPH. This is all in a flat turn of course and the Corsair is supposed to be used in the vertical(the Spixteen rolls well and goes vertical too)....Still I can't understand the comments about it being a better "mid/high speed turning aircraft" than the Spit and others.

Second... The zoom of the F4U-1A is great but I did some other measurements offline where I compare the zoom of the F4U-1A to the Spit 16. Both aircraft were level at 350MPH (again spit w/Wep F4U no Wep) at 5k'. For both aircraft I used a 2g pull initially and then settled right down to maintain a 1g climb into the sun. The F4U zoomed from 5k' to 9.7k'(Wep added 100' to the climb). The Spit zoomed from 5k' to about 10.3k'. I repeated this a couple of times.

I don't know if this is enough information to go on or not. It seems the consensus of responders to this thread feel that the F4U should given equal e states(and pilot skill) be able to handle the Spit 16. I'd like to believe that as well... I'm just not able to do it yet.

Constructive comments and thoughts are greatly appreciated.

[Big Rat]

Noah17,

If you look at the raw numbers the spit16 has almost all the advantage.  Things like zoom climb and control surface authority are hard to measure and normally can't be found on any table.  Spits have a major weaknesses that hogs have a major strengths in, usefull flaps, and the ability to kill speed.  Fights don't stay at 300+ for very long normally.  Once that fight gets down to 250 the hogs flaps will have it out turning the spit, and the hog can get down to this speed very quickly.  Use this to your advantage.  Smart spit drivers, make the hog fight up, using their superior climb and acceleration to maintain there E while they bleed the hogs.  As a hog driver you want the spit to come down and turn fight ya. 

As far as the zoom climb goes.  Zoom climb is pretty much a product of inertia which has a lot do do with the weight of an aircraft.  For example I can out zoom climb a hog with an A20 given equal speeds.  Just think of it this way for an example. Take a bowling ball and a golfball at equal initial speed and roll them both up an equal slope, which will climb higher.  The bowling ball obviously.  I'm thinking your zoom climb test, while valid in it's parameters, isn't a true zoom climb test as we are referring to it here.  When I refer to a zoom climb I'm thinking an almost verticle climb, eg trying to rope someone, or trying to climb up someone's rope.  Given a gentler slope, the spit's better power to weight and accleration come into play.

 
BigRat