Diary of a Noob

[PFactorDave]

Dave Hoff is still very new.  He doesn't know the envelopes by heart like we do.  I remember doing the same in an La7. 

Agreed, but I also watched him in a 110 going nose on everything that he could.  Repeatedly.  All he wants is the kill, he doesn't seem interested in the fight.

[moot]

For fun.  He was also taking 25Hs for the hell of it.

[Hoff]

Thanks for the advice m00t.


What is with all the animosity dave? What did I ever do to you? I clearly stated that I was messing around and having fun in the 110 and B25 before I started flying for real in the 109k. I'm not posting the films just to post them. If you can tell me how to turn inside him and kill him, please do. I was fighting to my plane's strengths because I couldn't figure out how to get guns on him. Instead of giving him free shots on me I intelligently extended upwards to try again. Would you rather have me just give him free shots and die within two minutes because I haven't figured out what I'm doing wrong or would you rather have me try to learn from my mistakes and try again and again as I did in the film? If anything, isn't it a good thing that I can realize that I'm losing the angles/scissors fight early enough to be able to extend upwards and try again?

Either give me some advice on what to do in that situation or don't say anything at all. There is no reason to attempt to berate me in this thread. If you have personal issues with me then by all means you are welcome to trash talk to me in a private message or in game. Just don't do it in this thread please, I'd like to keep this clean and full of good advice.

[Hoff]

Day 10:

   Flew a little bit by myself and then flew some with the Muppets. Did fairly well overall getting picks and such. Had one fight with a P51 that flustered me a little because I was on his six and couldn't land a shot. Had to RTB without a kill and out of ammo. The next mission I got a good snapshot on a Spit (first film) and then got myself into a bad situation bad managed to get out of it with a kill (second film). I'll start adding in specific questions to the films to help get some feedback. For the second film, could I have done anything better to get them off my six once they were there? I realize I could have been more patient and wouldn't have been in that situation in the first place, but I would just like to know if I could have gotten out of it in a better way. Another question for any 109K4 pilots out there; How do you have your frontal and rear views set up? I have a lot of issues with both no matter how I set it up. The rear view is annoying, especially when I look at a plane like the F4U, which has a similar problem physically, but can clearly see their six because it seems like the head can go outside the window. The front view is abysmal and I would be surprised to find any other plane with a worse frontal view.

Good: Defense, Gunnery
Bad: Gunnery, Patience
Film: One - Two













For shiv:


     Flew a little bit by myself and then flew some with the Muppets. Did fairly well overall getting picks and such. Had one fight with a P51 that flustered me a little because I was on his six and couldn't land a shot. Had to RTB without a kill and out of ammo. The next mission I got a good snapshot on a Spit (first film) and then got myself into a bad situation bad managed to get out of it with a kill (second film).
     I'll start adding in specific questions to the films to help get some feedback. For the second film, could I have done anything better to get them off my six once they were there? I realize I could have been more patient and wouldn't have been in that situation in the first place, but I would just like to know if I could have gotten out of it in a better way.
     Another question for any 109K4 pilots out there; How do you have your frontal and rear views set up? I have a lot of issues with both no matter how I set it up. The rear view is annoying, especially when I look at a plane like the F4U, which has a similar problem physically, but can clearly see their six because it seems like the head can go outside the window. The front view is abysmal and I would be surprised to find any other plane with a worse frontal view.

[shiv]

Not to be snarky but you need some work on your paragraphing.  Break up your questions into paragraphs and it'll be easier to read and you'll get more feedback.

I haven't watched any of the last few films, but in general there's fighting 1v1 and furballing. I would suggest learn both at same time. It's easy to get too much into furballing and then be helpless against a quality stick, and vice-versa, get fixated on a target in a furball and get picked.

I would recommend  learning how to reverse cons with more E first if you haven't already:

 http://bbs.hitechcreations.com/smf/index.php/topic,276908.msg3476738.html#msg3476738

[Hoff]

Not to be snarky but you need some work on your paragraphing.  

Really? You want me to break up 6-7 sentences into paragraphs? Do you want me to be sure to punctuate, capitalize, and type in complete sentences when I text people too? I think it would look silly If I broke up the small amount that I'm typing into paragraphs.

I know the barrel roll defense, but it only works on targets that have a lot more E than you. The ones I have problems with are Co-E and on my ass. Scissors seems to work best on those kinds.

[shiv]

Really? You want me to break up 6-7 sentences into a paragraph? Do you want me to be sure to punctuate, capitalize, and type in complete sentences when I text people too? I think it would look silly If I broke up the small amount that I'm typing into paragraphs.

Yes. Big blocks of text get unread on the Internet. Surprise...

So if you want people to not read what you're posting in Help & Training you're on the right track.

[shiv]

I know the barrel roll defense, but it only works on targets that have a lot more E than you. The ones I have problems with are Co-E and on my ass. Scissors seems to work best on those kinds.

Not so much. Any E advantage the attacker has can be used against him. Whether the con is 3K and diving in or 600 and turning into you if you do it right the barrel roll defense leads to a rolling scissors. If he's got the E then he can zoom out but he can't kill you.

Co-E and con on your 6 the barrel roll defense will work if you can avoid the first shot. The con is slowing up for the shot usually, so BRD will turn it around, or at least get to even.

[shiv]

For shiv:


     Flew a little bit by myself and then flew some with the Muppets. Did fairly well overall getting picks and such. Had one fight with a P51 that flustered me a little because I was on his six and couldn't land a shot. Had to RTB without a kill and out of ammo. The next mission I got a good snapshot on a Spit (first film) and then got myself into a bad situation bad managed to get out of it with a kill (second film).
     I'll start adding in specific questions to the films to help get some feedback. For the second film, could I have done anything better to get them off my six once they were there? I realize I could have been more patient and wouldn't have been in that situation in the first place, but I would just like to know if I could have gotten out of it in a better way.
     Another question for any 109K4 pilots out there; How do you have your frontal and rear views set up? I have a lot of issues with both no matter how I set it up. The rear view is annoying, especially when I look at a plane like the F4U, which has a similar problem physically, but can clearly see their six because it seems like the head can go outside the window. The front view is abysmal and I would be surprised to find any other plane with a worse frontal view.
Day 10:

   Flew a little bit by myself and then flew some with the Muppets. Did fairly well overall getting picks and such. Had one fight with a P51 that flustered me a little because I was on his six and couldn't land a shot. Had to RTB without a kill and out of ammo. The next mission I got a good snapshot on a Spit (first film) and then got myself into a bad situation bad managed to get out of it with a kill (second film). I'll start adding in specific questions to the films to help get some feedback. For the second film, could I have done anything better to get them off my six once they were there? I realize I could have been more patient and wouldn't have been in that situation in the first place, but I would just like to know if I could have gotten out of it in a better way. Another question for any 109K4 pilots out there; How do you have your frontal and rear views set up? I have a lot of issues with both no matter how I set it up. The rear view is annoying, especially when I look at a plane like the F4U, which has a similar problem physically, but can clearly see their six because it seems like the head can go outside the window. The front view is abysmal and I would be surprised to find any other plane with a worse frontal view.

Good: Defense, Gunnery
Bad: Gunnery, Patience
Film: One - Two

More whitespace please. But a little better.

[Hawk55]

Yes. Big blocks of text get unread on the Internet. Surprise...

So if you want people to not read what you're posting in Help & Training you're on the right track.

I agree.   

[The Fugitive]

In the second film once you gave up the chase on the K4 and dove into the furball THAT is what screwed you there, you gave the K4 the green light to drop in on your six. Once he was on your 6 and as you dragged him and the 190 out to sea....and the CV ack, two things to do different.

1) learn to fly with out watching where you are going. Keeping an eye on the bad guys at ALL times is what is important. Flying, especially over water, is easy, avoiding getting hit a bit harder, and turning the tables on a guy on your six even harder. Had you been watching, you would have saw the 190 almost completely over shoot you which info you could have used had you seen it coming for a set-up for a kill shot. The same with the 109 once you started the scissor.

2) learn to scissor better. Scissors start out with short back and forth movements, but by watching the enemy, you can time the rolls and pulls better. The idea is to get out of sync with him. So but watching him you can pull longer to force the over shoot and get your shot, but you can't time them with out WATCHING them (see point 1)

 

[moot]

Film 1 from Day 10:
Just a HO, not much to critique there.

Film 2:
You engage that 109 and then disengage.  You did it without an energy advantage, so he has no trouble staying right with your attempt to disengage.  This kind of thing in an MA furball like in the film is a pretty sure way to guarantee the guy will latch back on to the bitter end. 

From then to ~3'50" you fly almost always straight.  Only at 4'15" do you start to scissor and barrel roll.  On the one hand this means you got away from the airfield before more freshly spawned fighters could pile on, and on the other it means you were putting up basically no defense other than dodging their shots.  Those three guys chasing you never found any resistance to saddling up.  These evasives are almost no use - a good shot will take you out, and a good flier will use it to either fly right up to you for a guaranteed killshot or to build his E while you accumulate little E expenses in those little evasive maneuvers, effectively stagnating your energy level.  Overall these are no use for counter attack (and in the MA you shouldn't expect any friendlies not in your squad to be any help).. It only defers actually being shot down.
As soon as you actually contested the 109 with scissors and rolls, it was much more of a fair fight and you got the kill.

Unfortunately the AHWiki has very little information on these, but you can find a fairly good basic idea of combat maneuvers here, incl flat and rolling scissors
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_combat_manoeuvring
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basic_fighter_maneuvers

[Hoff]

Film 1 from Day 10:
Just a HO, not much to critique there.

Film 2:
You engage that 109 and then disengage.  You did it without an energy advantage, so he has no trouble staying right with your attempt to disengage.  This kind of thing in an MA furball like in the film is a pretty sure way to guarantee the guy will latch back on to the bitter end. 

From then to ~3'50" you fly almost always straight.  Only at 4'15" do you start to scissor and barrel roll.  On the one hand this means you got away from the airfield before more freshly spawned fighters could pile on, and on the other it means you were putting up basically no defense other than dodging their shots.  Those three guys chasing you never found any resistance to saddling up.  These evasives are almost no use - a good shot will take you out, and a good flier will use it to either fly right up to you for a guaranteed killshot or to build his E while you accumulate little E expenses in those little evasive maneuvers, effectively stagnating your energy level.  Overall these are no use for counter attack (and in the MA you shouldn't expect any friendlies not in your squad to be any help).. It only defers actually being shot down.
As soon as you actually contested the 109 with scissors and rolls, it was much more of a fair fight and you got the kill.

Unfortunately the AHWiki has very little information on these, but you can find a fairly good basic idea of combat maneuvers here, incl flat and rolling scissors
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_combat_manoeuvring
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basic_fighter_maneuvers

Yea, honestly I was just trying to run to the CV and dodge their shots. It was hard for me to see how many were behind me so I didn't know when I could safely go for the reversal. It wasn't until the end that I saw that only the 109 was still on me so I felt safe to go for the reversal. Would I have been safe to go for the reversal even with the 190 on me as well?

Also, has anyone watched the Day 8 films where I fight SunsFan? I'm still trying to figure out how he beat me post merge every time.

[moot]

Try this head position file.  It goes into Aces High\settings\planes\
the only alternative 6 view I can see is

Would I have been safe to go for the reversal even with the 190 on me as well?

It's always a gamble.  You don't know who is flying any random plane you run into.  The planes behind you were a 190 and 109, so being in a 109K yourself you could have worked from the assumption that it's an even playing field from an airplane POV, as soon as the F4U came off.

There's more than those, but two things you could pick to focus on getting a handle on ASAP is minimum situational awareness - at least knowing how many you have on your six... but that minimum is never gonna be enough, you want to know much more than that (like knowing that the 109 you tried to disengage wasn't disengaged).. but knowing at least that much you can actually plan something instead of doing something random; and deceleration maneuvers (like name says, make em overshoot) - EG scissors.

Also, has anyone watched the Day 8 films where I fight SunsFan? I'm still trying to figure out how he beat me post merge every time.

I'll watch em in a bit.

[Hoff]

Day 11:

   Today was another lesson in humility. I met up with BigRat in the TA and got destroyed in rolling scissors practice. I still have no clue how I get beat so badly in rolling scissors. BigRat explained the philosophy of it and I understand that, but it just doesn't work for me in practice. After the TA session I went to the MA and fought AGAINST the Muppets. I started out messing around in the 110, but when I started upping in the 109K and actually tried It pretty much felt like this:   . Granted, I was outnumbered most of the time, but I still got my #@$ handed to me. I'm getting more and more frustrated because I feel like I've peaked and can't progress further. The last 3 days have been the same, I can pick people (woohoo), but if I get into a fight, I lose. Hopefully tomorrow is better.

Good: Nothing
Bad: Everything
Film: None