Can't put my hand on the aiming bug!

[Driver]

BTW what was the FOV default in AHII  I have been messing with that as of late.  perhaps that's my issue.

 

[Kingpin]

BTW what was the FOV default in AHII  I have been messing with that as of late.  perhaps that's my issue.

 

106 degrees was default FOV for AHII.

[Ack-Ack]

People tend to think that gunnery skills isn't as important as BFM and ACM but unfortunately it's a wrong thought.  Gunnery is as vital as knowing ACM, what does it matter if you can out fly your opponent if you can't shoot him down?  It takes practice, practice and more practice to become proficient in gunnery and constant work to maintain that proficiency.

I would recommend using one of Bustr's historical gun sights to begin with.  He's done a lot of work to make the sights accurate in both look and functionality.  I would also take Kingpin up on his offer of training.  In addition, I would also go offline and turn on the LCGS (Lead Computing Gun Sight) and approach the drones from different angles in order to practice leading the target to know where to shoot.  I would also recommend you check out these lectures from SimHQ about gunnery.

Air To Air Gunnery – Theory and Application, Part One

Air To Air Gunnery – Theory and Application, Part Two

Air To Air Gunnery – Theory and Application, Part Three

Air To Air Gunnery Revisited – Guns, Gunsights, and Convergence

Lastly, and this is a personal preference but one I do recommend, turn off your tracers.  I know some think that turning off your tracers is a gamey thing used not to surprise your enemy as you shoot, but there is a real reason why it's a good idea.  One of the biggest mistakes players make in this game is to aim and adjust their fire using their tracers and this is inefficient, you waste ammo and more than likely miss your shots.  By turning off the tracers, you force yourself to use the gun sight to aim and making your shots more accurate.  It takes about a week or so to get used to flying with tracers off but the pay off is worth it in the long run.  Once you have become proficient enough in aiming with your gun sight and hitting your target, you can elect to keep the tracers off or turn them back on. 

[MADe]

"Nose bounce" than can be a result of auto-trim usage (which can possibly be fixed or reduced through angle, speed or manual trim usage.)
Auto-trim "fighting against" your input when flaps are deployed (which can possibly be fixed by disabling auto-trim when flaps are deployed).


this never crossed my mind. now that you state it, it makes perfect sense to me. it makes so much sense......................br illiant

 

[hitech]

Btw the biggest gunnery tip I can give, is put your trigger on you left hand. That way the trigger pull does not move your stick.

HiTech

[Driver]

Btw the biggest gunnery tip I can give, is put your trigger on you left hand. That way the trigger pull does not move your stick.


I never thought of that either.  Let it be known I have been schooled  with the input you all have provided. 

Thanks, maybe I can learn to hit something now instead of yelling at the screen! 

 

[Bizman]

Btw the biggest gunnery tip I can give, is put your trigger on you left hand. That way the trigger pull does not move your stick.

HiTech

That's a great tip.

Decades ago I practiced some archery and one of the toughest things to learn was to release the arrow without a twitch. Having learned that helped with the rifle in the army, too.

[1stpar3]

Good point! In archery, when you learn to pull your shoulder blades together(at least thats what it seems like) you get a solid release point. Its all about muscle memory!

[DaddyAce]

Great tip Hitech; similar to something I've learned with rifle shooting, especially under field conditions....I've had the triggers adjusted to a light pull, since I've sometimes found I'd pull a shot off under hunting conditions where the rest could be iffy and the adrenaline high...tend to do a lot better since I've had the triggers adusted to lighter-than-factory pull.

[Gman]

Gunnery did change, it's one of the things I've enjoyed most with AH3 - IMO it has made it a bit harder, which is as it should be.  Sakai said aerial gunnery was akin to shooting butterflies with a rifle, and other aces (Beurling, etc) spoke and wrote at great length about the complexity of aerial gunnery.  Very interesting topic IMO, and AH3 has made it a skill that needs to be worked at a bit more, which is great.

Regarding aerial shooting, any type of shooting which involved pressing a trigger requires ironclad fundamentals in order to become a great shot.  Of all the fundamentals, grip, stance, sight picture, and so forth, fire control is by far the most important, yet most difficult for many to do correctly at first.  Fire control being essentially everything to do with how you press that trigger.  I'll link a vid from Rob Letham, one of the best pistol shooters in the world who guest instructed at my school (Sig Sauer Academy) many times, and has taught Delta, NSW, and other SF units all over the world.  The TLDR of his video is that pressing the trigger while keeping everything else motionless is THE most important skill.  The same applies for aerial gunnery, our adjunct Sig Sauer school taught a class for RCAF pilots about 11 years ago who were issued our handguns, and they used our techniques for training and visualizing the trigger press for shooting the 20mm cannons as well, in fact in the series "Jetstream" you can see one of the instructors quoting the SigARms syllabus absolutely verbatim while teaching another pilot how to strafe the ground practice targets.

HT's solution is a viable one for sure, however you CAN train yourself to keep the trigger movements isolated from the stick movement, it just takes more training and time in order to do so.  The video is below, substitute "the gun/pistol" for "the control stick", and the parts regarding remaining motionless apply well to AH3 - obviously we don't get recoil in our stick, so having to maintain a high pressure clamshell grip isn't necessary for pilots, either real or virtual.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=li0rGtXh23I

[bustr]

I finally bit the bullet in AH3 and scaled my x,y axis way back from how I had them set in AH2. What was evenly responsive without any y-axis micro bounce or over control oscillations, along with no over control of the x-axis at slow speed in a spit16. Became exactly that in AH3. Try turning off scaling and watch how little fine control you have in AH3 over your y-axis. It's only in a cartoon world that we try to snap our plane's nose in all directions as absolutely fast as we can jerk our controller. Unfortunately Hitech placed an atmosphere, gravity, and tailored flight physics for each ride as a road block to that end.