Only comments I'd add, as someone who is NOT a great killer (I'm not a good shot) but that can handle the planes fairly well are..
1. Since coming to Aces High, I've seen a LOT of attempted HO attacks when flying fighters. People literally just pointing their plane at me as if just doing that will nail me. WRONG. You'll have to ask one of the better fighter pilots that is also good at explaining these things, but even if you have alt advantage, then if I see you coming it's no great trick to either (a) point my nose at you so we HO each other - which makes things no more skilful than Russia Roulette or (b) (my preference) to side-step your attack and turn one way or another so that I have a fair chance of ending up on your tail, or at least, in not quite so bad a situation a I was before you tried to bounce me.
You need to think ahead a bit, think the angles, and get where you can shoot at me but I cannot shoot at you - on my tail or beam, or belly. And decide whether you're going to lead me to take a shot at me or trail me to try to get right on my 6.
2. Strangely, cosidering the amount of HO'ing I've encountered whilst in fighters, I've seen almost none when flying a bomber. The best place to attack most bombers from is from slightly high 12 - and that includes Ju88s. Attack me from my 6, and I'll throw my Ju88 around whilst blasting you with everything I've got - and I can handle a bit of damage better than you can. Exceptions are known blind spots - like underneath a Lancaster - and the more agile US bombers with heavy frontal armament (B26). Takes a long time to overtake a bomber to get into position for a HO or front quarter pass? Yes, it can, but you're more likely to survive the encounter and land those perk points, too.
3. E-fighting might get boring, but you have to decide what kind of flying you want to be good at. If you want to fly in as realistic a maner as possible, then flying to survive is more important than flying to get kills. If you lve long enough you'll get kills now and then anyway. If all you are interested in is killing as many foe as possible irrespective of what happens to yourself, then you might as well get stuck in no matter what and HO at every opportunity. Even Saburo Sakai, the Japanese ace who flew mostly A6M's said that managing your energy state is important even in an A6M - that stuff isn't just for late-war uber-rides.
4. Teamwork. Working well as a team makes a bunch of pilots considerably more dangerous to the foe than is the case if theyre all lone-wolfing it. Join a unit that like to fly a a team and that practices it.
Finally, some of us just have to accept that we won't ever be great virtual fighter pilots. The trick then is to work out how you can be most help to your chums in a fight. Once I accepted that my role within any bunch of fighters is generally to be one of the ones that ties up one or more enemy long enough that one of my chums can shoot them off my tail (rest of the time I just try scaring folk off of friendly tails), I started feeling less frustrated with my inability to get kills very often. I know I've gotten about as good as I'm ever likely to get in fighters. Nowadays I tend to fly fighters as a bit of relaxation from the perils of flying bombers... :-}
But if you've got what it takes to become more than mediocre, and can put in the time to study and practice to get better at using fighters, then good luck (unless you're sneaking up on a Ju88 that is ;-) )!
Esme
