Junior Member
yeah especially during take off and setting climb powers. I used to that but I want to explore aviation a bit playing civilian sims and combat sims. I want to get most of it. The jets just climb itself i don't know about the props on IL2 it just wouldn't gain speed during the climb before attacking your opponent. I just want to learn air combat through aerobatics and so on. I just joined up with the virtual combat school I'm getting started tomorrow. I'm a good airline pilot haha Can anyone help me to become a good fighter? Aerobatics? I thought you have to do aerobatics? how does all tight turns, half loop and yo yo's develop you into a good fighter? I don't get it.
Banned
Jets have constant thrust. Power = thrust x TAS. Jets gain power the faster they go. Up high they rock.
Props have constant power. Thrust = power / TAS. Props lose thrust the faster they go, they get the most at very low speed.
Props have spiral propwash and torque that jets aren't plagued with. Counter it with rudder/rudder-trim.
There's some practical differences between jets and props.
I doubt that any of the fast prop fighters could sustain a 30 degree climb. However a zoom climb where you're losing speed all the way up, any plane can spend some time in vertical. They can all go fast enough to exceed their own Va.
Banned
Learn to shoot, this is basics of basics in this game.Originally posted by skyhigh2011:
Hi guys, can I become a good fighter pilot? what moves do I need to do?
And truth to be told this is a masterful discipline that needs to be practiced regularly in order to achieve best results.
So you will hit hard from any position and in this game that means everything.
Sometimes all you get is one or two chances per fight so you gotta make it count.
Download my "Power of .50cal track" and see how to do a good bnz attack. That is a good opportunity seized 100%.
Gunnery, gunnery, gunnery, gunnery, gunnery...
Once you get online (if you still haven't) you will jawdrop on just how little many people need to kill you. They seize one bad, high deflection opportunity and saw your virtual head off... those monsters did it many times so that is their second nature, don't worry if you are crazy about the game as they are you will be just as good.
In couple of years.
Senior Member
+1 Example: The P-38 is a big, heavy aircraft that should not be able to win a turn fight with the A6M Zero. (One should be being an 'idiot' when flying the P-38, using it's weight and power to perform fast flying energy based attacks, but that's another post...) I have, however, routinely won turn fights against Zeros in my P-38. How? I fly on the edge. Most importantly I know my airplane. I know what it can do, what it can't do, when, where, and why.Originally posted by K_Freddie:
Any 'idiot'can fly fast, handling your aircraft 'on the edge' seperates the men from the boys.
Most of the time.
The issue is that when I make a mistake, while doing something I shouldn't be doing (turn fighting in the P-38), I pay for it; quickly and decisively. Weather that be getting shot down, or putting in just a shade too much rudder and getting into a spin that I can't recover from given my altitude, the results are swift and catastrophic. There is very little room for error when out on the edge, and even less when doing things you technically shouldn't be doing.
I'll give a second example of successful use of low speed tactics in an airplane designed for high speed:
I was online, had lost my wingman, and was cruising home alone when I discovered I was being followed. Hoping to outrun him, and having altitude to burn, I pushed the throttles forward, and dove in a long shallowish dive for the deck to get extra speed. He was still gaining, very slowly, and I had to do something before he simply cruised up and shot me down. So I did the last thing you when trying to get away from someone, I looped up, and turned back toward him, just slightly higher than he was. We passed, head to head, and, since I now had intentionally closed the distance, I ended up doing the only thing I could think of to keep him off my tail, a scissors, which is a low speed series of turns in which each aircraft is trying to get on the others tail. The victory usually goes to the aircraft that can turn the tightest. And I made another mistake. In the pass, I discovered that he was a Focke-Wulf 190D, late model. I knew right away that I was in trouble, since not only can a P-38 not outrun a late model 190, the 190 is generally is better at turning. My response was to attempt to get head to head with him again. This took a few turns, during which our speeds decreased, and he used his better turning ability to get a few shots in, hitting me a few times, but not seriously. I managed, by using everything I knew about what my aircraft was capable of, to get back to a head to head situation, at which time we passed each other going opposite directions. Instead of continuing my turn, I straightened out and ran. He was at low speed, and continued to go around the turn, expecting me to be there, and then I wasn't. He had to do a complete 360 degree turn, at which point he was slow, I was faster and my speed increasing, at a considerable distance, and moving away, using the very good climb capability of the P-38 to increase that distance vertically. He chose to break off and go home, and I was very, very lucky to still have an airplane to fly.
I never should have decided to attempt the scissors maneuver. It was a mistake I could have, and should have lost my airplane for. This example is not one of what to do right, but how handling your airplane on the edge can help you pull your chestnuts out of the fire when you make a mistake.
Senior Member
Hi,
Learn how to set your joystick curves properly (dead zone and filtering try everything and keep what suits you best). Find the best curves for all axis and for all your favorite aircraft. Find the best key configuration (hotas recommended). Learn how to trim your aircraft and how to use elevator (and rudder) trim to have a precise and steady aim.
THIS IS THE FIRST STEP
Remember: all the training you will do without doing all this above will prove useless and discouraging in the end!
Then, you can learn the basic moves: SHOOTING! turns, yo-yo, wingover, barrel roll... Then try them all in combat.
Also remember: as in real life <span class="ev_code_RED">one of the most dangerous thing is to believe you know a thing, when you actually don't, is to believe you master something when you actually don't</span>. Failing and losing is the sign a pilot doesn't know what he's talking about.
This "futile" game is far more difficult than it seems, the simple and exotic words seasoned pilots are using here are nothing without the huge amount of experience and skill of the same pilots speaking. And you will often wonder what they are really talking about when they use words you think you understand when you begin.
You will find all the maneuver descriptions quite simple BUT YOU DONT KNOW ANYTHING if you are not able to perform them successfully in combat. There is nothing more complex than doing the good move at the right moment, it may look simple on the paper, even when looking at an ace flying, but it is really something that requires a lot of experience. Remember it is not because you understood the principles of a maneuver, and that you are able to talk about it in a chat, that you know something about it. Thing will be good the day you will find youself saying "ah, ok, then this is the maneuver that was described!". Training training and training again, and again, will give you the experience.
There's so many things to say.... the last thing i will tell you is: don't panic just because your target is not sitting straight in front of you showing his six. Always keep it in sight, try to estimate his energy status (try to guess what he is/isn't able to do), know when to engage, know how to disengage aka run-away/escape.
BTW welcome on board and Good luck!
Senior Member
And this is the essence of the problem I found myself in in the above encounter. I knew the airplane on paper, but attempted a turn based maneuver in an energy airplane. As soon as that enemy speck showed up all that info went right out the window. Very bad mistake. I just happened to get away with it, this time.Originally posted by RegRag1977:
You will find all the maneuver descriptions quite simple... if you are not able to perform them successfully in combat. There is nothing more complex than doing the good move at the right moment, it may look simple on the paper, even when looking at an ace flying, but it is really something that requires a lot of experience. Remember it is not because you understood the principles of a maneuver, and that you are able to talk about it in a chat, that you know something about it. Thing will be good the day you will find youself saying "ah, ok, then this is the maneuver that was described!". Training training and training again, and again, will give you the experience.
Combat flying is like any other intense activity in that you have to stay calm and think, not get worked up and just go barreling in. Gotta be thinking 5 or 10 steps ahead. I was at step 1. I never did get to step 2. All I knew was that if I could somehow haul this thing around tight enough, I could increase the distance... and find myself in the initial situation. Again. With absolutely zero to gain for all that maneuvering. So, yeah, I got lucky, simply because he called it a day. The whole time, it was his fight, he just let me go. Having left myself no option, I had to fly hard in order to survive.
Having practiced where the limits of the airplane were, instead of what maneuver to use when, I had an idea as to just how far I could go before the airplane had enough. But if I'd studied maneuvers rather than the limits of the airplane, I may have been able to avoid the situation altogether.
Junior Member
Junior Member
"Here's a move for you, vertical turns. Do a half loop except on the way up, roll the plane so you come out on a new course. Do a half roll at the top and dive to regain speed. With a FW or P-47 this can be done insanely fast like while running a barrel roll, suddenly off 60 degrees in another direction. But don't try that when slow!
Learn to fly yoyo's. You can stay behind another even though you have higher airspeed if your path is longer. That's what yoyo's and _big_ barrel rolls do, they lengthen your path. And if every so often your path happens to point across the nose of the other might be other than coincidental.
Your path can be shorter than your target's like say you cross the circle the other is turning. You can be the slow one and still get the shot."
Can you explain in simple words please? I don't get it. I haven't got a joystick so I'm on keyboard. How do I do vertical turns, Half loop, half roll, gain speed and all that?? and How do I do yo yo's?
