Decreasing Plane Speed During an Attack????

[fiddlinjim]

I have consistently had difficulty in reducing my plane speed in preparation for an attack.

When approaching from a dive and after cutting RPM's at the top of the dive, I have tried side slips with rudder over, barrel rolls

and still over-shoot a majority of the time.

I know there are a lots of pilots much better than I am and would appreciate a description of the procedures you use to reduce speed quickly.  

[6./ZG26_Emil]

Having more speed is an advantage, you don't really want to bleed it all off because you are then at the same energy state as you enemy, if things go wrong you have no energy advantage with which to dictate the fight.

 

Practice high speed passes and deflection shooting, after you have fired convert your energy back in to altitude by climbing and then you are still in a position to attack at will. Regardless of which side you fly for having altitude and therefore more potential energy is important for your survival. If you bleed off all speed and get in to a dogfight you are at the mercy of any other enemy aircraft in the area.

[Uriah]

I have and had the same problem. From some resent clues I have picket up I think you only want to be like 1.5 km above the enemy. Too high and you really can't pull off a needed attack as they will have moved out of position and if you go to fast for your plane it will end up having parts ripped off.

I watched a short film on an actual falcon attack. It was just this one film and it was going after a low flying bird. It dived as expected but it did not go directly for its prey. Rather it pulled rather flat out of the dive and went level for a while before the attempted hit. All I had ever seen before was a bird of prey diving right on the prey and smacking it. Just food for thought.

[Potenz]

As Emil said, speed is huge advantage in a Dogfight, never bleed it, it will cost your life (virtual life)

also you have to know the capabilities of your plane and it limits, once you can handle both in a balanced

way it will be natural to do any manouver

[unreasonable]

You can either not try to slow down so much, accept that you will overshoot, but do it fast and towards the bandits rear, so that the bandit has no time to turn towards you before you have dived away: or you can do what Uriah's falcon did, presumably because it is a smart bird and realised that it might auger in if it attacked too fast in a dive.  The key thing is to know what approach you are going to use to attack at the beginning.  Making the last phase of the attack more or less level gives you the advantage of being able to either dive away or use the speed to regain a height advantage, plus it is usually easier to keep the target in view and get a lower deflection shot. Altogether easier but riskier against a bomber's defensive guns.

[Leaf]

Don't aim for the plane, aim for where it's going to be. Keep it at a constant angle to your plane and keep closing.

 

An element of surprise makes a huge difference in how effective such sweeping attacks can be made, and should of course always be strived for, but is not always a realistic goal. It takes practise, lots of it, and isn't necessarily as intuitive as turn-fighting, but it works a charm once you can do it. 

[Jaws2002]

You don't want to be as slow as your target, but to stay behind him. You can do that very effectively with a Yo-Yo or barrel roll or lag pursuit.

If you have a lot more energy than him, take a deflection shot, then go up. You can then repeat as necessary.

Edited April 4, 2015 by Jaws2002

[Yakdriver]

stop telling the dude to go fast, cuz'...

he wants to know how to go slow...?

[6./ZG26_Emil]

stop telling the dude to go fast, cuz'...

he wants to know how to go slow...?

 

If you are several thousand metres above a target which is at your 12 o-clock and you want to drop on him without breaking your aircraft. Turn left or right so he is on your beam and start your descent, as you begin building up speed then put in a turn to the opposite side (heading back towards the target and eventually you'll put him on your other wing) and then do this again so you are making an S shaped maneuver. This will bleed off lots of speed and prevent you from overspeeding.

 

Hope that helps

[Yakdriver]

well i would simply have said "pull the stick till you stall and spin... at times you even go backwards - if that is not slow enough, i don't know what will be"

[Leaf]

well i would simply have said "pull the stick till you stall and spin... at times you even go backwards - if that is not slow enough, i don't know what will be"

 

That's not really helpful though, is it? If you honestly think that's a reasonable plan, god help anybody trying to implement it. 

[6./ZG26_Emil]

That's not really helpful though, is it? If you honestly think that's a reasonable plan, god help anybody trying to implement it. 

 

We call it 'Flip flopping' 

[Spacesheep]

Well, if I could had a word from an inexperienced pilot and worse fighter, I would mention a kind of procedure that can help make your opponent overshoot when he is faster or at the same inital speed and quite close (below 200m)

 

=> I use it as a desperate measure as it leads:

-to a massive drop of speed

-altitude loss after the manoeuvre to recover that speed

-sometime end in a stall.....when badly handled

-provide a wider surface of your plane to your opponent during a second or two.

 

As you seem to want to drop fast your speed I share it to you but would really not recommand it in your given attack circonstances.

 

Procedure:

CONTROL: FLY HORIZONTALY or with very low incidence 

                   IAS below 450km/h approx.. to avoid breaking the plane due to high G

                   IAS above 300km/h approx. to avoid the 100% stall at the end due to the great loss of speed it occur.

 

ACTION:THROTTLE: MOVE TO IDDLE

               KICK STRONGLY one of your rudder pedal and maintain full pression.

               PULL STICK QUICKLY TO MAX in the same time you kick your rudder pedal.

 

The plane should enter a rapid spin.

speed decrease massively.

 

when you are about to finish the spin:

                                                         -RELEASE RUDDER PEDAL ACTION TO NEUTRAL

                                                         -PUSH STICK GENTLY BUT QUICKLY AND FIRMLY and control the spin

 

The Spin should stop and you should end in the  same position as before the manoeuver....approximatively

then you can THROTTLE UP again in a level flight.

 

This should allow you to KILL in a very short space of time a good amount of speed (Approx 100 to 150 km/h per complete spin)

 

.... but clearly I wouldn't do this in an attack situation....cause as mentionned by the dear fellow pilots before me, you WANT to be (much) faster than your opponent..

(Moreover you may try to engage this with to much speed (above 500km/h is very quickly reached when diving on a potential prey) or to much incidence... this would greatly endanger the structural integrity of your crate....)

 

hope this give you some help (Or at least good fun to try

I do not garanty nor the efficiency, nor the realistic potentiality of doing such things in a real plane.....

 

S!

[Spacesheep]

Reading this now I am pretty sure that Requiem( who I salute here for his great production of tutorials) wouldn't approve this message.... haha

[fiddlinjim]

Thanks to everyone for your inputs.

I normally fly the FW190 and going to work on EMILS suggestion of the Boom and Zoom using deflection shooting. So far my deflection shooting has been a dismal

failure as I have managed to miss everything in my path but will keep trying and adjusting the lead.

I appreciate the advice on spins but I manage to get into enough accidental spins without purposely doing so.

When I get better I will try flying on-line and the good thing about the FW190 is if I can score a few cannon hits then something is going down.

Thanks again,

[6./ZG26_Emil]

On the subject of deflection shooting I find practicing offline in QMB good, set yourself up to have a 2000m altitude advantage (it's not about fair or challenge against the AI) and don't allow yourself to take deadsix shots only high angle ones. Record the track to watch afterwards to see where you hit & missed and watch each pass from different views especially the cockpit. The more you do it the better you'll build up a sight picture for different angles etc. The AI is pretty good for this because it will behave like many human players do when they realise they're getting B&Zd, they will generally break hard into you when you dive on it. Also watch the aircraft's energy state, if it is climbing up after you it will loose speed and you will see the nose drop, at that point they have very little energy to perform any maneuvers often players will drop their nose and fly straight as they accelerate although the good ones don't generally do this and maintain their energy waiting for you to attack.

 

Best of luck

 

Also the 109 is a really good aircraft for practicing energy fighting and B&Z because of it's superior climb rate (practice a gentle spiral climb until you are above the enemy). If you keep B&Z with the 190 eventually you'll find yourself at a similar energy state to the enemy which is generally pretty bad news :D

Edited April 12, 2015 by 6./JG5_Emil

[[BTEAM]_Shifty_]

 

 

after cutting RPM's at the top of the dive

Keep RPM up, only lower the throttle so that propeller will act as air brake

[[TWB]80hd]

(This is an attempt to answer the OPs question, not try to train the OP to be a pure BnZ "Gotta Survive The War!" pilot - I'm not going to get into the dangers of dumping energy, the necessity of watching ones six (Or better having (a) wingmen(man)/(persons) whilst attempting this, etc... )   

 

If you're wanting to latch onto their six and saddle them up, and you have that much more energy than them, I would suggest that at least initially you do not make an attempt at a gun solution your first priority... 

 

What you don't want to do is try to dump everything in your initial dive (unless the enemy is already hauling balls speed-wise)... this is really difficult to perform precisely from both an e-bleed and more importantly a gun platform stabilization standpoint.

 

What you do want is more of an attempt to equalize energy levels with the bandit (while maintaining a slight to moderate advantage constantly).  You're already in control of this fight if you're worried about slowing down... so now you want to act more like a constrictor than a pit-viper.

 

Say you're screaming in at 600 kmh/IAS, and your target is 300 kmh/IAS.  Instead of trying to dump 300 IAS *AND* altitude (if applicable) in one go, start bouncing him like a cat playing with a toy... each bounce you'll lose some speed (and your quarry probably will as well), you may get a shot, you'll get to study your opponent, and when the time is right you'll find that dumping a, say 100 kmh/IAS advantage and a little altitude is a breeze by comparison.

 

Start your dive on the bandit's general flight path... but instead of vectoring pure pursuit (pointing your nose at his plane) think of it as corralling him... you're trying to put a glass over the spider.

 

Chop your throttle (but leave RPM up as Shifty suggested), maybe a notch of flaps (don't rip em off though) and vary S-turns, barrel rolls, etc... but the key here is keep him in your sight at ***all*** times, even if he's not right in front of you.

 

If you want to saddle him up, your fight is to inject yourself within his turning circle, while also leaving yourself enough options (Energy) to react to his moves as well as to react to other threats (but your wingman/men/people are supposed to mitigate that part).

 

(Sidenote:  knowing your plane, their plane, and more specifically the direct match-up at a given speed, altitude are much more important in E-fighting than in a straight BnZ or TnB fight (though it's always important).  Doesn't mean you need to know it all day one, just take it into account - especially if you lose a fight or two that you started on top of)

 

So you roll in on him, throttle back (etc), as you dive... you're herding him at this point.  Now, does he see you?  If not, and he's going in a straight line (assuming you've got some decent altitude), I might try to wipe out over him (bleed it all ASAP) and then roll in and gain it back as I dive (and he continues on his way).  In this case, you're probably better served by just bouncing him and keeping your speed up.  Work on your high-speed gunnery and aim for something important.

Assuming he sees you, this is where it gets interested.  Dive in, watch how he breaks.  Does he break hard or does he just try to throw off your gun solution?  That tells you something about them right there.  If they break hard, immediate high-yoyo:

 

 

They are torching their E around that turn, while you are trading your speed for altitude (therefore retaining the E advantage) again, as always keep your eyes on him.

 

If instead of the hard break above he does an easy break, but still throws off your gun solution, I would recommend a more relaxed version of the above... don't haul back on the stick and zoom climb... they've already shown that they aren't going to make a knee-jerk reaction (or they are drunk and lucky) so if they are holding their E and they are a decent shot, depending on your relative states you might find yourself with some fuselage ventilation.

 

Just remember: You're dictating the fight here.  Until you screw up.  Take your time, only make the moves you want to make. You need patience, but patience doesn't mean slow reaction time, just discernment.  

 

On the flip side, think about what you'd do in the bandit situation.  It's not often that someone REALLY wants to grab you by your belt and knife-fight instead of climbing/running, so when the opportunity presents itself (either as the hunter or the temporarily hunted) you want to savor it!  

 

As more and more people stop looking at each aircraft's role as this set-in-stone-you-must-fly-this-way-or-die-or-worse-be-ahistorical you're gonna see a lot more action.  One of the best fights I have had to date was me in an La-5 vs a 190 at low speed and low altitude.  It wasn't that the fight started out high and fast, it was that the 190 pilot decided that instead of just BnZing me to death he was going to do exactly what you have posited in your original post: dump speed, saddle up, and have an actual fight.  He still won, he's a much better and more experienced pilot, but instead of just adding yet another high-speed 190 slash attack kill to his yawn-board, we both got the blood going and we both learned something.  

 

[6./ZG26_Emil]

Robert Shaw's book?

[[TWB]80hd]

Robert Shaw's book?

The diagram? That's US Navy training manual stock material, so I guess it's public domain?  I thought it looked familiar hahaha

[312_Tygr]

I normally fly the FW190 

 

That's where your problem is - switch to normally flying Russian planes, and you'll never have problem of having too much speed...