What's the Difference Between a Hineri-Komi and a High Yo-Yo?

[Bearfoot]

It seems that both of them use the vertical to cut across a turn? So is it in the exact mechanics? I.e., in the HYY you pull completely roll back and over, whereas in the  Hineri-Komi the angles change is obtained by something close to a hammerhead turn? 

[wtornado]

Best maneuver is the tornado's 21/2 twist,somersault and end in a pike position. 

 

 

You have to have a lot of energy to pull those maneuvers off and you will bleed

your speed off pretty quickly doing them unless you are flying much higher

than your opponent..

Edited October 14, 2016 by WTornado

[busdriver]

The Hineri-komi was a defensive maneuver in the vertical plane with purpose of gaining the offensive position on your attacker, rather than an offensive maneuver. A high yo-yo is used to preserve the 3-9 line advantage (stay behind the bandit). The greater your closure (overtake) on the bandit/target then the greater need to exaggerate your out of plane maneuver...or if you realize you have a high rate of closure you could start using very small high yo-yos (sounds like an oxymoron) farther out to slow closure and keep pressure on the bandit. Or you might try a rapid lag roll in the opposite direction of the turn to place yourself at the bandit's deep six o'clock and re-apply pressure as you arc across the circle.

 

 

The Hineri-komi (“ Turning-in”) Maneuver The information for this appendix was drawn from the following sources: Osamu Tagaya, communication with author, 1 February 1999; Genda, Kaigun kōkūtai, 1: 119– 20; Mikesh, Zero, 75; and Hattori and Sugiuchi, “Kūkyoku no hissatsugi,” 68– 74. The hineri-komi tactic was designed to give an advantage to Japanese fighter pilots engaged in dogfighting, particularly when pitted against an enemy flying an aircraft of superior turning performance. It appears to have been developed in the mid-1930s by pilots of the Yokosuka Naval Air Group. According to the renowned navy airman Genda Minoru, the tactic was developed by Petty Officer (later Lieutenant) Mochizuki Isamu. In repeated aerial training duels with Mochizuki, Genda, who early in the decade had already become famed in the navy as the head of one of the “flying circus” acrobatic teams, found himself repeatedly beaten by Mochizuki, despite his frenzied efforts to outmaneuver him. One day Genda suggested that they start out a dogfight with Genda already on Mochizuki’s tail. Genda then followed Mochizuki on several loop-the-loops and in each case noticed that just before he reached the apex of the loop, Mochizuki’s wings would begin to sideslip— to describe a sort of twist (hineri)— which cut down the turning radius considerably and changed the direction of the nose of his plane by about 90 degrees, followed by a diving curve, inscribing a sort of screw pattern. Genda now realized that, using this technique, a pilot followed by an enemy close on his tail could quickly turn the tables on his tormentor and become the hunter instead of the hunted. Now clearly understood by Genda, the tactic was taught to the other pilots of the Yokosuka Naval Air Group. As Yokosuka was the mecca of fighter tacticians in the Japanese navy, by the opening of the China War the hineri-komi maneuver had been adopted by all navy fighter pilots and had even spread to the pilots of the navy’s sister service.

 

For the first few months of the Pacific War, in combination with the superb maneuverability of the Zero fighter and the inexperience of Allied airmen in dealing with it, the hineri-komi was among the deadliest assets possessed by Japanese navy fighter pilots. But as Osamu Tagaya has pointed out, the maneuver was an example of the Japanese military penchant for accepting a basic element of warfare as a given and— without ongoing consideration as to its utility in changing circumstances— perfecting it through the application of tremendous effort and skill far beyond the effort accorded it in other countries, but always within the same conceptual box. When confronted by such an example of perfected but self-enclosed thinking about warfare, the American response was to step out of the box to develop new approaches to warfare that played to American rather than enemy advantages. Thus, with the entry of American aircraft whose performance were both different from and superior to that of the Zero, and with the appearance of American pilots who understood this, those pilots simply refused to play the dogfighting game, and the hineri-komi became a tactical footnote.

 

Peattie, Mark. Sunburst: The Rise of Japanese Naval Air Power, 1909-1941 (Kindle Locations 7252-7260). Naval Institute Press. Kindle Edition. 

Edited October 16, 2016 by busdriver