Keep energy (and exercises)?

[Irtis]

Hello pilots.

 

I don't really undertand how to keep energy during fight/turn/climb. Do you have any tips/exercises? Or some common mistake I have to know and avoid?

I fly on yak 1b and la5fn.

[Ehret]

5 hours ago, Irtis said:

Hello pilots.

 

I don't really undertand how to keep energy during fight/turn/climb. Do you have any tips/exercises? Or some common mistake I have to know and avoid?

I fly on yak 1b and la5fn.

 

The turn and bank indicator is your best friend - try to keep the ball in the middle as much as possible.

Differentiate between sustained turns and  instantaneous turns.

Try to move the fight to altitude where your engine perform better than the enemy's.

 

Avoid the energy trap - the situation where you are out of altitude, out of speed and you are continuously forced to evade thus not able to accelerate/climb. This can be mutual which still is bad.

Edited June 13, 2018 by Ehret

[D3adCZE]

I'd like to add that do not limit yourself by distance. Fights do not have to be in cube 300x300 meters. You can utilize whole map for your energy fights, 20x20km, 30x30km. Whatever it takes to gain E advantage. From my experience, even though the learning curve is steep as hell, the best planes to learn how to E fight are 109 G2 and 109 G6. They stiffen up at high speeds so you have to plan your trajectory way ahead and they require you to eat discipline for breakfast, otherwise you will be toast.Once you learn 109s, you can go to 190 and improve your E management since that plane requires every bit of discipline you have to keep the speed up.

[R6ckStar]

On 6/18/2018 at 1:05 PM, CSAF-D3adCZE said:

I'd like to add that do not limit yourself by distance. Fights do not have to be in cube 300x300 meters. You can utilize whole map for your energy fights, 20x20km, 30x30km. Whatever it takes to gain E advantage. From my experience, even though the learning curve is steep as hell, the best planes to learn how to E fight are 109 G2 and 109 G6. They stiffen up at high speeds so you have to plan your trajectory way ahead and they require you to eat discipline for breakfast, otherwise you will be toast.Once you learn 109s, you can go to 190 and improve your E management since that plane requires every bit of discipline you have to keep the speed up.

Not intending to derail, but I find it easier to manage my energy whilst still maintaining capacity to do high speed attacks in the 190 than in the 109, at least in my opinion the 109 has a very limited range of speeds where it can get enough rate of separation from a bandit if it fails an attack and still be controllable in the attack run ( I usually set the stab in-between 0-1 but damn you have the push that nose down)

 

On topic, as stated above being smooth on the sitck is a must, this is where everyone should start, practising turns loops etc whilst being as smooth as possible, then you go on to climbs, dives, flying coordinated at all times (although without rudder pedals this may be quite hard to do)

Also remember speed is life altitude is ensurance

[Jorge_S]

For me the biggest challenge in fighting energy is that I simply can't find the enemy; in horizontal you can more easily get him because by doing circles you can more or less figure out sooner than later where he is

in vertical; when I climb or dive, specially climb, by the time I found him, I have already lost any advantage

[Blackhawk_FR]

As already said, in summary, drag is the energy killer. The SA is already very important. 

 

The main drag you have to deal with in dogfight is the drag due to a high angle of attack (pulling hard your stick). 

If your rads are fully open it also generates drag but mainly at high speed. 

 

But you also must keep a good SA if you want to avoid maneuvers that require high AoA (angle of attack), like tight turns to defend yourself against a boom&zoomer. Keep your SA up to always stay in an offensive position. If you loose your offensive position, run away. Some idiots will say you're a coward, but don't care about it 

 

If you search on youtube and on the forum, you can find videos about energy fighting (but mainly with 109, as it's a very good climber), or just videos about Yak and La5.

 

 

 

 

 

[69th_Mobile_BBQ]

In the short time I've use the F4, I've come to realize this:   

 

Gaining the energy advantage requires flying gently to combat altitude (4-7k) BEFORE you are even near where the enemy is expected.  If you are flying solo, don't be afraid to use the back of the map to climb up.  Once you are up, if you continue to fly gently and be sure to look around, chances are good that you will find targets below you with less energy.  Pick the ones that preferably unaware of you, themselves climbing up from diving on something lower with their potential top altitude still lower than yours , and are easy to get in shallow dives.  If there are more than one, don't get greedy.  Pick the "tail end Charlie" of the group, blast him, then extend away from the others climbing as gently as you can.  Gain more experience in basic hit and run attacks like this before trying to set up on multiple enemies with more extreme maneuvers.    Trust me, especially with the F4, sticking to a pure boom 'n' zoom application, 1.1ata on the throttle should be more than enough to keep combat speed and escape any follow-on attackers.   This will keep engine temps lower.  Provided you haven't burnt your energy with drastic maneuvers, it will also leave you with a metric f=ck ton of extra horsepower you can call on if you do need to throttle up to get out of a sticky situation.