Why?

If you're doing a very hard flat turn to meet someone, shame on you. That's not the SPAD's fault.

A slow climbing broad turn which will keep seperation to build up potential energy or a dive to give you the speed to extend away in order to set up for a more advantageous attack position is a much better set of ideas.

[edit]

Don't listen to that man about posting a bunch. He's a virtual Hun, and you know how they can be.

I'm actually talking about the P-38. But never mind the aircraft. Even if I didn't make a tight flat turn in order to begin the fight facing each other as I and my opponent agreed ... even if I instead made a very gradual shallow flat turn (which is often all that's necessary to end up facing him at the merge), or a combat turn followed by a shallow dive to get back to the agreed-upon altitude, I still end up losing at least 10 M.P.H. And with very good pilots, that can make all the difference.



You don't understand. The fight is agreed upon to begin at a certain setting, and your suggestion means breaking that. I am very much not interested in gaining an advantage over my opponent before we both call the fight on, in a duel. That's called cheating. Of course, that doesn't mean that I want my opponent to gain an advantage over me before we both call the fight on, either. What I'm looking for is equal energy and angular states when we both say "Go!" And with the best pilots (provided that they were being honest), this was possible.

How close are you when you say "go?"

Dunno. Maybe a mile. Like I said, when two honest aces who understand energy agreed on a co-E duel, it was set up properly so that the energy and angular states were equal. But when one of the pilots was dishonest or didn't understand energy very well, then he would fail to take the angular state into account and would call terms equal as long as the two fighters were both at the same altitude and at max level speed for that altitude (which, of course, is only half the story). If the difference was very excessive, then sometimes I would protest, at which point he'd usually respond defensively or with confusion. "What? Of course it's the same, we're both at the same speed and alt!" Never mind that he's already half-way on my tail ... which is a real problem, especially if my ship is no faster than his.

As a matter of fact, I've had some "duels" start out with the other guy literally behind me. "Are you at max speed?" "Yeah," I responded, expecting that we'd now start gentle maneuvers to set up a face-to-face situation while maintaining our energy state. "All right, go," he says gleefully, and suddenly there are bullets flying past me from behind. Uh, what? Same speed? Check. Same altitude? Check. Same angular state? Very much not so. The fight is not on remotely equal terms.

So, you and buddy agree to a dead even duel, both heading toward each other at equal altitude, speed, etc. Level playing field. The contest starts with you a mile apart. That's good with WWI aircraft. With that much separation, after "Go!," I would immediately turn and put the bandit on my wingtip and start climbing, as described earlier. No need for a head on. Dart's suggestions are perfectly valid.

Sure, I'm cool with that. [smile ]

Never ever meet your enemy head on. Pretend to do so and suck him into a pass. Well before he gets to you start a break turn. By the time he passes you your on his six*.

Of course I didnt say this and wasnt here.

*Timing is everything and Squid accepts no responsibility for your screwing it up.

Yeah, that's what more or less what I used to do in the Second World War and modern air combat simulators, but I can't seem to keep them from being able to point their guns at me at some point during the merge, with these fighters.