I have been doing a quick mission of 1 on 1 of me in a Spit IIa vs. a 109 3 3/B. The point is to figure out just when to turn the Spit so I get on the tail of the 109 and get a good shot it. I have to do this just right or he zooms on by or ends up on my tail. Unless I get a good shot in I have no hope of catching the 109.

Well, I decided to switch the planes. And darn if the Spit AI can end up catching me in my 109. Plus, I can't seem to hold the aim steady enough to blast the Spit out of the sky using my cannon in that head on situation. But the Spit AI sure can shot gun me good.

Is there some way to tone down the AI?

Hi mate,

Like I said in another thread, the AI is able to fly the aircraft almost "perfectly". In those stock single-player 1v1 missions the AI skill is almost always set to high levels.

Yes you can tone-down their skill level, but this requires that you go into the full-mission-builder and manually edit the skill settings of the aircraft. You'll need to spend some time learning how the full-mission-builder works though.

Against human players (online) you can, *most* of the time, out-turn the 109s. Against the AI it's much harder.

If I may- try and download "In Pursuit".

I thought I wasn't bad as a pilot (virtual)- turns out I was doing all wrong.

It's free, it's useful and it reads really nicely!
Let me know!

In a passing situation like you are practicing, you need to have a certain separation distance(not heading straight at him). Then a keen sense of timing to begin your turn at just the right time(before you pass each other), which will put you on his six, or you could try something else like a hammerhead or even could do a split S to reverse, while gaining some speed from the dive to catch him hopefully

komemiute, you mean
http://www.virtualpilots.fi/feature/lento_ohjeet/inpursuit/inpursuit.pdf

Philstyle, I get that the AI is 'perfect' but I never thought that a SpitIIa could catch me in a 109 E 3/B.

So I must really be doing something wrong, or maybe just a little wrong.

Looking forward to reading 'In Pursuit'.

SlipBall, good to hear. I kind of stumbled on that using past knowledge. And sometimes I can turn at the 'right time and get in a good shot. What surprised me is that when I switch planes the Spit AI was able to catch up with me after I had long passed and gone on. It took long time but AI could do it. Something I did not think was possible.

Hi Uriah.

If you are having problems the best thing I can recommend are a set of very entertaining and informative videos on youtube by a nice fellow who goes buy the handle of "apeoftheyear". They start out basic and go through how to fly smartly a make kills. On the video where he gets five Spitfire kills towards the end he does a little phylosophy speech about negative and positive thinking that makes so much sense. Here is the first video.

Affirm. It's one of the best thing ever written about air combat in general. Limited to guns engagements only, but a read damn worth its time.