And we will do that through a bit of the theory behind WVR aerial combat, explaining the so-called BFM (Basic Fighter Maneuvers), the tactical movements performed by a fighter during an aerial engagement to gain a positional advantage over the opponent. Today we will try to bring you inside the mind of a fighter pilot engaging an adversary aircraft during a dogfight. Navy) We talk about the basics of WVR (Within Visual Range) engagements: turn performance, speed at merge, Specific Excess Power and much more. Navy McDonnell Douglas F/A-18C of attack squadron VFA-82 Marauders over Germany in September 1998. It's one feature I love about the P-47 (standard sight option).A German Mikoyan-Gurevitch MiG-29 Fulcrum of Jagdgeschwader 73 (73rd Fighter Wing) caught with the gun camera of a U.S. I hate having to zoom out and look down to check if I'm coordinated, whereas in real life you'd have more of a "seat of the pants" feel, as well as a wider field of view than our monitors can provide to see the indicator, and same reason the devs justified giving us a G-meter. Ju52 needs lots of rudder trim, depending on your speed.Īlso if you are trying to maintain extremely high speeds in/after a dive, you often need hard rudder in one direction like if you go past 700kph in a Bf109, you need hard left rudder to maintain the fastest possible speed.Īlso I wish we had the option for a "slip-meter" in the lower left corner of the screen, where the compass and G-meter are. There are times when even -100% left rudder trim is not enough to keep it coordinated.īf109's climb performance definitely benefits from right rudder, especially at slower speeds Spitfire XIV needs lots of left rudder when at high power but at slower speeds. The Fw190A can do a hard turn much easier when you give it hard left rudder (which is required to keep it coordinated), as the plane's aerodynamics cause it to slip hard to the right whenever you pitch upwards with the elevator. It especially helps when you are in a very heavy and slow plane, especially when temperatures are hot, like a fully loaded IL-2. I mainly use rudder to keep the plane coordinated in flight to be faster and more efficient. treat flying like a conversation with a horse (or something - I'm no equestrian). I guess what I'm trying to get at is that it is complicated, and there are lots of clever (and plane specific) ways to use all three axis of control in combination when entering or exiting maneuvers (even if that aren't used during the majority of the maneuver). I'm not sure if all of these habits are good for late-war combat (with its relatively higher speeds and higher momentum relative to surface area) but they do seem to work pretty well prior to 1942. There are a lot of habits that I picked up from Flying Circus (WWI) involving adjustments to the angle of the nose to the horizon while in a turn and habits I picked up from the Mig-3 (BoM) involving inducing complex oscillations at low speed. So I will use rudder to increase roll rate sometimes, but I'll also use it to initially damp the drift downward of the nose when entering in a combat turn and then release that damping in order to turn more sharply etc. I use the rudder a lot but it is a bit complicated as I often use the rudder in ways which are antagonistic to the maneuver as well as ways which assist it. So, I avoid using much rudder during the final phases of aiming (as oscillations make aiming difficult), however, I will use the rudder a lot earlier to set up the attack.Īs for maneuvers. Are you using rudder a lot while dogfighting?ĭo coordinated turns make a lot of difference in dogfight?
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