Flight Geometry and ACM: Part II

Realism in instruments! The ME262 Panel From Fighter Duel II

MAKING IT WORK FOR YOU

Ok so how can you get the sort of geometrical advantage that pilot A has in FIG 2. Well almost any out of plane manoeuvre will do it. For example a lesser known advantage of performing a largish high Yo-Yo is to create just this kind of geometrical advantage. Take a look at Fig 4.

In this example pilot A and B start with the flight path as shown in FIG1. Pilot B can close the 60 degrees by using a high Yo-Yo to alter the geometry of his flight path. He knows that getting the outside circle will lead to a snap shot. The effect of the high Yo-Yo is to cut across the circle and create the situation shown in FIG5 some moments later. Pilot B now has a shot, even though he may not have gained any angles.

In this example you have seen that a pilot with some sixty degrees to gain achieved a snap shot simply by altering his flight path. Don't get too excited though because the defence is fairly simple. In order to avoid this kind of trap Pilot A can simply do a high Yo-Yo of his own. Of course he may not realise the danger, but good pilots do this instinctively without knowing exactly why. However there are many good pilots out there who will still be caught like this through ignorance. The important thing to remember is not to try this if you are in the position of Pilot A. If you do, the whole thing will work in reverse, and Pilot B will get the snap shot on the following flight path intersection. You will in effect have been the architect of your own demise. Similarly this is the main reason for becoming stuck in a lufbery with a bandit just off your six. It can be very dangerous to attempt a vertical manoeuvre in defence since going high or low may give this type of geometrical advantage to the bandit. Take

You will see that pilot A has attempted to use a vertical move in defence. He has now allowed pilot B to use the geometry of his flight path to get a snap shot. Pilot B has achieved this by pulling up early, instead of driving to his opponent's six, and thus created an off-set in the turn circles. In this example you can see that Pilot B is almost 90 degrees off, but pilot A has handed him an easy kill. This is the fate of so many pilots who try to use the vertical in defence. Remember also that low vertical manoeuvres are as bad as high ones. The Split-S would result in the same situation as shown, but with the circles drawn downwards instead. This type of mistake leads to more "Position Principle" kills than almost any other. Very often the unwary victim will die at the very top or bottom of their loop, as the positional advantage is greatest. I know that many flight sim' pilots have been on the receiving end of this type of mistake, now you know why.

I'm not saying that a vertical move will always get you killed, far from it. The situation in figure 4 does require a certain amount of turning room. Very often that turning room will not exist, you need to be aware of the bandit's range as well as his position, the closer you are the more likely it is that you will survive. This is something you need to develop a feel for.

DOES IT ALWAYS WORK

Another major factor in achieving this kind of kill is weapons effectiveness. In some simulations, lethality is a vital consideration. Because of the variety in the effectiveness of weapons, deflection shots like those I have described are either easy or hard to kill from! However in many simulations, deflection shots as a result of the geometry described here, will always be advantageous or even deadly. Even in those simulations where deflection shots are more difficult these considerations will still be of some importance. In "Art of the Kill" Bonanni talks about passing up the deflection shot by not turning early and instead driving for the elbow. Real pilots do that because deflection shots are difficult to get in real life and the price you pay for missing is an overshoot, the reward, only another difficult snap shot. As a flight sim' pilot with more lives than a cat, I will take those difficult shots.

Weapons effectiveness is modelled very differently from sim' to sim'. Indeed some simulations even use different modelling for different modes of play. Generally though Guns are becoming much more realistic in modern sim's. In any case the degree to which you apply these principles will depend upon the extent to which you are able to use deflection shots in the simulation you are flying at the time. It will also depend to some extent upon your own gunnery skill, more so in sim's with realistic hit bubbles, less so in sim's with larger hit bubbles. For Air Warrior, Su-27, Warbirds and EF2000 these methods work very well.

FIRST THINGS LAST

I will explain how this kind of geometrical advantage can be gained from a merge. Many engagements begin this way, so it might seem strange to deal with this last, however you will appreciate the theory having now understood the position principle. In this example I envisage a situation where you have been denied the separation for a lead turn and are about to pass a bandit in a head on merge. In this example one pilot enters the merge above corner velocity and will therefore use the Immelmann. The other pilot is in a low energy state and will therefore perform a low slice. If you were to guess that the pilot with the higher energy state should win, you would be correct, but let's see why.

In FIG7, time 1 shows the merge, time 2 shows the pilot on the left going into an Immelmann and rising vertically out of the paper at you while the other pilot goes into a low slice. Time 3 shows the high pilot adjusting his flight path and following in the same direction as the low pilot. Normally this would be a bad thing to do because the high pilot has given away his turning room. However this is exactly what will get the high pilot the outside circle. The large amount of vertical separation in this example will prevent the low pilot from taking advantage of the turning room. At time 4 the high pilot has managed to gain the outside circle and with only a small angular advantage will still be able to make a kill from this geometry. He will in effect now be in the same position as pilot B in FIG 5. This will work in most sim's and even if you are unable to get an outright kill, you will get another high aspect snap shot every 360 degrees.

CONCLUSION

What I hope I have done in this work is to explain how you can appear to be out turning a bandit without actually having a turn rate advantage. You are able to do this by using geometry! If you depend upon turn rate alone you are going to finish too many missions under the silk watching your opponent doing victory rolls. Turn rate alone is the tool of the pilot with "G" for brains, while geometry is the weapon of the ACE. One of the biggest barriers to good ACM for new flight sim' pilots is achieving the three dimensional awareness that can make the use of geometry possible. That means being able to visualise this kind of geometrical pattern in the space around your aircraft during combat. I hope you now see how important this geometry is. If so you will have already taken those first big steps to becoming a great flight sim' ACE!

THINGS TO COME

Explaining more fully how to use geometry to your advantage deserves a more complete treatment. Because the nuances of application for each of the many manoeuvres that can lead to a positional advantage require a much larger and detailed work, I intend to elaborate in the future. It is too early to say where any further exposition will appear, so keep your eyes open for books or articles with my name in the credits.

Check Six!

Leon "Badboy" Smith

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