Hey gang - I’m restarting my thread of short videos highlighting my own (mis)adventures with dogfighting in the F-16. It’s a 1v1 with 2 IR missiles, and 80% fuel.
I’ll attach the mission .miz with this thread.
I’m going to try to do 100 Missions of the same thing, over and over again, with my own commentary, to see if I can become more adept at this energy management and turn-rate/nose authority game.
I have ZERO experience as a fighter pilot, and my last time as PIC was in a sailplane in 1990 in Chester, SC. I have to thank @Sryan for his incredible patience and tutelage as he has helped me out all these years.
Anyway, I’ll try to make a video a day, maybe two, now that I’m back to self-employment.
Thanks. Comments and criticisms are always welcome.
I thought is was guns-only at first, then the MIG loosed a heater at you after Turn 1.
My thought on this: Your speed with a 2-Circle start gave him room to shoot you in the face. Rear-aspect (guns or old AIM-9’s) is they say (whoever ‘they’ are) where the Viper is best. Just what I hear a lot of.
I just got the impression you were giving him too much room; seemed like you would drive right at him when you might have had the energy to move more to the ‘elbow’ - smidge too much pure/lead pursuit, maybe a touch more lag pursuit, especially when he’s lower on energy. Hard to see what the speeds were (couldn’t read the text very well on my end).
Yeah, losing sight sux. I only do VR which seems to help me stay oriented more yet is harder when I’ve ‘trapped’ him at my deep-six (my neck don’t bend so well anymore). My usual tactic (though I’m not sure it matters with AI) is to get into the weeds; makes it easier to spot him at least.
GOOD!: You didn’t reverse your turn when out in front which, in my mind, is where most people hose this up; I see a lot of ppl, when they look back and see his nose coming around reverse automatically, just flopping around in front of the bandit.
BFM with all-aspect, short range, weapons is rough. Never usually lasts long; either I get him on the first turn or…well…not so much The AI can’t be intimidated either, which is, if the AI isn’t super-human (see: MIG-28 on Expert level), a different thing. Get them down low, or hold on until you do, and they can’t deal with the loss of a dimension.
In my campaign I’m building (deep dive into learning the ME and scripting engine) I include a simple
“BFM Refresher” sortie - with a Hard Deck (5,000 AGL). Man, that removes the advantage mentioned above, over the AI, and added an extra bit of work I wasn’t really appreciating. My hat is even further off to those who do this stuff for realz.
***** I’m NOT AN EXPERT ******
EDIT: Man, you’re making want to do some BFM again. Been moving mud for a while.
This is EXACTLY the kind of dialogue I want to promote!
I just lost another dogfight - this time on gas. I’ll try to vid it up and share it with everyone later. I don’t know where I got that 420-460kts sweet spot, but it does seem to me that the Mig-29A continues to turn inside me for at least two revolutions before it goes nose up, usually when I’m on the wrong side of the turn. Then, it flips over and gets inside my range, so I can’t hit him with a 9L.
As you identified, loose sight, loose the fight, I completely agree with you that was the moment you lost the fight.
In your initial set of turns after the merge, you discussed that you were having difficulty getting around on the Mig. He was turning at around mach .47 pulling 3.4 g’s you were around mach .74 pulling 6.7g’s. This was the result of a sharper initial turn on the Mig’s part, and led to him having a smaller radius, which you couldn’t overcome with your turn rate. Keeping it in the sweet spot isn’t a bad thing, but if that results in the bandit getting enough angle to try for a missile, it might be time to do something a little different. If the Mig hadn’t elected to go to the vertical shortly there after, in probably another revolution he may well have had solid lag pursuit on you.
In general I’d say based off this first fight, don’t be afraid to commit to an attack. Put that 9g+ capability to work earlier in the fight. Yes you may mistime it, bleed all your smash and get hosed while you wallow around slow and out of position. However as we saw trying to stay in/at your sustained turning speed isn’t always the best answer either. In general an early aggressive maneuver can shape the fight by forcing the other guy to work to get off the defensive, where as if you try to make a bold maneuver once the fight has developed you are taking a much bigger risk due to the geometry rarely being favorable to a large aggressive maneuvers unless someone makes a mistake (usually with a poorly timed large aggressive maneuver).
The AI can’t be intimidated either, which is, if the AI isn’t super-human (see: MIG-28 on Expert level), a different thing. Get them down low, or hold on until you do, and they can’t deal with the loss of a dimension.