cougar_1979

Yeah, i agree with you both, that is why i wrote "for added challenge" . It is a common practice to impose different limitations on the AC in order to emphasize certain aspects of the "workout". In example, when flying against Vipers in an F-14A staying fast was one of the ways to avoid being draged down and slow and then beaten in the vertical. However by keeping your air speed above 0.7mach at cobat load, you can effectively have a T/W of 1 or greater even in an F-14A, thus having a safe margin for a vertical fight. Also by staying above 340KIAS you are in the zone where you accelerate (and thus regain energy) as good or better then an F-15. IMO it's nice to lear how to fly your plane at both ends of the envelope, even at the very edges :)

It's ok mate, just take your time. Once maintaining the stick discipline is no longer an issue, it will be like a second nature to you. As you start picking them off at around 0.3-0.4nm in regular basis, for added challenge you can try not deploying the flaps when the enemy drops bellow 300KIAS. That would be flying it by the NATOPS manual. If he drops bellow 300, then you either go up or extend and roll in for another attackm thus staying above corner at all times. This may save your skin in multy bandit environmnet. I didn't know that abount the angle off of the pod. I just flew several more flights in order to account for it. After 6 more flights (3 with a pod, 3 with winders) i reached the following conclusion. The penalty for taking the pod is HUGE. With 4 winders i could not just get behind a MiG-17 when properly using the vertical, but actually stay there for dozen of seconds at a time. More then enough time to get a good tone. With a gun pod, this is almost impossible and more a matter of the bandit messing something up. End result of the drills. 3 draws with the gun pod, 2 wins with the winders and one loss. The loss was when i wanted to see how fast he could stay in a turn with me. The answer......the MiG-17 in SF2 can sustain a turn at 450+KIAS at 5000ft to match that of a Phantom II in full afterburner at 500KIAS (to be fair he was coming out of a dive). But still, while i was blacking out, he not only stayed with me he even for about 10 seconds, he ended up pulling lead and gunning me down at about 460KIAS (his). Not a sign of any control lockouts or blackouts. It's good to be an AI

Sairsan, considering the tendency of the bandit to bug out..... when you make the custom mission, do you set yourself as his target? And his mission to fighter sweep? Also what is the enemy difficulty level of you fly at? In my limited experience it seams that in order to make sure the bandit engages you, you need to make sure he is commited to the merge. And sometimes when you go vetical right after the first pass, the AI either loses sight of you and "bugs out" or loses interest in you and dashes off with its mission. Do335, your dealings with the 17 in a hard winged F-4 are very close to my own. I had 6 separate engagents in an F-4J VS a MiG-17C, all of them guns only (me with a Mk IV pod), starting level at angels 15, 15nm from eachother in neutral position. I have fought 17's in NAVY Phantoms before but never with the pod alone. And this was tedious. 2 times he nailed me, while i was trying to turn with him in an energy egg. 2 times we ran out of fuel. 2 times i shot him down. I don't consider any of these flight worthy of recording as i am just noot good enough in them to demonstrate anything done right. The thing is even my 2 victories ere more or less luck. I shot the bandit from above but as such high aspect that these shots won't always work (i am talking 70-120 degrees deflection shots). With the pod on, the thing is very hard to maneuver even in a dive. I see now why most NAVY squadrons chose not to use the pods at all and just flew with the missiles. Not to mention the thing jammed on me at 3 separate flights when i was trying to use it while pulling hard behind the bandit in a dive. And as i mentioned earlier i have went 3 to 1 (the bad way) in fighter sweeps with this plane before and won, it's just the guns that i can't use properly. I will try to fly more with it and see if i can improve. But just to illustrate.... i usually end up with an 8-10000ft advantage on any vertical maneuver..... and it's usually still not enough for me to get a nose on a floating 17 bellow before the things just get out of the way or starts climbing on its own. I need much more practice.

Could be, though the F-14A/B piper seam relatively OK to me (maybe i am just used to it). Here is that F-14A vs Su-27 video, it just got up. This is part of my new wide separation approach trials. In stead of going head to head directly i live a wide separation margin in the horizontal. What i used to do before when facing AC from similar generations was to build up energy before the merge (at least 450KIAS, prefferably more then 500), go out of burner around 5nm from the target (to reduce IR signature even though no missiles are being used, "fly as you train"-RP reasons, i have no idea if this works in SF), start climbing as you merge and after he has passed me i would reverse the climb, hit the burners and try to corner my first half of the inverted loop, then relax the pull and build up some energy in the turn until i came out of the loop at around 360KIAS. This way i usually minimise my own turning time while retaining good energy capability and flexibility. This by no means is any assurence that you will get into a good position. In fact if the enemy has flown his AC to the sustainable limit you will probablly still end up in an a head on encounter, However, being in an F-14 it probably means you will end up a bit closer to the most AC then they would to you, completing the same turn cycle at a bit tighter radius. Two major flaws (to my liking) in this though. One, you end up bellow the target, which in a guns only means you have no clear shot and have to climb to get hi, and two, cornering through half a turn usually means blacking out and losing some situational awareness. So i decided to try doing the merge at wider separation (preferably around a turn radius). This would allow me (and the bandit) to complete the first cycle in less then a 1/2 circle (idealy around 1/4), which means less time spent at high g's and thus less blackout. It also means keeping a neutral altitude position after the first pass. Downside, you need to watch your airspeed closely. Bleed off too much energy and your F-14A won't have enough juice or time to regain it as the bading will be on you right away. I let the badnit to my left and approached close with him at more then 500-550KIAS. I let him pass and went into a full left hand turn at 350-360KIAS. I came out of the first 1/4 at around 330 but i had no clear view of him so continued my turn as did he. He stayed fast and kept comming around me. I got my nose down a bit low to regain some energy and being in a tighter turn then him (around 340-350) finally got a nose on his 3/9 line by the end of the next 1/2 cirlce (1:40-1:50). From this point onwards it was just a matter judging the right moment to go in after him. Flying lag, and trying to see that "he is comming in hard across the horizon moment" to pull in on his six (periodicaly unloading to get the blood flow back in the brain and to ramp up a few dozen extra knots - F-14A is not as bed when accelerating above 340knots unlike in the weeds). At 3:40 i see the right moment and pull in behind him. As i enter his turn cycle he enters the "panic mode" and starts jinking and sliding which makes him bleed a lot of energy. That leaves me both behind him and with an energy advantage. One more 1/4 circle and i have over 100knots on him plus a perfect angle to start my leading pull. Saisran, take a look at the range bar, we are less then a 1/3 mile away at this point. The kill is executed at 1/5 of a mile (4:37) 333KIAS, slight lead, piper on target and splash one.

EDIT: jink, not junk :P Unfortunately it won't let me edit it after so much time elapsed :( Uploading a short video of an F-14A VS Su-27 (not my favorite duel, that would be VS F-15) but it ends with a nice deflection shot. It should be up in an hour and a half or so.

Under normal conditions you want to get the gunsight piper on the diamond box, or on the bandit (whatever seams more convinient or likely to work) and keep it there at least 0.5-1s for the burst to connect. However during heavily loaded turns, you might want to get the piper a bit ahead of the diamond/bandit in the direction of his lift vector (larger deflection shots). This can be a bit of a problem as the bandit will tend to junk and roll out of plane a lot. Try following the advise from the upper posts, starting from lag pursuit, try to level your banking angle with the bandit's (both your wings and his wings in the same plane-and keep it that way), then start pulling untill you match his turn rate. When you do, try leading the piper ever more closely to the desired position. I will go through my recordings and see if i can find and upload one that is shorter then 20 munites.

No contest about effeciency there! And yes, that second fight is just what i like all my flights to be like :D

That is rather odd case indeed. I had it happen to me only once, when i was going up against a Su-27 in an F-16. I went into the merge with wither separation then usual and turned into him as soon as we crossed (left hand circle as i usually do). The first turn brouhgt us in a neautral heads on, but the Flanker started pulling harder (and bleeding more) in order to get a snap shot at the second crossing. As a result he ended up in the 270KIAS region, while i was in the 400's. So i just turned into his tail and pulled a level turn around 420-450KIAS (angels 5-8) and got on his back. He probably knew he could not maintain the turning rate that slow, so he unloaded half through my turn and kicked in the burner. As soon as i completed my turn i found him at 12 o'clock high, some 25-30 degrees up and climbing. I went balitic in order to match his altitude (as had a better headstart) but he leveled off at angels 25 and started accelerating like mad. He was already 1.7nm away from me when i level off behind his 6. I kicked into full burner trying to catch up, but this was a fool's errand. I could keep up with him till mach 1.6-1.7 but as we started closing to mach 2 i just hit the wall. He peaked around mach 2.17 at nagels 30 while i was lagginh behind at 1.9. I whached as my fuel counter closed to the bingo number, and thought about giving up, when suddenly he came out of burner and went nose down at military power. I cought up with him and bounced him from above. Nailed him with a gunshot before he had time to go vertical again thanks to my altitude advantage (i went down on him at full military power from angels 10, while he was bellow 5). It has never happenned before or since. I had a recording of the entire pursuit but it was over 25min long and would take forever to upload so i deleted it.

Thanks mate! Will try that. I would definitely go with the 74, cold war being the primary focus of my interest right now. Time to learn some editing and mission creation i guess (and it's about time for me to get more involved being a nubie and all that lol)

Do you guys now any good carrier landing training missions? I just started the NA campaign and i can land on the carrier, but i want to practice it for RP reasons. Also, Ceasar, is there a way to implement your F-14's into the campaign? And would you recommend it?

You are welcome mate! Any questions about terminology you may have, feel free to ask, anyone here will be glad to help. This is my F-16 block 25 (i don't have a 50 installed) VS MiG-29A guns only, neutral at the merge. Entering a turning contest apeared to be a futile affair as both AC seam pretty evenly matched in most respects. You can't tighten your turn without losing on turning rate and vice versa. Pushing a vertical is also an even match. Maybe i should have went for a steep climb when he blad out at 3:15 but instead i went for the long way around. Almost all methods of turning end up with a nose on nose encounter so something needs to be done to break out of the pattern. For me it was a reversal during the vertical loop, building up the energy and then entering a continous left hand circle at 450KIAS (it appears to be the F-16 goldie lock). Fighting with lots of of blackouts there, but in the end after a 3-4 circles i menage to get a nose on. After that is just some rolling in and out for a better shot (turns out to be another point blank)

Yeah i noticed that. At first i thought my stick sensitivity was too high, but the thing really rolls fast. Fast as in i am having some issues controlling it. I need to point out that i never flew it in SF before tonight though so comming from more sluggish AC i may need some time to adapt

@Caeser Any tips on how to aim those weir pipe sights in the F-16? I've been flying against Su-27s for the last half an hour. Getting behind a plane in an F-16 is very easy as long as you stay above 370-400KIAS (and manage not to black out ) but gettin a clear shot? The plane is just so "lively".... i can't line up at all. 3 od my 4 gun kills were at extreme close range, so close in fact that they were impssible to miss and were basicly snap shots. Otherwise the small + just seams to be always well bellow my hud and just can't get the wings to line up with the pipe. This was way easier in BMS .... Maybe i should slow down? But the thing won't turn as well then. That was how i got my 4th kill

Maybe it worked of you had a tighter turning craft and a lot of excess energy. It worked for me in IL-2, when flying the F-4 Wildcats in a dive against Zeros, but not for much else :P Even then i prefered to fly vector to vector instead of vector to bandit. Flying directly to the bandit seams to me, is not just energy prohibitive, but also rather...... retroactive? It always seam to keep you one step behind the bandit. But that's just me. Anyways. here is my next DACT. This one went horribly wrong :( 4 F-8s in two flights. I went up against at least 6 MiG-17s, 5 of which were primary targets. My original plan was to let the element attack and then follow them into the engagement with my wingman close behind (ordered to cover my six) in order to cover them and set lose my no2 at need. Unfortunately, this turned out to be more of SAM dodging contest then ACM. In the first minutes of the engagement i wound up dodging 2 SAMs and lost all sight of my element. By the time i found my way back to the fight, no3 and 4 were already dead, so it was me an no2 against the whole bunch. I set him lose few times in order to trick the 17s into bleeding them selves off in ever tighter turns, but in the end i ended up socring 5 of the 6 kills (2 with guns). The last kill was with bingo fuel so i had to abort any further pursuits and ordered back to base. At least no2 got back safely (and i did safe his hide once). Unless for some energy eggs and missile/gun use while bouncing this video has little educational value...... except for how NOT to lead planes into battle :(

Saisran, if you allow me i can offer you some tips on air-to-air gunnery. First and most important is practice practice practice. Unless you were born in the few lucky percent that are natural deflection shot takers, it is completely normal to hit nothing but thin air at the start of your aviator career. And unless you are in the unlucky few that just can't grasp off angle targeting, it is only a matter of time before you feel right at home. Now for some more practical input. Second, until you become extremely comfortable in your predicition skills don't open fire too early. On most of your videos you shoot from quite far away. Which is not a bad thing if you hit the target. But until your gunnery improves, try opening fire only after your target takes up your entire gunsight. Or even closer that that. Key to deflection shots is not where the bandit is, but where the bandit will be when the stream reaches it. In order to make a proper estemate, you need to be able to descern the bandit's lift vector and for that you need a clear sight of his/her wing orientation. So shoot from closer ranges. Third, overshoots aren't bad on their own. In fact i prefer to overshoot all the time. What is bad is if a bandit ends up on your six after the overshoot or if you bleed off too much energy trying to prevent the overshoot in the first place. What i prefer is to let the bandit get away a bit and follow him in a lag pursuit. Don't lead him just yet. Build up your energy. Get either speed or altitude advantage or both. Now, most flight manuals will advise you to get your lift vector on the bandit and pull in order to get a good lead pursuit. I would advise you instead, to get your lift vector on his LIFT VECTOR. Therefore you intercept the point in space where he will be and can unleash your fire in advance. This is why it's imporant to be able to see his motion and shape clearly. As you start closing in, you will reach a point when an overshoot is imminent. It takes some time to recocnise it, but i think you are already able to do this. When this point is reached don't break! Roll out of the turn, pull up out of the bandi't plane and get some altitude advantage again. During all of this keep your eyes on the bandit! Lear to fly with your eyes out of the cockpit. As you gain altitude start rollin into the enemy again. Setup for another lag pursuit and repeat the above process. I hope this helps mate! Safe flying P.S. I am uploading another DACT over SE Asia, but this one will take at least an hour and a half more to finish. Slow net and large file size.... :(

The quality on this one suffers, but it had to be done if i was to upoad it tonight. 4 F-8s VS at least 5 MiG-19s. These guys are by far the most tricky dogfighters i've encountered over SE Asia. I did my best to clear any bandits from my wingies six, but no4 seams to have bought it. I should not have left the second flight to attack on their own. And these are my first 2 gun kills in the last of the gunfighters. Anyways, a lot more dogfighting in this one then the previous one. I hope you like it. Any recomedations and shared experiences are welcomed :)

After some experimenting with different orders and taking more of a commanding role i got this video. Unfortunately not the one to be my first choice, but my PC crashed and i could not save the original footage. It was a 4 VS 8 and although i lost no4, i did manage to save no2 and no3 on two separate ocasions. This one was much more docile 4 VS 4, NAVY Phantoms VS some MiGs. Except for some wingman delegation, and over the top battlescape evaluation, nothing special. I didn't even get to properly use my gun pod. I will try some Crusader II flights later on. Enjoy

That was a very helpful post! I will try to implement it in my next dozen 2 and 4 VS many and see what results i can get.

Yeah, flights 2 and 3 always seam to fare better, even when just told to attack air. It's the wingman that you have to babysit. It would be much easier if i could fly as number 2, and cover his back. That way at least he would show some initiative. So far, in over a dozen engagements i have only once seen my wingy shoot down someone when told to cover me. @Do335 Is there a command to get them all out in attack? Or do you mean, to select individual targets and give orders one by one?

Here it is, Vietnam 1975, a flught of 4 F-14A's gets dropped by a flight of MiG-17's At the end, 1 Tomcat is down (sadly my wingman, does anyone have a clue as to how to make them useful? when i order them to attack targets they do OK, but when i tell them to watch my six they are next to usless and die way too often). All the MiG's a ground fodder by the end. Not much of an eventful ancounter except near end when one of the buggers manages to get on my tail and it takes a bit of an effort to spot him and shake him. Not too much effort though. The lesson applied here is never bleed off to much energy in a multi-bandit environement, as you never know when you may get jumped on Enjoy

I've doing multiple guns only against Su-27, MiG-29A, F-16A and F-15C, ranging from angels 10 to 20 in the F-14A. However i am low on disk space so i can't really capture any videos yet. I'll try doing a mid-late 70's fighter sweep and see if i can record it. Tip on flying the TF30 cat, try not going bellow 350KIAS in a sustained turn and bellow 290KIAS when going for the killing nose pitch/final aim when flying against 4th generation AC. If the adversary tries to cause an overshoot by dropping in the 250KIAS regeion or bellow, just go in the vertical and/or do a dispalcement roll and line up for another shot. The bigger they are, the easier they will be to hit.

Thanks, as am extremely new to SF2 i do feel overwehealmed with all of this. I have apsolutely no idea where to start :)))) Thanks for the recommendations, they will make a good starting point. I will have no propblem with performance? I've read somehwere that the North Atlantic campaign was a real performance hog (something to do with the Iceland terrain).

Thanks! And thanks for the tips! I think i remember watching this documentary about some Canadaina pilot candidated and one of the requirements for them to continue on with flight training from training to military jets was to actually endure sustained 8 g's for a given ammount of time (IIRC 20-30s) without blacking out. So i agree with you, blacking out at 4 just doesn't make much sense..... unless you fly without a g-suit. But even then there were pilots in WW2 that went above 6 g in combat without blacikng out :) I will try the new settings and see how it goes. Safe flying mates!

Some of the caps you guys post are just incredible! Do you use vanilla or moded sim? If moded, what mods would you recommend as a must for a merged install? And what setting should i use in order not to suffer performance drops? My rig is: i5-2500K at 3.3GHz 16GB of RAM NVIDIA GeForce GTS 250 with 1GB of RAM and a Win64 OS

Here is that other video (in case anyone is still reading), cut down to 4 minutes so i don't have to upload it all. Blacked out 5 times in 4 minutes, 4 times in the 330-360knots region. I later reflew the maneuvers to check out how many g's i pull during these maneuvers. It appears if stay around 4g i start blacking out after dosen seconds or so. Any incursion into the 5g's from a sustained 4 results in an alsmost instant black out. Unloading and going for the 6g usutained resluts in a black out just after 2 seconds, while any pull above 7g is almost surely and instant black out. I tried this same fight with the TW Tomcat and to my surprise it handeled the tactics pretty well (despite the clumsy roll rates) however it took my 4 flight before i oculd gun the F-16 with roll controlls that unresponsive. BTW, i think i know why the TW Tomcat feels lighter then the TMF Tomcat. It is lighter, as it only carries 14000lbs of fuel at max. After a dosen more gun fights (to aclimate to SF2) i think i will try rear and all apsect heeters and later on BVR engagements. Can anyone recommend any good mods for the terrain and object textures/meshes? Especially for the NA expansion? I get an aweful drop of FPS when flying over Iceland and any terrain overhaul would be most welcome. Cheers!