Dogfight techniques : tutorial video
 

~S

We're going to dive into some dogfight tactics, trips & tricks, advanced aerodynamics.
I'm open to detail some aspects for future parts if there is some interest or question about it in the thread too.

Part 1
Part 2
Interlude

Close that hood young man !

it would be better understandable into french.but good work although.:razz::razz:

They did'nt model the drag of either open canopy or radiator yet.
Hope it'll come next, so it may sound unrealistic yet we can run open caopy full radiator at the same speed as if it was closed/partly.

However I love the wind sound of an open canopy, sorry. That's about dogfight for now anyway.

S!

Cockpit open and you hear the Hun in the sun ;-) Anyway..tutorials are good for new virtual pilots finding the learning curve a bit too steep, good work.

;) I honestly admit there's no excuse for doing so, but the landscape is really owesome, and the wide open gives it right.

I'm thinking about going some deeper, then It'll be more of a team work, I mean flying in duo or more. Hope to make some video about this kind of things.

Thanks from a noob!
StiC

Old dogs can always learn new tricks. Will be watching the subsequent parts with pleasure.

Nice. But dogfighting inside SPITFIRES is not a real trick. Waiting the one you will teach how succefully dogfight SPITS inside 109's. 8-)

WGG Duncan Smith, who flew Spitfires from near the end of the Battle of Britain and ended the war as a Wing Commander with 17 victories got into a tricky situation returning from a bomber escort mission to Lille:

First he was nearly flipped over by a Bofors 40mm as he was approaching the English coast...then, to add to his problems...

"Relaxing my tense muscles I looked over my shoulder and caught my breath as I saw a 109 over on my right,...and saw another on the opposite side....flogging the last pound of boost out of my engine, eased my aircraft down even closer to the tops of the waves. The 109s opened fire, first the one to the right...I skidded my aircraft to the left....the one on the left opened fire...and I repeated the manoeuvre in the opposite direction. I soon realised that each time I did this it slowed me down....There was only one thing left to do: I heaved back on the stick and zoomed up in an off-centre loop to the left....I watched over my shoulder and saw the 109 pull up after me, firing. Harder, I pressed on the stick until I felt the wings start to judder. Suddenly the 109 flicked and spun - the horizon came back into view above my head and quickly I rolled out into a tight turn....I picked out one of the 109s, also in a turn, but circling away from me." After which Duncan Smith headed back to sea level and got back to base (Spitfire Into Battle, 2002, pp 73-74)

Trying to dodge and weave can just kill your speed, so Duncan Smith saved himself at sea level by using his momentum to pull up into a hard turning spiral which the 109s couldn't match...don't think the one chasing him ended up in the 'oggin, but it might have been close.

I don't want to take over Jf1981 thread but it's intersesting eough to make a comment (appart from your own obscession of "Boost 'n Spit")

When you are talking about "his momentum" in the hard pulled spiral, how do you see that ? Can you give us some precision and description of the sequence of event ? ;)

That's planned for part 2, doing this with pleasure.

Your new dogfight tutorial is much appreciated. Your focus on rudder and sideslip was a revelation... I also found that same focus to be very illuminating in your other video: Aircraft Aerodynamics.Aircraft Aerodynamics
Thanks for the effort and I definitely hope you create "IL-2 Cliffs of Dover Dogfight Part 2"... and 3.. and more!

Thanks for the video jf1981! I have a question for you though, are you possibly using track IR or freetrack? And if so, how were you able to set it up so when you look behind your head moves to the proper position instead of your eyes spinning around to the back of your headrest?

I've tried enabling 'relative' movement in freetrack but it doesn't work anywhere near good enough.

No, I tried but find it more distrubing than usefull. I'm using left hand mouse look in fact.

??? track ir or freetrack is very natural and instintic to use

i desagree too. unless you have a reaaaaalllly big screen ( 40'' ) or a triple screen setup.

i have 27" monitor

Most of the people i know find it natural (including myself), but i've heard of a lot getting motion sickness when using it or getting confused with relative/absolute positioning in the sideways and zoom axis.

To tell you the truth, first time i tried it i also found it difficult and strange, but i got used to it quite fast.

Nice video!

Always nice to see community contributions like this.

Same here Blackdog. I've used it for years now and I couldn't do without it. No motion sickness at all and no loss of relative position. :)

Great video. I need to use my rudder more.

I'm learning more regarding 109, a really tricky airplane to deal with.
It'll be the subject of next one.

Just an interesting and quite surprising note from the MkII Spit manual with regard to the use of rudder:

"Feet may be taken off the rudder controls to save fatigue, as its use is only necessary when taking-off, landing, flying at low speed or aerobatics. Even aerobatics, such as rolls, can be done with feet clear of the rudder control, but rudder would be needed for recovery of the manoevre were badly done."

Does anyone else find this surprising? I always thought that using the rudder to keep the ball centered in turns was an essential part of efficient flying and an automatic habit with seasoned pilots. Is it possible that the spit kept itself perfectly aligned in turns without use of the rudder?

On a side note, I've recently read "Gun Button To Fire" - an account by Tom Neil who flew Hurricane Is through the BoB. He refers to having to use full rudder in power climbs and dives and laments the failure of the designers to include rudder trim as it was quite tiring on the legs. We don't see the need for this kind of rudder input in the sim.

You are correct.

No, it is not possible.

Eh! Correct me if I'm wrong but IMO rudder is to fight against adverse yaw when entering or exiting the turn. In the turn itself, rudder is not needed.

well i fly with a quite full set up, hotas, pedals and quadrant and can say that without felling the g's and inertia like in real life have the feets on the pedal for quite long is quite tiring

You need the rudder to keep the longitudinal axis of the aircraft aligned with the arc of the turn, otherwise you'll skid. If your aircraft incorporates a significant amount of dihedral, there will be a net righting moment about the fuselage, meaning continued aileron input will be required to hold the turn. While it's true that things like Frise ailerons can counteract adverse yaw, there's also prop wash and P-factor to consider, both of which virtually guarantee that no conventional propeller aircraft can be "perfectly coordinated" in a turn without active use of a rudder.

The below does'nt apply 100% to 109 which lacks, to my knowledge, rudder trim.

I guess it's all in the question, rudder may be necessary during take off, landing & aerobatics.
On some other occasions too, it may be usefull, but can be released most of the time, in general.

Further, you can trim the rudder for long level flights if you want.

Just another trick, you'll notice than triming the rudder up to neutral slip often adds to roll unbalance in level flights, hence a way to "trim the aicraft" in the logitudinal axis, on roll, you can adjust rpm setting to do so. That's to say reducing the rpm at constant power tends to add torque, add left roll effect, and vice & versa. In practice, the aircraft wants to roll right most of the time in level flight, especially if you use rudder trim. In that case, just reduce rpm until the effect finds its full counterpart. "+ power - rpm => left roll / - power + rpm => right roll"

And another thing, a pilot said in a recent video that in a combat area, he always flew with the aircraft with some slip e.g. rudder trim, on purpose away from neutral, hence in a constant slip of just a few degrees, hence, any surprise attack he'd receive would result in shots passing by as the opponent fires at apparent direction.

I did'nt try it too much but has to work fine.

Thanks CaptainDoggles and jf1981, good stuff.

Just wanted to say really nice videos jf1981 and keep 'em coming!

Hi,

That's Part 2 online.
Next one we'll be diving into team work ...
Part 2

Nice flying,mate!
Did you reverse your track ir y-axxis, or you always heading sidways with your head? You`re flying more inreverse with your plane than straight forward! quite impressing! At least better with track ir then in RL where they really had to turn their heads around 145 degrees to look behind!

Keep it on, good work!

Hi

I'm using left hand mouse & throttle, right hand joystick.
I find it comfortable and very much usefull. Not disturbing after some time.

Thanks for doing these jf1981 - much appreciated!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature...&v=TuipnDc7dms

:razz::razz::razz::razz: do it in the p51 of il2, "dogfighter"

Thanks jf1981, keep 'em coming.. :)

thanks

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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6YjUUT7G55c&t=2m12s

might need to go to 2 min 12 secs in . . . the forum youtube link doesn't grab the time


its in every successful P-51's repertoire, standard training. They even used it on Tigers. With .50 's

Wow.. thanks for continuing the series of tutorials jf1981 ... it's really useful to see a dogfight from the perspective of an experienced pilot's cockpit (as opposed to from the cockpit of the plane that's being shot down) and particularly to hear the rational behind the maneuvers.

Don't rely on those stories too much. Yes they are historical but you could play that same scenario out a 1000 times and have different endings each time, both in real life and in the simulation. I learned that the hard way over time ;)

No problem, just an anecdote to show how one real life pilot got himself out of trouble. I figure it might help sometime, when or, if I, have the time to gain a hellofalot more experience...:cool:

An interlude before next flying time.

Interlude"]Dogfight tutorial interlude[/URL]