Newcomers to realistic should be coached by sim and realistic veterans.
Concepts like velocity vector, lift vector and pursuit courses should be thoroughly explained and practiced.
A rookie should train on a BF109-E and the instructor on either a Hurricane or a Spit MkII. Make butterfly entries to a head-on fight, make use of the vertical on an energy fighter, and a decent guns defense practice. "Zoom and boom" and "turn and burn" techniques explained. Then, the rookie can make his choice as far as weapon goes.
Sim matches would be a lot more effective and fun if more teamwork was involved. To me, Situational Awareness (SA) is the most difficult thing to achieve in sim mode. If I can spot a guy ("See – Decide – Attack – Break") unless he is a good defensive guy he's gone. But if I am clueless as to what's going on during a match, then I get shot down every five seconds. Yesterday I played a couple of sim matches where I had good SA and bad SA. On the good ones, I stayed ahead of everyone with 7-12 kills. On the bad ones I did not even scored a single kill.
Good SA comes from your mate calling out altitude, situation, bearing and heading. An example could be "This is Dr Laplace. I'm on a Spit MkXVI, turning hard left @ 1,500ft, 200mph, going south". Then your mates can look for you and help you if you miss the target. Also, calling out bandits (Bandits!, 12 o'clock high!) helps.
I am not an ace like some guys here who somehow manage to get EVERY kill EVERY time. But I am a good teacher. If there's anyone here that would like to go online and practice some of this stuff with me I'd be more than happy to help. We need more sim and realistic players. Also, I am inviting the aces to help me show the rookies the art of dogfighting.
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