Red Baron Flight & Combat Training Manual.

[Panzergranate]

There isn't a maneuver mentioned in that link I haven't pulled in BOP arcade mode (most are impossible in the other modes).

I liked the psychology part...... I always start a game with a high, wide, rolling sweeping banking arc, in the direction of the player who is coming in for a head on pass. I do this because I want him to be concerned that he is being set up as a sucker (he is) and chicken out and pull low, so that I can stall turn onto his ass. It hasn't failed so far in the past many dozen goes.

In Battle Stations Pacific (BSP), which has excelent flight models, a friend challenged my teenaged son to a one on one dogfight. My son picked the Brewster F-2A3 Buffalo, the friend went for Zeroes.

To quote the friend, on seeing my son's choice of fighter, remarked, "Why the hell do you want to fly that useless, overweight heap of s**t??"

My son shot him down 7 games to 0, thus proving that overconfidence, coupled with a false belief that the enemy hasn't a chance and not knowing the capabilities of an opposing aircraft is a fatal combination.

My son knew only too well that the Buffalo, despite being underpowered and over weight, is famous for having a higher role rate than and being able to turn inside the Japanese Zero and Oscar. BSP faithfully has the flight model correct for all the aircraft in the game.

I do prefer to fly the "underdogs" in dogfights, whether historically or because of bad flight models, and experiment to see where they could possibly have some advantage.

The Fw-190 A5 isn't that bad and I still manage to make a few kills and survive BOP team and dogfight games without being shot down in arcade since I figured how the German pilots made it turn inside the Allied fighters. Its just adopting tactics that suit a particular aircraft to advantage and steering clear of those that don't.

I've found that both the Fw-190 and the P-51 turn quite nicely in a slip turn, as opposed to a conventional aerolon turn.