Common manoeuvres?

[winny]

Good advice from Kav.

I'll add that if you're in arcade use lots of rudder.. Realistic and Sim won't let you use la lot of rudder.

for real/sim it's worth pointing out that your plane is only a flying gun when you're actually shooting. I found it really usefull learning about Lag, Pure and Lead pursuit. Can be usefull for getting behind someone and staying there..

There's loads on the net about this but I'll try and summarise.

Lag pursuit is where you point the nose (or crosshairs) just behind the target. This means that if they are pulling a tight turn your turn will be slightly larger and you need to compensate with a bit of throttle to stay behind them it's all about who can turn 180 degrees the fastest not the smallest turning circle. Using Lag pursuit should put you behind your target without you losing too much airspeed or overshooting.

Pure is where you point the plane directly at your target and is hard to do unless they are flying straight and level.

Lead, this is where you put the crosshairs infront of the target and the only time you are actually shooting at someone will be when you are leading them.
If you are leading a target you will be turning tighter than they are and it's easy to stall out if you try and lead someone for too long. If you lead someone when you are attacking from above too early you'll end up overshooting.

Ideal attck from above would mean starting the dive using Lag, get close then lead and shoot and climb away trying to keep airspeed and get your altidude back.

Play around with this in training.

This is the theory anyway.. In the game the WEP and unlimited ammo can make doing this very risky as opponents can boost while climbing and shoot from long range.

Most sim players tend to either barrel roll at low level to escape from being shot down, or pull a loop or immleman, both are very effective as it's disorientating and it's easy to lose the target due to blackouts.