I'm going to toss this up here in this thread, even though it might be considered 1. controversial and 2. a feature request, but I personally mostly view it as "buggy".
Simply put, the AI has ESP and can detect you trying to sneak up on them, even if it's from a completely unviewable quadrant.
For example, if I set up a mission in FMB. Identical aircraft, say 109E-4's, theater irrelevant but I like sands of time. I'll start the badguy on a level flight at 1000 meters flying a perfectly straight and level track at say 300 kph. I'll start myself about 2km directly behind and below by about 200 meters. Proceed to "sneak up" on the badguy as best I can, staying directly below and behind, which I know for a fact is within the blind area. With full mouse of trackir movement, visibility in my approach area does not exist. One would have to turn the aircraft several degrees on the horizontal plane to see back directly behind. No matter what, if I execute a perfect approach completely in the blind spot, the badguy will always, always "detect" me and go defensive when I'm close enough. The detection range varies by skill as far as I can determine.
I view this as a bug, there is no possible way one pilot could detect another one sneaking up like that unless they did some active, conscious flight direction change in order to "clear six". One should be able to "sneak up" on another aircraft in blind spots if done correctly.
Also would like to reiterate that I realize AI development is difficult, imperfect science at best with everyone pissing and moaning about his or her particular desires, complaints, etc. Also realize there are other bigger fish to fry, like tweaking the jets a bit or who the heck knows what else.
Is there any way we could get something done to help address this in 4.12?
