How to properly turn in dogfights?

While flying dogfights against the F-5 Tiger, I found is very hard to change a turn from one side to the other, as the wings act as a big airbrake. So when flying the MiG-21, how can I properly turn from one direction to the other? which will be the best way? cause I always end in huge AoA slowing the beast and getting killed in the process.

Stop pulling for a sec and then stick left/right and pull? That should eliminate your problem of the big airbrake during the change.

You don't, Mig-21 is not a dogfighter. You can do one 180° turn pretty quickly for a snapshot but after that you need to extend and build up speed.

It depends how it’s used, you can read the Have Donut evaluation of the MiG-21 and they mention surprising low speed maneuverability. They mention hammerhead turn as slow as 100knots. It’s g limit of 8 and ARU system gives very good high speed low altitude turning. The best result at medium speeds is to watch your AOA and constantly keep it in the right spot. At low altitude you also have the emergency afterburner to increase sustained turns. While it’s no fourth gen I think it can be flown in a surprisingly agile way, especially utilizing fast rolls for quick reversals, stalling the wing to fake a turn, I don’t think anyone can replicate the split s of that Egyptian pilot though....

It depends how it’s used, you can read the Have Donut evaluation of the MiG-21 and they mention surprising low speed maneuverability. They mention hammerhead turn as slow as 100knots. It’s g limit of 8 and ARU system gives very good high speed low altitude turning. The best result at medium speeds is to watch your AOA and constantly keep it in the right spot. At low altitude you also have the emergency afterburner to increase sustained turns. While it’s no fourth gen I think it can be flown in a surprisingly agile way, especially utilizing fast rolls for quick reversals, stalling the wing to fake a turn, I don’t think anyone can replicate the split s of that Egyptian pilot though....

Have Doughnut had MiG-21F-13 which is a different airframe. Its like Hornet and Superhornet. bis is arguably the heaviest and second least maneuverable after SMT of all the 21s. You have to use bis as it was intended - use your speed, RWR and GCI callouts to position yourself behind the enemy flight while staying outside of their sensors envelope. Then accelerate towards them to give your missiles more energy, launch and run away. Fair fights ended with canvas wings and Spandau machineguns. Imagine MiG-21 as a mach-2 wolfpack submarine. It gives enough tension, believe me.

Also, R-3R are surprisingly good head-on on the merge which they weren't IRL - use it.

True, the Have Donut report mentions increased roll intertia and slightly less AOA performance for the BIS

Just roll to the opposite direction the enemy turn and then turn onto his tail.

Stop pulling for a sec and then stick left/right and pull? That should eliminate your problem of the big airbrake during the change.

This. Don't roll loaded. Unload to near zero AOA first. At slight negative AOA there's even some roll coupling that you can exploit for insane (and difficult to control) roll rates.

The rudder is pretty good at rolling the craft if you don't want to unload aoa for whatever reason. But I've found strict aoa management is necessary for a good time in the 21.

Pretty interesting answers, anyone have a track or a TacView video I can watch to understand it? Specially this...

Stop pulling for a sec and then stick left/right and pull? That should eliminate your problem of the big airbrake during the change.

This. Don't roll loaded. Unload to near zero AOA first. At slight negative AOA there's even some roll coupling that you can exploit for insane (and difficult to control) roll rates.

Different sim and aircraft, but this shows the unload/roll technique quite well: