How on earth do you do dogfights with this thing

I hear everybody saying: The 109 is an easy plane, the 109 is a master in dogfighting, you should be scared of a 109. The 109 does loads of damage etc etc etc

- Assuming that I lack a certain competence in dogfighting in ww2 planes, how the hell do I score kills in this thing. I take the vertical like everybody is saying, but I lose a ton of airspeed, stall out, turn over to the left (when enemy is at the right)

- I have track IR, the enemy passes me by, I look back to see what the enemy is doing and react accordingly. For example the enemy makes a turn, I do a vertical loop. I do the loop, am above the enemy, but am slow, the enemy goes up, shoots me

- I try to do a turn in this thing. Turning does not seem to be a thing in the 109, as I have read it is a boom and zoom fighter, not a turn fighter. Turning is almost certainly death for me.

- If I try to do something else, or react to the enemy's movements, I no time the enemy is behind me, ready to shoot me down....

What the actual f am I doing wrong here, since everybody is saying it is so god damned easy. I mean, I am maybe a bit of a noob, but I am not a complete idiot. Do you guys have tips, pointers, youtube clips I can watch etc? Or is it just practice practice practice...

Lots of people here get very hyperbolic about which airplanes to be afraid of etc etc. Most of it is nonsense and you can safely ignore it. Similar with comments about turning and energy fighters, boom and zoom only etc etc. Alot of those comments are very simplistic, and can be easy to take out of context.

Purely performance wise the 109 is very capable in DCS. IMO its one of the most difficult aircraft to get that performance out of though, and handling takes a bit more practice to get used to compared to some of the other airplanes.

If you want to fly the 109 well you should pay special attention to flying coordinated and smoothly. Practice turns, climbs etc etc in Free flight and watch the ball to get used to how much rudder you need and how the airplane feels when its coordinated. The higher difficulty AI, even though it "cheats" FM wise, can also be very good to practice flying cleanly against.

Really the biggest secret of flying the 109 (and all the planes in dcs) is just the stuff above, use the rudder properly, and dont be ham fisted with the stick.

Of course if you want to know more about dogifghting there are plenty of books and youtube channels to look for basics, but alot of it comes down to practice.

Its also worth noting that the stick forces in the 109 are much higher than the other airplanes, so playing with the throttle and trying to fight at lower speeds will generally be more advantageous than high speed fighting. Too much or too little energy can both be bad.

This book is supposed to be pretty good for basics: http://www.virtualpilots.fi/feature/lento_ohjeet/inpursuit/inpursuit.pdf

As well as Requiems youtube channel, which is mostly with clips from the other sim, but it all applies more or less the same.

Good luck, S!

Lots of people here get very hyperbolic about which airplanes to be afraid of etc etc. Most of it is nonsense and you can safely ignore it. Similar with comments about turning and energy fighters, boom and zoom only etc etc. Alot of those comments are very simplistic, and can be easy to take out of context.

 

Purely performance wise the 109 is very capable in DCS. IMO its one of the most difficult aircraft to get that performance out of though, and handling takes a bit more practice to get used to compared to some of the other airplanes.

 

If you want to fly the 109 well you should pay special attention to flying coordinated and smoothly. Practice turns, climbs etc etc in Free flight and watch the ball to get used to how much rudder you need and how the airplane feels when its coordinated. The higher difficulty AI, even though it "cheats" FM wise, can also be very good to practice flying cleanly against.

 

Really the biggest secret of flying the 109 (and all the planes in dcs) is just the stuff above, use the rudder properly, and dont be ham fisted with the stick.

 

Of course if you want to know more about dogifghting there are plenty of books and youtube channels to look for basics, but alot of it comes down to practice.

 

Its also worth noting that the stick forces in the 109 are much higher than the other airplanes, so playing with the throttle and trying to fight at lower speeds will generally be more advantageous than high speed fighting. Too much or too little energy can both be bad.

 

This book is supposed to be pretty good for basics: http://www.virtualpilots.fi/feature/lento_ohjeet/inpursuit/inpursuit.pdf

 

As well as Requiems youtube channel, which is mostly with clips from the other sim, but it all applies more or less the same.

 

Good luck, S!

This sounds very helpful, I will give this a try! Thank you! And of course lots of practice needed

This sounds very helpful, I will give this a try! Thank you! And of course lots of practice needed

Sent from my Redmi 5 using Tapatalk

Actually there are definitely 109 pilots who used the trim in combat. Walter Schuck mentions doing it while in a dogfight with some Hurricanes.

But Im not sure how useful it is in DCS. Best practice is to just set it a little tail heavy and not really mess with it in the middle of turns. Works well with an FFB stick.

Actually there are definitely 109 pilots who used the trim in combat. Walter Schuck mentions doing it while in a dogfight with some Hurricanes.

 

But Im not sure how useful it is in DCS. Best practice is to just set it a little tail heavy and not really mess with it in the middle of turns. Works well with an FFB stick.

Yeah, but how many degrees per second, in real life?

Don't think he had time to measure.... :P

Idk IIRC he said something like he whipped it back or something like that so it couldnt have been too slow.

Check out the YouTube channel "The Air Combat Tutorial Library"

His work is based on another game, but it 100% applies to Warbirds and dogfighting.

Don't think he had time to measure.... :P

 

Idk IIRC he said something like he whipped it back or something like that so it couldnt have been too slow.

It does seem quite slow in DCS, don't you think?

It does seem quite slow in DCS, don't you think?

I don´t think you would be able to operate it faster in a real one.

I don´t think you would be able to operate it faster in a real one.

If you watch the videos with the G-6 Red7, I think, you'll see how fast the pilot rotates the wheel..

I hear everybody saying: The 109 is an easy plane, the 109 is a master in dogfighting, you should be scared of a 109. The 109 does loads of damage etc etc etc

 

- Assuming that I lack a certain competence in dogfighting in ww2 planes, how the hell do I score kills in this thing. I take the vertical like everybody is saying, but I lose a ton of airspeed, stall out, turn over to the left (when enemy is at the right)

- I have track IR, the enemy passes me by, I look back to see what the enemy is doing and react accordingly. For example the enemy makes a turn, I do a vertical loop. I do the loop, am above the enemy, but am slow, the enemy goes up, shoots me

- I try to do a turn in this thing. Turning does not seem to be a thing in the 109, as I have read it is a boom and zoom fighter, not a turn fighter. Turning is almost certainly death for me.

- If I try to do something else, or react to the enemy's movements, I no time the enemy is behind me, ready to shoot me down....

 

What the actual f am I doing wrong here, since everybody is saying it is so god damned easy. I mean, I am maybe a bit of a noob, but I am not a complete idiot. Do you guys have tips, pointers, youtube clips I can watch etc? Or is it just practice practice practice...

You can do a turn fight agains a P51, but again a Spit you will be dead in a few turns...

You can not turn like a Spit but they can not go fast as you in a 109... If they want to do a horizontal turn you can run and take some distance, then turn and try again! :thumbup:

If you watch the videos with the G-6 Red7, I think, you'll see how fast the pilot rotates the wheel..

Can you post the video with the relevant timeframe?

Can you post the video with the relevant timeframe?

Check out the up and down movement of the left shoulder. Looks faster than we have in DCS, clearly.

 

Check out the up and down movement of the left shoulder. Looks faster than we have in DCS, clearly.

If you mean the movement in the right hand turn before the landing then my guess is that he is lowering the flaps - and if you watch the time it takes him around 20sec.

In the sim it also takes ~20sec. to fully lower the flaps.

And the stabilizer in the sim takes ~10sec from full forward to full aft.

Seems reasonable to me if you take into consideration the gear ratios.

If you mean the movement in the right hand turn before the landing then my guess is that he is lowering the flaps - and if you watch the time it takes him around 20sec.

In the sim it also takes ~20sec. to fully lower the flaps.

 

 

And the stabilizer in the sim takes ~10sec from full forward to full aft.

Seems reasonable to me if you take into consideration the gear ratios.

No, not really. Watch it from 4:58 and see how fast he's operating the wheel, comparing to when he's preparing to land.

Flaps not fully lowered on take off

And although the flaps are only lowered a little it still takes him several seconds to retract them.

Besides that - flaps and stabilizer wheels are big so they can be turned easier. But it takes a lot of revolutions - which makes for a lot of small movements of the hand because you can´t keep on turning because you need to move your hand before you can turn the wheel any further.

Therefore a lot of small and fast movements of the hand / arm without much going on on the wheel.

in combat, you'll move faster than that, I betcha... :)

And that's without the airflow force against it.

S!

Hi,

Avoid break turns and try to hold speed in turns. Around 350 to 400 kmh. Mustangs can turn very fast But after a short period of time they lose their Power and the 109 will get more and more options. Just stay in turn and don't lose speed.

Against Spits it's much harder But nearly the same Story. Try to fly accurate turns. Rudderwork is important in order to hold speed. If you Do IT right, the spitfire can't have a clean shot. It's not necessary to pull like the Rock Johnson.

Hope this helps a bit. Great Module, I love it.

Cheers

Tom

Remember to bring the fight to a counterclockwise fight, due to enormous torque power of the 109 it turn better left.

Inviato dal mio BLA-L09 utilizzando Tapatalk

I've been reading this thread and all the good comments on it. I got the Bf-109 last winter but, after a few initial flights, pretty much haven't touched it since. You guys inspired me to give the Bf-109 another try. Here's a video of my engagements against AI-controlled ("veteran") P-47, P-51, Spitfire, and I-16. Mistakes notwithstanding, it's been a lot of fun.

you can boom and zoom with any plane and also turn fight with every plane, you have to think in 3d, try to force an overshoot when youre on the defensive, dont lose energy, be sure that when you make your zoom back up you dont stall out (its easy to prop hang and shoot at a stalling zooming aircraft) and try to not turn on the vertical with spits but depending on if you have mw50 or more energy at the begining of the fight you can, know your plane and physics your turn radius is at its lowest when youre turning vertical and inverted