Getting better at dogfighting

Hey everyone, any tips on getting better at one-on-one dogfighting? I've been doing the F-5E air-to-air training against another F-5, but I can never get the little ****.

Starts off with him about 10 miles away and he heads towards me. I can't get a decent AIM-9 lock because he's coming at me. After that I try to chase him around, we go in circles and I lose energy like a fat man climbing stairs. I'll try to fire my AIM-9s at him but they eat his flares every time. After that all I've got left is the gun and I'm terrible shot. Nothing hits. At this point I'll either run out of fuel or he manages to maneouvre behind me and gets me with his gun.

I've tried about ten times so far, and only once I've killed him - that was an accidental gun hit.

- How do I get close enough to him to get a decent AIM-9 shot?

- How do I get better at aiming the gun when I run out of missiles?

- How do I escape him once we gets in a position behind me?

Thanks!

1) The art is not to get close for AIM-9s, but to stay at a decent range so you are not too close. But how to get close? Fly faster than him...

2) Practise, practise and more practise.

3) Fly low. AI does go below a certain altitude. But against a player, try to find his weakness and force him to do a mistake. (That won't really work with AI. They have a fixed pattern. If they are faster, they will loop 24/7 until they are behind you. If you are faster, they will eventually come up behind you)

Hey everyone, any tips on getting better at one-on-one dogfighting? I've been doing the F-5E air-to-air training against another F-5, but I can never get the little ****.

 

Starts off with him about 10 miles away and he heads towards me. I can't get a decent AIM-9 lock because he's coming at me. After that I try to chase him around, we go in circles and I lose energy like a fat man climbing stairs. I'll try to fire my AIM-9s at him but they eat his flares every time. After that all I've got left is the gun and I'm terrible shot. Nothing hits. At this point I'll either run out of fuel or he manages to maneouvre behind me and gets me with his gun.

To me it sounds that you have throttles all the time at full speed to maintain some speed, to counter your bleeding?

If so, then you are likely pulling too hard for high Angle of Attack.

Are you trying to maintain lead pursuit (trying to fly front of him), pure pursuit (flying straight at him) or lag pursuit (trying to fly behind him)?

I've tried about ten times so far, and only once I've killed him - that was an accidental gun hit.

 

- How do I get close enough to him to get a decent AIM-9 shot?

From the rear you have no problems to get a good valid lock, as the F-5E can only carry the AIM-9P but not AIM-9P5 that has capability to find target in some conditions even from the front. So you need to get to rear hemisphere (from 3 to 9'clock attitude, more likely between 4 and 8'clock) for a good valid lock.

You don't need radar, as the radar can't help in anything than you finding the target in low visibility situations after you have been guided in by GCI.

You can try to avoid the head-on flight, start maneuvers predicting target to act to them at given manner and use that knowledge to counter it, and then gain position to get a good launch parameters.

- How do I get better at aiming the gun when I run out of missiles?

Simply learning to get behind the target or other position where you get them to fly to your stream of bullets at slow enough speed so they can't just jink out of the way.

- How do I escape him once we gets in a position behind me?

Jinking hard enough, you can start add variation to your speed and be difficult target and get the enemy make an error and shoot over, or somehow get their energy lower than yours so you can extend etc.

Buy and study "Fighter Combat: Tactics and Maneuvering"

Jump with both feet into the Just Dogfight server stable. Log in fly, get shot down, evaluate, repeat.

Its an air start so you can go again and again without delay or offending others. Don’t let the harsh “eat your young” vibe of some folks on the forums scare ya. It’s a very friendly accepting digital airspace out there.

Flying against a computer IMHO is too one dimensional. Being that its a program, not a person, it always is a step ahead.

Come give it a try!!!

Regards

Thanks for the tips everyone. I have the Fighter Combat: Tactics and Maneuvering as an ebook and I try to do lag and lead pursuits. Can't do pure pursuit to save my life since I can't keep my nose on the target for very long.

Mr. Big.”Biggs”, thanks! I'll look into joining!

What does everyone think of getting Tacview to evaluate flying patterns??

Thanks for the tips everyone. I have the Fighter Combat: Tactics and Maneuvering as an ebook and I try to do lag and lead pursuits. Can't do pure pursuit to save my life since I can't keep my nose on the target for very long.

 

Mr. Big.”Biggs”, thanks! I'll look into joining!

 

What does everyone think of getting Tacview to evaluate flying patterns??

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The F5E can indeed carry the Aim-9P5 all aspect in game. Makes things too easy 1v1. The F5E on the highest AI setting is extremely difficult to win against with guns only (flying in another F5 or Mig21 for example). Not impossible, but usually he ends up crashing into the ground before I can get a gun kill on him. I swear they give him more thrust than a normal F5E, but looking at tacview it doesn't seem to be obviously overpowered, he (expert AI) just has insanely good reflexes and perfect form. I have managed to setup a shot on him before for just a second or two but its very difficult.

I swear they give him more thrust than a normal F5E

He does. I've seen AI F-5s pull the same G at the same airspeed as me, in the same horizontal turn, and I was bleeding speed while they were not. Between that and their perfect situational awareness, fighting the Expert AI in a guns-only fight is a waste of time to be honest.

It's good for testing your skills but usually becomes a stalemate so gets old fast.

There's only one way to practically improve. Get a human of better knowledge and skill, get Tacview installed and learn it and fight him. You can read all you want, but you will only learn how to read and not apply the lesson. Application of theory is where the make or break happens. I love how folks ramble off links to Shaw's or P-1289 and that's their only advice. Personally I think P-1289 is far better as an instruction set with specific guided training that goes in logical order: i.e. snapshot drills come BEFORE rolling scissors and the Perch only makes sense once you understand the concept of the bubble (but ilustrates it beautifully). It's had years of maturity over Shaw's, doesn't ramble and introduces the training you require to DO, to improve the skills.

The truth is, the AI in DCS is not flying within the laws of physics. The sooner you give up on calling that a training aid, the better. They will lead you into vertical fights you cannot compete with, whilst being complete dumbasses with repetivive routines that can be cheesed and then once you learn how to cheese AI, what is the actual point? 1 on 1 the head on neutral merge, the AI is gameplan high in the same direction. You can actually practice a non cheesed method of anticipating that and I've beaten a Su-27 in 180 degrees by a whopping 90 degrees just by anticipating the exact place I know the AI will go.

Give me a player and I have no idea. And he uses the same physics that the module has. It's not only fair, you get to practice faster, learn more, get feedback during, and post fight, and have a laugh engaging with someone human.

And FWIW I've read it all, written it into training for players and I'm terrible in my skill, spatial understanding and reading my own and the bandits relative energy states. I spend my energy like a 1990's hedge fund millionaire spends on hookers and coke. But I know what I know.

Well said Pikey :lol:

Pikey - is this the P-1289 you're taking about? I'd never heard about it until I read your post but I'm checking it out now. I see it's for a training varient of the Hawk, but I assume it's useful for all basic fighters?

It's all about practise mate! U will crash and burn many many times but bit by bit U will learn what to do and what not to do.

Things that helped me to get better in the F-5: Be careful with your speed and dont pull too hard. Once you're slow, it's hard to regain that energy with a MiG on your six. Also with high AOA, use rudder to roll, that way you'll bleed less speed.

If you're up against AI, dont follow the enemy plane into the vertical. Youll just end up stalling. Instead follow him in lag pursuit, turn in the horizontal plane, and then roll in behind him as he comes down again.

I also set the flap settings to my Warthog throttle boat switch. Aft is set to flaps auto, forward is set to flaps up. That way I can easily switch between fast(er) acceleration vs. better turning performance.

If you're defensive, use the F-5s nice roll rate for a scissors maneuver and force him to overshoot. Theres a button for turning off the roll limitation on the stick, I bound that one too on my joystick.

Getting better at dogfighting

Also with high AOA, use rudder to roll, that way you'll bleed less speed.

I know it’s recommended to prevent roll reversal at high AoA, I hadn’t heard it’s a more efficient way to turn...

I know it’s recommended to prevent roll reversal at high AoA, I hadn’t heard it’s a more efficient way to turn...

Only indirectly, as far as I understand. You'd lose more speed if you rolled with only the stick in high AOA situations.

Jump with both feet into the Just Dogfight server stable. Log in fly, get shot down, evaluate, repeat.

Its an air start so you can go again and again without delay or offending others. Don’t let the harsh “eat your young” vibe of some folks on the forums scare ya. It’s a very friendly accepting digital airspace out there.

Regards

Gave Just Dogfight a try for the first time today - got smashed in my little F-5E against the more advanced plane but had a blast! Thanks for the tip.

First main rule to fight succesfully is to maintain effective speed in turn! Any maneuver is a turn or part of a turn! Thats why you have to stay in turn on speed 260 - 550 knots! Dont loose it in fight with MiGs and you will win!

"Dogfighting is a waste of time."

-Erich Hartmann, 352 aerial victories (he used his superior eyesight and boom-and-zoom techniques (especially diving out of the sun) to defeat his mostly-Soviet enemies; every time one pulls G, energy (altitude and airspeed) is lost)

"Dogfighting is a waste of time."

 

-Erich Hartmann, 352 aerial victories (he used his superior eyesight and boom-and-zoom techniques (especially diving out of the sun) to defeat his mostly-Soviet enemies; every time one pulls G, energy (altitude and airspeed) is lost)

That explains why most respectable Air Forces (also including Navy) even in today's age of ever looming budget cuts still place so much emphasis on it and train their pilots for it despite all the costs in maintenance, fuel and airframes.

Regards,

Snappy

"Dogfighting is a waste of time."

 

-Erich Hartmann, 352 aerial victories (he used his superior eyesight and boom-and-zoom techniques (especially diving out of the sun) to defeat his mostly-Soviet enemies; every time one pulls G, energy (altitude and airspeed) is lost)

The fans of this must be those fighters that boom n zoom when i'm flying a 25T or A10, I duly oblige by sticking an R73 or AIM9 up their tail and I especially thank them for putting the sun behind us. Times change.

The F5 is really hard mode on the Dogfight server against anyone who knows what they are doing (guns only). Where everyone has IR missiles things are of course evened up a little. Where it shines is in more realistic environments where everyones stuck in their cockpits and its great cockpit visibility and just ease of flying and operation come into play. So far from what I've experienced, in a dogfight between two humans in Mig21s and F5s I think the F5 has the edge.

I just did some retesting and while the margin is slim i constantly get better turnrates flying the 21. No matter in which speedrange, as long as look not to pull to high AOA the fishbeds thrust allows it to gain a 1-2 degree/s advantage in sustained turns. The F5 with its more modern lift devices is better at unsustained turns but a long as the 21-driver knows/feels its AOA limits i dont see how the F5 can be the better dogfighter or energy fighter.

Which leads to the question: Do u guys use the f5 as a rate or radius fighter?

I would love to see any tacview file of a competently flown F5 beating another about equaly competent enemy.