Fighter Combat - Tactics and Maneuvering

180 ONE-VERSUS-ONE MANEUVERING, DISSIMILAR AIRCRAFT
nificant), it could gain about 30° in one nose-to-tail turn without losing a
single knot of airspeed relative to the opponent. Grabbing greater angles
advantages than this with each turn, however, requires the bogey to pay
dearly with energy. Armed with this knowledge, the pilot of the highwing-loaded
energy fighter can assess his opponent's energy management
by observing the bogey's angular gains. The energy fighter pilot should set
up a nose-to-tail turn at maximum sustained-turn-rate speed (or verticalmaneuvering
speed, if that is higher), either level or slightly nose-high. The
bogey's nose position is closely monitored, and climb angle is adjusted to
allow the bogey about a 90° angular advantage at the completion of one
turn. If the bogey appears to be making angles too fast, the energy fighter
pilot makes the transition to a nose-low turn, maintaining speed, to slow
the opponent's angular gains. When, on the other hand, a bogey appears to
be gaining little angular advantage in the turn, the climb angle can be
steepened, reducing G to maintain speed, to allow the opponent to gain
angles more rapidly.
If the bogey is pulling lead approaching the second pass (i.e., at the end of
the first turn), the energy fighter pilot may be required to perform a quick
out-of-plane guns-defense maneuver before beginning a vertical pull-up to
trade his energy advantage for altitude separation at the overshoot. When
an opponent uses lag pursuit approaching the pass, preserving nose-tail
separation to minimize his overshoot, the spiral zoom will probably be
necessary to deny the bogey a shot during the pull-up.
Against an all-aspect-missile-equipped adversary, the nose-to-tail turn
technique may be unusable, since it can allow the bogey to satisfy minrange
parameters during the first turn. In this case the energy fighter pilot
may have to employ a less efficient nose-to-nose turn instead, using essentially
the same procedures but reducing speed to the slowest value consistent
with vertical-maneuvering potential. This slower speed keeps turn
radius low, forcing the opponent to bleed more energy for angular gains.
The nose-to-nose technique should help to hold separation inside the
bogey's min-range limits, while bleeding its energy nicely. The pilot of the
energy fighter should not allow this maneuver to continue into a repetitive
flat scissors, however, since the low-wing-loaded opponent can make
further small gains on each turn without bleeding additional energy.
An opponent who refuses to accept a large angular advantage on the first
turn either is very nonaggressive or is playing it smart by using his turnperformance
superiority to nibble away a few degrees at a time without
bleeding energy. It may be difficult for the energy fighter pilot to determine
which bogey is which, but "You pays your money and you takes your
chances." The nonaggressive bogey can be beaten with angles tactics, so
the usual procedure is to put one aggressive move on the bogey and check
its reaction. A bogey that counters this move effectively should be left
alone, and the pilot of the energy fighter should employ a nose-to-tail
extension to separate and disengage. If the bogey's defense is inept, the
attacking pilot should jump right into its knickers. Normally a rolling
scissors should be avoided against a well-flown bogey, since the opponent
will usually be better in this maneuver unless he is at a considerably lower
energy state.