Low Wing Loading vs High Thrust-to-Weight || Energy Trap || DACT BFM
1 Avoiding Head-Ons
• BFM Tutorial - Avoiding Head-Ons || DCS world
2 Extention Pitch/Back Maneuver
• BFM Tactics || Extention/Pitch Back Maneuv...
3 Rolling Scissors
• Rolling Scissors || BFM Tutorial - DCS World
Low Wing Loading versus High Thrust-to-Weight
Encounters between a low-wing-loaded fighter and an enemy fighter with greater TW are quite common. In this case each fighter has performance advantages and disadvantages relative to its opponent. The engagement strategy is for the pilot to exploit the opponent's most serious weaknesses while taking full advantage of his own fighter's greatest strengths.The low-wing-loaded fighter's greatest performance advantages are assumed to be good instantaneous turn performance, slow minimum speed, and a tight sustained turn radius. In some cases this aircraft also might have a significant sustained-turn-rate advantage. Its weaknesses include inferior climb and acceleration performance under low-G conditions,and slower top-end speed.
These characteristics are ideally suited to the use of angles tactics as described in the last chapter. One of the problems of the pilot of a low wing-loaded fighter is how to get close to an opponent who has greater speed capability. This may be accomplished with geometry by use of pureand lead pursuit. High and low yo-yos and barrel-oll attacks also may beuseful. Since the highT/W opponent has better climb capability andvertical potential, the pilot of the low-wing-loaded fighter should attempt to constrain the fight to the horizontal plane as much as possible. Nose-to nose turns make best use of a turn-radius advantage, and lead turns can be devastating because of instantaneous-turn superiority. A flat scissors should be lethal to the highT/W fighter since it suffers from both aturn-performance and a minimum-speed disadvantage.
The lowwing loaded aircraft might also have some advantage in a rolling scissors because of better slow-speed controll ability, but usually not so great anadvantage as in the flat scissors. In cases where the highTW enemy has asustained-turn-rate advantage, the rolling scissors generally should be avoided. The preceding scenarios of angles tactics should make the task of the energy fighter pilot evident. The pilot of the highT/W fighter must avoid getting shot until he can build a large energy margin, allowing him to zoom well above his opponent and position for a high-to-low gun attack. A steep approach to a high-side gun pass helps the high-wing-loaded fighter compensate for his turn-performance deficiency. Roll rate can be substituted for turn rate to accomplish much of the heading change required in maneuvering to a gun-firing envelope, and in a steep diving attitude the energy fighter has to oppose less gravity than it would when performing a levelturn. It should be noted, however, that while the guns approach may be asteep dive, the firing pass itself usually is more successful if it can be shallowed somewhat, as discussed later. Even with these advantages, however, the pilot of the energy fighter should not expect a lengthy tracking gun shot against a well-flown low-wing-loaded fighter with a substantial instantaneous-turn advantage, since this bogey nearly always can generate enough turn performance to keep the energy fighter out of steady tracking parameters. The major exceptions to this rule occur when the bogey pilot loses sight of his attacker or the bogey is near stall speed attree-top altitudes. Although the energy fighter pilot can work at creating these conditions, a lethal snapshot opportunity often will be achieved first. Obviously, an energy fighter must have a substantial altitude advantage over its opponent immediately preceding an effective high-side or overhead gun pass. The exact amount of this required advantage depends on many factors, but in general the altitude advantage should be about equivalent to the minimum instantaneous turn radius of the energy fighter. That is, a fighter that can generate a minimum horizontal turn radius of 2,000 ft at engagement altitude and optimum speed (i.e., below corner speed) would require about a 2,000-ft altitude advantage for an effective over head or steep high-side gun attack. A well-flown angles fighter can be expected to deny such an altitude advantage, if possible, whenever the energy fighter is near guns range. The bogey pilot may do this by zooming with the energy fighter or by saving enough airspeed to allow a vertical pull-up, if necessary, to meet the diving attacker nearly head-on.The pilot of the high-T/W fighter, therefore, needs to build an energy advantage sufficient to allow him to zoom higher than the low-wing loaded bogey by the required amount."