You are right on the money Moose, his mistake was going below us, it allowed us
a vertical lead turn and as we dived steeper than him we accelerated quickly,
once he started levelling out near the ground we were on him! We had £11 boost
engines as well so he wasn’t going to get away , he actually started losing the
fight the minute he turned towards us.
Witch
Sent from my iPhone
On 25 May 2021, at 23:35, schmidx66 <schmidx66@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
If I was in D-9 with alt advantage I would have stayed high fly by and climb
while you were turning. Then after you turned I would go vertical to see if
you had enough e to climb up to me. Just a thought
Salute Moose
Sent from my Verizon, Samsung Galaxy smartphone
-------- Original message --------
From: "Bart(Redacted sender "bart_56" for DMARC)"
<dmarc-noreply@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: 5/25/21 5:30 PM (GMT-05:00)
To: 56raf_firebirds@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [56raf_firebirds] How can a Tempest out dive a D9?
Flying Tempest high over a snow covered ground behind enemy lines looking for
targets we notice a contrail to our north west higher than us coming our way.
We turn into the bogey trying to set up a bracket me to the right Witch to
the left, the bogey decides to dive down in-between us, big mistake to make
;).
We close in the bracket and begin the pursuit downwards as the bogey now to
be known to be a bandit runs for Venlo airfield a protected enemy airfield.
This is going to lead to a classic double attack on a bandit with Witch
starting as leader to engage the enemy fighter first. I go slightly lower
than Witch and it is my job as a wingman to respond after the bandit has
reacted to my leaders engagement. The enemy sees us still on his tail and
does the classic bunt down(they always do it) followed by a hard break to the
right. Now this might have worked if there was only one of us, but
unfortunately for him there was two flying as a team.
Witch as the engaged fighter follows the hard turn only so slightly for about
10 degrees gets a snap shot off straightens his wings and then goes vertical
to become the disengaged fighter and allows me to become the engaged fighter.
Notice Witch did not try to match the bandits turn as he knew could not stay
with the bandit, so disengaged and became the wingman. This is now the next
phase of the fight which has gone from double attack to loose deuce.
As the wingman in the double attack phase I have more time to see how the
enemy is going to reacted to my leaders attack. So I see the bunt down and
the break to the right, as soon as I see his wings rolling to the right for a
right bank, I start banking to the right to cut the angle as I have the time
to do so.
Now here is a classic part the bandit reverses his turn(they always do
that;)), this allows me now as the engaged fighter to engage him. I make it
easier with a lag roll to his flat turn, this also allows me to carry my
speed, and close the distance even more. I miss with my first shot and the
bandit is trying to start a rolling scissors, which I am not really
interested in as I am faster.
As he reverses for the second time I will take a shot if I hit then great, if
not then I will extend with my speed advantage. Now I can afford to do this
because all the time I have stayed as the engaged fighter Witch as the
disengaged fighter has been keeping his energy and positioned himself ready
to reengage when I disengage.
You need to look at the way Witch has done this, he is also in position for
if I had missed the shot and the enemy reversed his turn to come back to me
to engage the enemy and shoot him down. As it was I got good hits on the
enemy aircraft, Witch then followed the aircraft and finished him off.
Afterwards the enemy pilot asked in chat "How can a Tempest out dive a D9?"
of course we did not bother to answer, do you know the answer?
This was a classic 2vs1 scenario and we did not have to take chances no rush
to shoot the bandit or put ourselves into a position that the enemy can get
guns on us.
What do you think, would you have done the engagement differently?
Would you have done things differently as the D9 pilot, did he do anything
wrong?
Tacview attached.
Colin
