On information about planes:
This website will generate comparative graphs of your engine performance, divided by aircraft weight, at a given airspeed (either indicated (speed your plane experiences) or true (speed at which your plane travels along its track)) as a function of altitude.
This graph can be useful not just for comparative power study but also for advanced tricks like manual engine control by showing you the "supercharger gaps"
Notice the places your power/weight jumps and rises again? Those are roughly when you want to switch supercharger gears.
Another useful source of aircraft performance is CatWerfer’s series on Energy-Maneuvering diagrams.
Statshark produces jet EM graphs, but doesn’t work for props. CatWerfer’s videos and google drive are our best source right now.
What is a EM diagram ?
It shows you at different true airspeeds how many Gs you need to pull to turn N degrees on a S turn radius turn and how much speed or altitude you must sacrifice to keep yourself level doing it (SEP cost - it basically shows acceleration).
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLA1jnfeSypRwvFMHb4gUqvnFlCLFGWckm
OUTDATED, but still representative, Aircraft Performance
Shows the speeds at which you gain the most altitude (IAS), shows the MINIMUM speeds at which your control surfaces have good authority (IAS) - you want to stay at this speed or above to have a fullry responsive speed, shows the speeds at which your controls start locking up “compressing” (as erronously called for subsonic aircraft) (IAS), and finally your “Never exceed speed” (usually showed as Vne on graphs).
Finally, WTRTI
One issue with WTAPC is that it only calculates power/weight - acceleration. However, it fails to account for drag from your propellers and airframe itself. If it did, it would give you the “Specific Excess power”. WTRTI can give you that, either semi-real time or on a graph
It is legal to use, but cannot be used for bug reports. It gives you info the game already sends you and could display on localhost 1800. It simply makes it display on your main monitor and sometimes does some maths on it.
I like using it when I get a new plane to figure out its MEC settings and some other edge-of-envelope info that would be useful
On Diving
There, in my experience, the issue lies in almost always over-committing. You don’t need to get the kill in your first pass. You don’t need to dive through your enemy and chase them and bleed energy. Yes, even if they do fly in a straight line you’re on the losing side - if the enemy dives away while you’re already at maximum speed, they’re going to gain energy (accelerate from trading away altitude) while you lose energy (maintain speed while trading away altitude) - this is, almost verbatim - what Defyn recommends to equalize energy after all (https://youtu.be/lFcQnxDy0zY?si=q4a3iS8oTsoL3r4_&t=756)
You dive down, make them feel threatened and gently pull out and run away in a straight line until some separation before climbing again after they made a 180 degree turn to dodge you.
Now, there’s more to it than just lazily diving a bit on someone and aborting when they maneuver. You need to keep up the pressure otherwise they will accelerate back to a good and dangerous speed or run away! This requires knowing the target and knowing yourself.
There’s also the possibility that they just dodge your shots and immediately give chase. This happens if you grossly misjudged your relative energy levels (energy is SPEED plus ALTITUDE after all - you dove with very little speed and they were near max speed - a very common mistake I used to do and wondered how tf did my target helicopter me to death). Now, if you know your and their plane and also did the inverse - they misjudged YOUR energy - this is awesome. This gives you an opportunity to lure them into keeping chasing you while you maintain more energy than them and they fall out of the sky. To do this, you tend to need way superior speed or way superior power/weight. Bf109s tend to do this quite well
Here’s some good tutorials on using energy to your advantage:
Spoiler
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MiizpkzsLOk
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BdKjB1QQhJI
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lFcQnxDy0zY
General Advice
Watch Defyn’s tutorial playlist: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLLmqHixdtpCOvLas_HftSzPgSmeSN_u2I
Unfortunately, Defyn doesn’t have a La-11 video. La-7 he does have - it might be worth downgrading until you get confident with the earlier variant: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GaJ4v479NYI
Also watch Defyn watching his viewers’ clips and giving them sometimes harsh, but constructive advice (Your job is to see if you can recognize yourself in those clips - not literally - but are you making the same decisions as the person? Can you predict their decisions before Defyn explains it?):
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLLmqHixdtpCMl_6sFfbELv3bgdJkw_aBk
Watch and practice “solved” air combat situations. What I mean is, there’s a set of techniques that have a “if X and Y occurs, perform Z to achieve outcome W.” This is called Basic Fighter Maneuvers. Basic Fighter Maneuvers will NOT win you battles, and you can discover them intuitively through playing. However, knowing them already from someone already doing the legwork for you will save you pain. The perform “Z” is not a strict instruction either - mix and match, change and adapt. Don’t replicate these perfectly each time unless you’re practicing them mindfully: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zbyGOd6NwME&list=PLnyigzFtHeNr9zTkpxyD0ksFD3CwLa2UE
This is gives more use for simmers due to using cockpit for reference, but I found my epiphany to winning turnfights and getting lead turns done correctly thanks to this video. However, the idea about aligning the circles should come in handy for ARB as well, you just need different ways to reference when to do a “turn circle extension.” Before this video, I’d always fly straight at the enemy, they’d turn in a worse turning plane and I’d turn after them keeping my gunsights on their fuselage as well as I could. Then we’d drift apart as if in a yo-yo. Then we’d close in but the angle is too hard to get a shot off. Then we’d drift apart as if in a yo-yo. We were doing a two-circle engagement with out turn circles way out of alignment, but I didn’t realize this.
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4s6B3PIXXDU&)
This made me realize what I was doing wrong. For me, the epiphany came realizing “hey, this looks just like performing a hohmann transfer to rendezvous in Kerbal Space program!.” It might or might not help you. Video will definitely though.
For how bad I was at turnfighting? I lost a turnfight against a P-47 in a Ki-44-II. Now I can get regular kills in “nose-chase-tail” fights.
How do I improve
Mindful, intentional flying and reflection. Watch your replays when you feel you did amazing. Watch your replays when you feel you died to bullshit. Watch your replays when you had a close fight.
Analyze it from your perspective, from the guy who did bullshit’s perspective. Try to approach it with the same mindset Defyn approaches his viewers here: (https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLLmqHixdtpCMl_6sFfbELv3bgdJkw_aBk)
Finally, play every (major WW2) nation.
The great blessing of propeller tiers is that they’re fast. Very fast!
You can unlock a BR 4.0 or so aircraft (first Rank 3 fighter/naval fighter/interceptor) within a week of casual play easily. Do it.
Fly the F4U-4, fly the Spitfire MkIX, fly the Bf109F4, fly the a6m3, fly the G.55, Fly the P51C/P51. Idk about france/china so no comment.
You don’t need to fly these exact planes, any will do around their BR as long as it’s from that nation. I didn’t rec USSR since you already fly it.
Fly each plane until spaded, then play only that plane for a week straight while being attentive to whenever you dominate with it and whenever you feel completely helpless and impotent. Remember these moments for when you face that plane and abuse your knowledge.
