Past couple months I’ve been trying to get better at air. Was more interested in higher tier jets so I started with them specifically BVR and im at the point where im at least concious of 90% of the mistakes I make so improving there is just a matter of playing more.
However im a bit lost in early/mid jets and props since the emphasis is more on dogfighting than missile combat (basically everything under 12.0).
I know most of the basic ACM etc. But im lost in application and honestly don’t really know what to do in the majority of situations. Things like when to go 1 or 2 circle, when to go vertical, passive vs aggresive lines etc. And im some many other things im completely ignorant of at the moment.
I’d like to get to a point where im at in BVR jets where everytime I die I basically know exactly what I did wrong and what I should have done instead in lower tier jets and props in terms of dogfighting. If I don’t really know what im doing or supposed to do just playing more isn’t really going to help much.
Is there any real good videos with commentary or deep dives into dogfighting, especially longer videos out there people can point me towards? I’ve watched a lot of the more popular stuff from people like defyn etc. Written guides are fine to. Im assuming this type of stuff is harder to find as its not as entertaining for the majority of people to watch and thus isn’t high up on the algorithm/view counts.
Captain Squishface on Youtube has commenatated “Duellio” videos exploring things from a prop sim perspective.
It and IdahoBookworm and Flying Tea Rex are my go to resources for dogfight principles. Training days is also cool (idk why I remembered him as part of the Il2 gang instead, but he’s WT.)
Naturally, there will be differences in applicability to Air RB but is mostly execution and room for error.
Additionally, if one is willing for further separation - Il2:GB’s “Sheriff’s Sim Shack”, “Enigma”, “Col Ninny”, and “RequiemACTL” (he has a separate playlist analyzing air combat maneuvering on top of his well-known playlist around the basic maneuvers themselves) can offer insight and breakdown of things that go wrong and well in their battles
Edit: I mixed up TrainingDays and Enigma. Adding Enigma to IL2:GB “ace”/“duelling” breakdowns and tutorials. Both of them do the same thing - taking dogfight clips and analyzing them in depth.
I’ve got a slightly different addendum to the original question:
are there any particular aircraft that are most conducive to improving skills?
I am thinking about this from the standpoint of a handful of aircraft that are capable, but demand you fly them right/well.
I love the A7M1, and it can certainly teach you about baiting aircraft you cannot catch or out climb… but once you get someone to take a fight and they miss the first pass, it sort of devolves, Similarly, when you get someone with discipline, there isn’t much to do but dodge.
Squishface made a post that the Bf109F4 is the best “starter plane” for Air Sim battles. He is unfortunately yet to make the video explaining his reasoning though outside of the video where he explained why duelists use it for symmetrical duels.
My assumptions are that it’s a Jack of All Trades, Master of None that cannot win fights just by pulling the stick back into your gut and must employ different approaches to different fights, but is quite capable of being a match to anything within its BR range when used well.
I cant find it anymore but there was a non english guy with like 40 minute videos with eng subs on the bf109 and it seemed like it was very important to take certain lines against different planes if you didnt have the energy advantage to drag them up.
Maybe it was in spanish? Cant remember couple year old vids too.
For the BVR stuff if anyone is interested, and some examples of the depth of videos im looking for dogfighting
First video is amazing for fox3 and sarh, 2nd video for irccm milles. 3rd one is also useful.
All of these basically gave me the foundation I needed to learn while playing without having to intuit a whole lot on my own.
In order to get better at anything I feel like you need to be concious of the mistakes you make, being in a state of inconcious incompetence while trying to improve will lead you nowhere but frustration, and to truley master something you go through those levels to inconcious competetance where essentially you go from not knowing what to do and playing badly, to playing badly and knowing what yoy did wrong, to playing well without having to even think of the correct play it just comes natural.
So in my case trying to get better at dogfighting and not even knowing how to approach sitautions in probably the majority of cases and just winging it and praying it turns out well pretty much leaves me in a state of stagnation in terms of improvement. And the other problem is sometimes things will work against bsd players but not against good ones and reinforcing those behaviors can sctually do more harm than good.
For sure the more I play i’ll pick up on things here and there but having the knowledge/foundation to start thinking correctly early will save me probably hundreds if not thousands of hours in the longrun instead of brute forcing it on my own.
I passionately hate the Bf-109… so perhaps that’s part of the reason I still suck at dog fighting. It’s partly playing on German teams (which are as bad in Germany as U.S. teams are in the U.S.), I’m sure.
ETA: @quartas121 - I am slowly getting better aiming the .50 cals… but I am not sure how well that transfers to other guns. The Corsairs are the second clear indicator that I’m not very good - I don’t like flying those either.
I took the F4U-4 out for a couple matches this morning… and maybe it’s a big difference in full real/sim controls versus mouse and key board… but the Corsair just sort of flops around. Aiming the .50s is one thing, but if I cannot get the nose on, it doesn’t matter.
I also did one in the F4U-1A… and I think I’m gonna stick to a higher BR. Less than 5 minutes in, the match was a 1 v 12. I landed and left, and the played the A7M1 for a match to rinse the taste out of my mouth.
It transfers pretty well to 20mm of around the same or a bit lower velocity
If you just don’t play well in the Corsair try finding another plane you enjoy with .50 cals, something to get more used to the faster way US planes fight
