Hey !
I finished a web app that lets you pick the best altitudes to fight, run from or energy trap the enemy.
I heavily recommend reading the guide on the home page before interpreting the graphs.
The link:
Why use it:
You have the best chance at winning a dogfight at the altitude where your plane has the biggest power/weight advantage than the enemy aircraft (or smallest disadvantage).
Therefore this web app gives you knowledge that helps win fights.
Even for bombers because you learn at what altitude you can fly the fastest relative to the enemy and so shoot for longest.
It’s not manually collected data. Instead it’s calculated based on flight model files. Therefore it’s always up to date. It was carefully validated with ingame tests of ~40 planes using WTRTI (amazing tool btw.), so for most aircraft it’s within 99-101% accurate and 95-105% for the rest.
Example from the guide:
You’re in Bf 109 G-2 and you’re chased by Spitfire F Mk IX at 4.5km altitude. You’re always faster but your team is losing and you can’t run forever. So you need to start energy trapping and fighting the Spitfire. You need a serious energy advantage, because G-2 is much less maneuverable.
Question:
Is 4500m a good altitude to start doing this?
Checking:
Enter the Calculator in another tab. Click on ‘Click and type’ search bar. Select Bf 109 G-2 and Spitfire F Mk IX. Give G-2 25% and Spitfire 40% fuel as that’s their typical fuel 5-10min into the game. Choose a speed of 550kph TAS. Then click on ‘Make a Graph’ button and you will see this:
G-2 has higher power/weight than the Spitfire up to 8000m. However, they’re actually close at 4500m. That’s where the Spitfire reached the critical altitude of its 1st supercharger stage and only started to lose power. The situation looks much better at around 6km and also 3km. But the actual fight will not happen at 600kph TAS band likely around in 150-400kph IAS. So, on a graph with 300kph IAS you’ll notice everything moved down by ~500m at high altitude and by ~1000m at low altitude. It’s because previously high speed increased critical altitudes via air ram effect, so always keep that in mind.
Conclusion:
4.5km is clearly a bad altitude to energy fight the Spitfire at high speed. 5500 - 6400m is much better. At low speed 5000 - 5900m is optimal, not higher. Alternatively you can dive and try to engage at 2000-3000m
I hope this resouce will be useful and will actually help you win games.
Have fun!