Your first few sorties into Air Warrior, (AW) can be extremely frustrating. At first the learning curve seems steep; in fact there are times when it appears vertical. Without a little help, guidance and encouragement many a "would be Ace" gives up.

Take some time to master the basics offline. Practise circuits round the airfield, taking off, turning and landing. If you have the box version of AW make use of the training missions provided with it. Take your chosen aircraft up to altitude and push it into a spin to practise recovery. Try different types of turn at different altitudes and speeds. Then go into the online arena and see how you fair against the more experienced players in Full Realism, (Note that all these lessons assume you are flying Full Realism, (FR)). When you have gained some experience, had a few kills, but are basically not progressing any further, that is the time to come and read these notes.

"The Vulture's Thoughts" are an attempt to take the masses of highly detailed combat instruction available and condense it into short practical advice in layman's terms. These thoughts are things that work for me, discovered the hard way from thousands of sorties in Air Warrior flown over four or five years.

My combat career in Air Warrior has gone through three distinct stages.

1. Attack everything, regardless of the tactical situation and die just as regularly.
2. Avoid 1v1 engagements like the plague and only attack when in a numerically advantageous situation…effective but boring.
3. Feel confident to make 1v1 or even 2v1 engagements and come out victorious…most of the time!

I got to stage three by learning and putting into practise the elements of air combat. I hope they do the same for you.

Vulture.

I used to play soccer as a goalkeeper. My coach used to tell me that goalkeeping has nothing to do with saving goals. It's all about patience and making decisions. If you play for a good team you will do a lot of waiting around and must learn to be patient without losing patience. Then when the attack comes you need to react fast. Do you run out to meet the attack, or hang back? Do you commit yourself to a dive, or stay on your feet? It's all about making decisions.

Air combat is no different. You need patience. Don't be too eager to rush into an engagement. Sit on the sidelines for a short time and assess the situation. How high are the enemies? What is their energy state? What are they doing? If they are protecting bombers or transports (gooneys) for instance are they tied to those aircraft? Check your radar for other enemy counters in adjacent sectors, these counters could move in fast. You are a hunter and you need to stalk your prey. Impatience is the easiest way to die. If you are too impatient to fly away from the action gaining height, if you are too eager to "get stuck in", if you see enemy counters at one of your fields and you take off from that field instead of an adjacent one, you will end up climbing into the fight. Even the best pilots will be lucky to survive climbing into a fight: it goes against every bit of advice there is.

After patience comes a decision. When to attack, how to attack or even whether to attack. Ignore the taunts about running away or diving into the ack, this is war and "he who fights and runs away, lives to fight another day". Living to fight and not getting killed is part of what Air Warrior is all about. Sure, it's good fun to dive into every fight spraying bullets everywhere, but it's so much more satisfying to kill all the enemy and then land those kills. Nothing looks more stupid than a "kill macro" followed on the next line by the owner's death. When and how to attack will be covered in other chapters, just remember that every decision you make will have an effect on your survival, make them carefully, with a cool head. It may be very chivalrous to help out a mate or countryman who is up to his neck in Ki84s, but if it means being overwhelmed yourself then he will just have to do without you. We don't want to die because someone else made bad decisions and now expects you to bail them out.

Energy management is the most basic element of air combat. With no energy you die, plain and simple. Many new pilots, especially those coming from Relaxed Realism, think air combat is just about angles. Yank the stick right back to get the nose angled towards the enemy and fire. What actually happens is that just as they get the angle, they lose it as they reach stall speed. The enemy with a surplus of energy uses it by climbing above them and with no way of following him they are left wallowing about at stall speed as he comes back down to kill them.

First off, a little bit of very basic physics so you know what we are talking about when we say energy, or 'E'. Energy cannot be created or destroyed; only converted. When we push the throttle forward in our aircraft we convert the stored energy in our fuel into speed, which is kinetic energy. When we climb the aircraft we gain altitude and lose speed, as some of the kinetic energy is converted into potential energy. Potential energy put simply is the potential to dive and regain speed in exchange for height.

Having energy gives us options; we can have lots of kinetic energy (low and fast) or lots of potential energy (high and slow). Obviously if we have both (high and fast) then we have many more options. Energy management is all about building a store of energy and using it wisely. As you perform manoeuvres you will expend some of your energy. If you expend it all you will have no options left and an enemy who still has energy can more or less pick you off at will.

For instance you are flying at 10,000 feet (10k) and a good speed, you have a good store of energy. You pick up a bomber on the deck and dive in on him, converting your potential energy (height) into kinetic energy (speed). You make your first pass and knock a few bits off him, but overshoot due to your excessive speed. You perform a hard break turn to get back onto his tail (remember a break turn bleeds off speed, therefore expending energy) and to avoid another overshoot you chop the throttle. You kill the bomber, well done, but you are now low and slow with no energy reserve whatsoever. Your only option now is to convert some of the energy in your fuel into speed (kinetic) or altitude (potential). Both of these take time. So until you can do that, you are at the mercy of any enemy that comes by with height or speed (energy), which gives them the option to boom and zoom you repeatedly, (See below for a simplistic description of boom and zoom) until you either spin into the ground from constantly trying to meet him head on, or get shot down because you can't turn into him.

So how do you avoid this situation…you learn to manage your energy. In this instance if there are no other enemies within a sector or two then you can afford to squander your energy, once the bomber is dead you can climb the aircraft back up to altitude, slowly rebuilding your energy reserve. If there are enemies about then you have to make a decision. How important is this bomber? If it is not important and there are a lot of enemies about you should consider ignoring him and instead concentrate your attack on the enemy fighters, preferably the highest enemy, as he is the biggest threat (he has the most potential energy). If the bomber is important (he is about to sink your carrier) then you may have no option but to attack him. Then you must attack him in the most economical, energy saving way. Dive in on him in a shallow dive, this avoids a sharp pull up at the end of the dive (which will bleed off energy), take your shot and follow it up with a gentle climb (converting your newly acquired speed back into height), repeat until the bomber is dead. (Very basically this is a boom and zoom attack). This method takes a bit more time (remember patience?) but at the end of the engagement you will still have speed or height left, you will still have some energy and you will still have some options.

Energy management is vital whatever your style of fighting and whatever your type of aircraft. Whether you fly the ragged edge in a stall fight or boom and zoom the vertical, you still need to be aware of your energy reserve and just as importantly you need to be aware of the enemy's energy reserve. As I said at the beginning, it's the most basic element of air combat.

ACM is that phase of warfare in which the fighter operates within visual range of enemy aircraft, employing large scale three dimensional manoeuvres to bring its weapons to bear whilst denying the enemy a weapons firing opportunity.

These manoeuvres are your bread and butter; they are the tools of your trade. You should know how and when to use them. Performing air combat manoeuvres, (ACM) should be like riding a bike, instinctive.

BREAK TURN – Move the joystick left, or right to roll the aircraft and then pull back on the stick to tighten the turn. You are trying to tighten the turn to the point where your attacker cannot turn with you and overshoots, you are also trying to increase the deflection rate, (how far in front a target you have to shoot so that your bullets arrive at a certain place at the same time as the enemy aircraft) and therefore make yourself harder to hit. You should always make a break turn nose level, or nose low. If your break turn is nose high your speed will bleed off even more quickly than normal and you will become a wallowing, big fat target. Generally speaking if the enemy is close a slow break turn will get you killed every time.

CHANDELLE – The chandelle is a climbing turn (whereas the break turn is (usually) a flat turn). Roll to one side about 45 degrees and then pull back gently. When you wish to finish the turn just roll your wings level. The chandelle is a low G manoeuvre (whereas the break turn is a high G manoeuvre) so don't pull on the stick too hard as you are trying not to bleed off too much speed or Energy. At the end of the turn you will be at a higher altitude and therefore will have gained some potential energy, probably at the cost of some kinetic energy, or speed, (in theory). The chandelle is NOT a combat manoeuvre to get you a kill shot with your guns. It allows you to move around the fight while keeping the enemy in sight over or behind the lower wing. You won't be using this if the enemy is close.

IMMELMAN TURN – Pull back on the stick into a half loop, when you are completely inverted, roll upright. The Immelman is a simple yet effective manoeuvre when performed properly; you end up at a higher altitude and facing the opposite way from when you started the move. You will gain energy through altitude, but lose some through speed loss. In fact the Immelman can be performed in two different ways. A hard, half loop with little altitude gain for a quick reversal, or a lazy half loop with maximum altitude gain, but ending up near stall speed at the top. You need good situational awareness of the enemy's energy state to pick the right one. Do the slow Immelman with a high energy enemy behind you and he will pick you off while you are at the top of your manoeuvre, slow and hanging in the air. If you are in a head on pass and the enemy goes for a nose low turn, a well performed Immelman will put you above him with enough energy to keep your speed up; instant merge advantage. It is essential to know the slowest speed at which you can perform an Immelman in various aircraft, both with and without flaps.

SPLIT-S TURN – The split-s is the exact opposite of the Immelman, a 180-degree half roll, followed by a half loop. Roll the aircraft inverted and then pull back on the stick into a half loop towards the ground until you are straight and level. The split-s is primarily a defensive move, if an enemy is diving on your tail with excessive speed he will be unable to follow a hard split-s. If he tries to follow he will either black out or perform a much wider (deeper) half loop, (or both) putting him at a severe altitude disadvantage. As an escape manoeuvre start a split-s, then when your nose is pointing straight down at the ground do another 180 degree half roll and pull out. You will end up on your original course, but a lot lower and faster and if the enemy is not paying full attention he will have turned to where you would have been, had you completed your split-s; your escape is complete. As with the Immelman, you need to know what each aircraft is capable of, this time the crucial thing is the lowest altitude at which you can perform the split-s, with and without flaps. With an enemy aircraft which retains energy well like the Spitfire, get him chasing you down to your lowest altitude, chop throttle and perform your split-s, if he tries to follow you he will end up drilling a neat hole in the ground as you pull out at zero feet and fly off chuckling to yourself.

HIGH YO-YO – When you are chasing an enemy in a turn and you have a speed advantage you can use a high yo-yo to prevent an overshoot. As soon as you realise you cannot get your nose round for a shot, and you are in danger of overshooting (putting the enemy onto 'your' tail) roll slightly away from the turn and pull up. Once you have avoided the overshoot, roll back towards the turn until the enemy is in your lift vector (ie. You only need to pull on the stick to bring your guns to bear) and then pull towards him.

(Note: Lift Vector: If you lift the nose of your aircraft by pulling back on the stick, the line your nose travels up through is your lift vector. If an enemy is along that line, then he is in your lift vector. Obviously if you are inverted your lift vector to an enemy below you is downwards).

You should only use a high yo-yo when you have a high closure rate on the enemy and almost have a gun solution. If you have a high angle on the enemy or are further back you will need to pull up higher and roll back to the turn more, to get your lift vector onto him. This manoeuvre then changes from a high yo-yo to a high barrel roll attack and the chances are that he will have turned towards you by the time you finish the manoeuvre, leaving you back where you started.

LOW YO-YO – The low yo-yo is used when you find yourself in a flat horizontal turn, with the enemy on the other side of a circle and you can't reel him in because you are already close to the stall with the throttle wide open. You are both effectively flying round the 'equator' of a ball. You need to perform the opposite of the high yo-yo. If you drop the nose slightly, so that you are now moving through both the vertical and the horizontal, you will pick up some extra speed, allowing you to pull a bit harder and turn tighter. You will therefore cut inside the circumference of the ball and because this is obviously a shorter route, as you pull back up to the 'equator' where your opponent is, you will have cut the corner and will appear on the enemies low six. Where the high yo-yo is performed fairly close to the target, the low yo-yo wants to be performed a bit further back. Because of the increase in airspeed if you are too close you will have created an overshoot situation necessitating a high yo-yo, so you want to be a bit further back and don't make the low yo-yo too low. If you don't get the shot you can always perform another low yo-yo. The speed you pick up on each yo-yo will allow you to pull harder on the stick to increase your turn without bleeding as much energy as the enemy. Put simply, less airspeed is lost in a low yo-yo than in a flat horizontal turn.

Those are most of the basic air combat manoeuvres. There are others, but they will come up in other chapters more specific to their situation. I have tried to explain them as simply as I can. For a more detailed technical description with diagrams have a look at "Vulture's Fleet Air Arm Air Combat Manoeuvring notes". Try and get the manoeuvres clear in your mind as they will crop up further on in this document, when I try and fit them into actual situations.

Stall fighting in its most basic form is exactly what it says. Fighting on the edge of a stall. You are in a twisting; turning fight, usually at low speed and the one who stalls out first should die. A stall fight can be at any altitude. Usually they start high, but because of the need to turn nose down to avoid the stall, they gradually drop lower and lower until they end up on the deck. When you get down to zero feet you really do need to fly the ragged edge. Escape in stall fighting is not usually an option, you are constantly manoeuvring if you relax the stick, or if you fly straight for a moment or two, you die.

Every plane has a speed at which it performs its best rate of turn; this is called the corner speed and is always faster than the stall speed. Remember that stall speed depends on weight, so if you are in a turn fight pulling three or four 'G', you will stall at a much higher speed than if you were straight and level (1G).

If you want to be a serious stall fighter you need to find your planes corner speed. One of the best turning planes in the arena is the Zero, but if two Zero's are fighting, the one that turns at corner speed will out turn the other, no matter if the other aircraft is faster or slower. So how do you find the corner speed of an aircraft? A basic way is to hold the aircraft in a steady turn at a constant speed and time how long it takes to track through 360 degrees on the compass. You then need to repeat this process at different speeds and with different flap combinations to find the one that takes you from 0 to 360 degrees in the fastest time. Obviously you will have different corner speeds with and without different stages of flaps. You will also have different corner speeds at different altitudes. As you can see, there is a lot of work involved if you want to be an Ace.

Once you have found your corner speed (or speeds) there are lots of other things you can do to increase your turning ability. Remember some of the things we have covered already? Don't just turn flat, use the vertical (up and down) to cut the corners (remember the description of flying round the ball in the low yo-yo) but don't go straight up in the vertical, your speed will bleed off and you will die. Keep rolling in the turns and if you have rudders you can use them to great effect to increase your roll rate. One golden rule is "Never Reverse A Turn", no matter how fast your roll rate. If you try to reverse a turn there will be a moment of time where you pass across the enemy's nose and if he is close to a guns solution, you will complete the solution for him and die.

Flaps in a turn fight can be of great help (depending on the plane). You can use them to pull the nose over a loop or increase your turn rate. The downside to dropping flaps is that they induce drag, so use them wisely and raise them as soon as you no longer need them. The P38 is supposed to turn better with one notch of flaps down all the time, but some planes turn horribly with flaps down, so experiment offline when discovering your corner speed.

Energy management in a stall fight is vital. You are aiming to keep your energy state high while making the enemy blow his. Alternatively, you are looking to equalise any energy disadvantage. If you are in the better turning plane you want to set up a constant turn with the enemy and eat into it until you get the shot on his six. Remember the turn can be in any plane, horizontal, vertical or diagonal. If you don't have the better turning plane then keep your speed and energy high and avoid getting caught in a tail to tail chase, (where you follow each other around and around chasing each others tail). The perfect tactic here would be to use your energy to fight in the vertical and try to get the slower plane to spin out. When he spins you may get a quick snapshot opportunity, then go vertical and get above him, when he stops spinning drop on him and kill him. Don't try to drop on him while he is still spinning, as when he comes out of the spin he will be very slow and he will need to hold his aircraft steady for a second to build up flying speed. If he doesn't he will flip right into another spin. That is the point at which you kill him. You want to be right over the top of him when he comes out of the spin so you can go nose down and just roll onto his new heading without having to turn.

As well as 1v1 stall fights you may find yourself in a huge furball, (the AW term for a dogfight). The trick here is to start with the highest practical target, the highest target has the most potential energy and therefore is the most dangerous, although you should be keeping an eye out for medium height targets with high kinetic energy. When I say highest practical target, you can ignore the FW or P51 10k above you. He is not a practical target, as you have no way of reaching him, so disregard him, but keep an eye on him. In a big furball, once you lock onto a target stay on him, (use F3 to tag your choice of target). What you don't want to do is keep switching targets to every enemy who crosses your nose. If you do I can guarantee that the target you were chasing has now taken the opportunity to turn the tables.

As the title suggests the concept of Boom & Zoom (B&Z) fighting is fairly simple, in practise though the kills will be slow to come and most pilots lose patience and degenerate into a turn fight, which is the kiss of death if you are in a B&Z plane.

B&Z fighting consist of getting into a position above your enemy with a surplus of energy. You merge downwards on your enemy, (the boom) usually with a medium or shallow angle high energy dive and make your shot. If the enemy turns you are permitted to follow him for about a quarter of a turn, if he is still alive you extend outwards and upwards from the fight, (the zoom) maintaining your high energy into a shallow to medium climb. When you have a safe distance and altitude between you and the enemy, you set yourself up for the next pass. What consists of a safe distance is open to debate. Some say it should be just far enough that the enemy can't catch you in the turn setting up for your next pass, others say it should be further to allow you to circle the enemy, keep at a safe distance and choose your next pass carefully.

Patience is the key to B&Z fighting. If the enemy turns as you merge on him and you start to follow him into the turn, you will find many times that your guns so very nearly come to bear, the temptation is huge to just stay in the turn with him, hoping you can just pull that little bit more to get the shot. If you do stay however, with your higher speed, your turn will be wider than the targets, you will bleed of energy at an alarming rate and it is so easy to suddenly find yourself the hunted rather than the hunter, especially if the enemy plane has a better turn capability than you. So the key is patience, if the pass isn't working, extend and set up another one, over and over again until the enemy dies, or loses patience himself and either spins out trying to avoid your pass, or attempts to run away, where you can run him down with ease. Keep your energy high, don't get underneath the enemy, and avoid sustained turns.

Unless you are attacking an inexperienced pilot or one with bad situational awareness, (see chapter on SA) he will see you stalking him and have time to set up his B&Z defence. There are two main B&Z defences. The first is to turn hard just as the B&Z plane gets into guns range. The thought here is that he will be unable to follow your turn, (as described above). However timing is critical, turn too early and he will be able to adjust his run to compensate for the turn, turn too late and… well, your dead before you get the turn going. The second B&Z defence is too maintain a high speed and pull your nose up into the B&Z plane as he dives. Through an arena setting the Air Warrior host normally (in FR) throws out the majority of head on hits, making a head on hit most unlikely, so if you are pointing nose to nose with the B&Z plane he is unable to get a hit on you. If you keep doing this every pass you will gradually erode his energy to a point where your energy states are equal and then you can attack him on an even basis. Again though timing is critical, pull up too early and you will stall out before the B&Z plane gets into guns range, too late and you will present him with an easy shot at the top of your plane. (A canopy shot). The ideal range at which to start your nose up move depends on your speed, but around 2000 yards is a good distance.

If you are the B&Z plane you must learn to recognise these defences and work them to your advantage. If the enemy turns hard, let him start his turn, then extend into your zoom and set up quickly for your next pass. Each hard turn he does will destroy any energy reserve he has, eventually turning hard will either spin him out, or he will be unable to turn hard, whichever it is he is dead meat. If he uses the nose up approach let him get his nose up and then flatten out your dive to pass over harmlessly over the top, maintaining your energy, while forcing him to use up his. It's a battle of wits as to who can destroy the others energy advantage first. Don't forget though, if you are not happy with the situation, or think your energy advantage is being destroyed, extend into the zoom part of your manoeuvre and egress the battle to regain your advantage, your altitude and probably your composure.

The merge and more precisely, the first merge, is undoubtedly the most critical part of any engagement. It would be fair to say that the majority of one-on-one engagements are won and lost within a few seconds of the first merge. You may not shoot the other aircraft down in those few seconds, but one of you will gain an advantage. It may only be a small advantage, but a good pilot will develop that small advantage into a larger, fight winning one.

As you approach the merge you need to assess two things. The energy state and the aircraft capabilities, of the bogey. Working out the energy state of the bogey is always important, regardless of the situation. As discussed under Energy Management, energy equals options. An aircraft with a superior energy state can decide to fight or flee, if he decides to fight he can choose how. An aircraft with an energy disadvantage is almost always put on the defensive; generally speaking you do not want to enter into combat with a significant energy disadvantage, be it in speed or altitude. The enemy aircraft's capabilities, or more precisely the aircraft's capabilities in relation to your own aircraft, will determine what type of fight you enter into. For instance you might take a Spitfire into a turning fight with a P38, but you wouldn't take a P51 into the same turning fight.

Lets assume in the first instance that you are in similar planes with similar energy states. Approaching the merge you are going to want to stay nose to nose with the enemy, (remember how we said in B&Z fighting that Air Warrior is unlikely to reward a head on shot). After the merge you want to get onto the enemies six o'clock position, or if that is not possible you want to look for a deflection or snap shot, (see chapter on How To Shoot for a description). To do this you will want to reverse course as soon as possible to get your nose pointed back at the enemy. The normal type of turn used is the Immelman, or an Off Axis Immelman, (an Immelman not purely in the vertical). The Immelman turn has several advantages over other turns, but the main one is that it gives you an altitude increase in the reverse. The turns I would not recommend are the flat Break Turn, or the Spilt-S, both of which result in an altitude loss, (the break turn to a lesser degree, but if it is a hard break turn you will have to put the nose low to maintain airspeed). Imagine if one pilot does an Immelman and the other a Split-S. The Immelman plane will end up two turn circumferences higher. That is a big advantage!

If you have already decided before the merge that you are going to turn immediately then you can perform what is called a Lead Turn. It stands to reason that if you start your turn before your opponent, then you will complete your 180 degree turn before your opponent and consequently bring your guns to bear before he does, with sufficient lead you may complete your turn to find him half way round his and presenting you with a canopy shot. So in a lead turn you don't wait for the actual merge before you start your turn, you anticipate the merge and start your turn early. Obviously the earlier you start your lead turn, the more advantage you will gain. But, start it too early and your opponent will recognise what you are doing, he will then be able to follow your lead turn and get an easy kill. There is however a way to start your lead turn early without actually turning; you create separation.

You should have noticed that when merging with experienced players, they always seem to try and get underneath you on the merge, they are in fact creating vertical separation, which will increase the effectiveness of their lead turn. Imagine you are looking at a merge from the side on with the two planes coming together at the same altitude, if one plane starts a vertical turn early it happens right in front of the other plane and he can react to it. Now imagine the same merge, but one plane is coming into the merge at a lower altitude, he has vertical separation. He can start his vertical turn early, (his lead turn) below and in front of the other plane. The other plane can do nothing about it, to stay nose to nose he would need to roll inverted and then pull back on the stick, or he would need to push the stick forward into a positive 'G' turn, (a bunt) both manoeuvres would leave him below the lead turn aircraft and at a disadvantage. The only other option open to him is to start his own lead turn, but this would mean him going into the vertical above the (probably) already vertical, lead turn aircraft, giving that aircraft a six shot. Wow, powerful thing this separation isn't it? Don't be fooled though into thinking that only vertical separation will give you an advantage. Horizontal separation can be just as advantageous, this is a three dimensional battle remember. With a roll, or an off angle Immelman a seemingly innocuous horizontal separation can be employed against an enemy who has tried to convert the fight into a standard vertical battle. So with similar aircraft and similar energy states it is your knowledge and instinctive use of air combat manoeuvres that will win the day.

Now lets look at you being in a poor turning aircraft, with a high energy state compared to the bogey. If you convert your surplus energy straight into a lead turn, your turn radius will be much bigger than the lower speed enemy. You could find the enemy aircraft turning inside you due to being a better turning aircraft, or due to its being nearer its corner speed. You could pull harder to increase your turn rate, but with your higher speed you will pull more 'G' and could quite easily black out. In addition a harder turn will bleed off your speed, leaving you in a similar energy state to the enemy, but with no advantage gained. If you have a distinct energy advantage over the enemy then you should shun the lead turn in favour of an energy merge.

In an energy merge you are no longer looking to gain an angle advantage over the enemy, you are looking to gain an ever widening energy advantage over him. Once you have reduced his ability to manoeuvre at will, by destroying his energy, then you can look for the angle advantage. There are several ways of doing this, you could climb over him before the merge, forcing him to match the move or give up an altitude advantage to you. Depending what plane you are flying you could develop this move into a climbing spiral. You could also go into the standard merge and follow it with a very low 'G' and very high Immelman. If the bogey pulls hard to reverse in the minimum of time he will lose energy and altitude to this move. All of these moves are designed to cut the bogeys speed to a point where he can no longer go into a vertical manoeuvre without stalling, you can then merge with impunity from a position of altitude. Beware however of presenting the bogey with a snap shot, or a high angle deflection shot as you start these energy merges. You will need to watch the enemy to see how he reacts. If, for instance you see him start a lead turn you may want to delay your low 'G' Immelman until you have some separation past the point of the merge, and when the enemy has bled away his speed on his own Immelman turn.

Remember in any fight that the plane with an energy advantage always has the option of diving away and escaping if the merge goes all wrong and believe me if the first merge goes for a ball of chalk you will realise very quickly! If the fight is at low altitude the inability to dive away is taken from you and you must rely on your level acceleration if you need to bug out. This is another thing you must consider before entering an engagement.

If you find you are getting shot down repeatedly within the first 20 or 30 seconds of a merge you need to film all your fights and then play them back in slow time. You will probably recognise the same basic error in all of the fights, probably you are being killed by a simple lead turn with separation, which puts you straight onto the defensive. Recognise the error and you can prevent it developing and counteract it with your own manoeuvre.

Situational awareness, (SA) is an important set of skills that will help you survive to fight in the Air Warrior arena.

There are three basic skills involved:

• Look out of the cockpit and see where the enemy is.
• Assimilate input from radio, map and radar.
• The 6^th sense, knowing the tactical situation around you.

Getting a visual on the enemy is vital, if you see him before he sees you then you have surprise on your side. To see the enemy first you need to work hard. You need to check all of your views. There are 26 views in Air Warrior and you need them all. The basic views are, (working clockwise) forward, forward right, right, right back, back, left back, left, forward left. Then combine each of these views with down and up to give you 24 views, finally straight up and down gives you 26. You may think that using the down views is a waste of time since you can't see anything visually (the plane gets in the way) but if the enemy is within icon range, (con) he will show up as an icon on the edge of your screen even though you can't actually see him. When an enemy counter is in your sector you need to check all of your views repeatedly. You must assume that he is not within con range, so to see underneath you requires constant dipping of the wings to check your blind spots.

You can use all of the aids available to you to assist in finding the enemy.

Use the radio to keep in contact with your countrymen. They may be able to see parts of the arena you can't, helping to widen your overall picture, they may also be able to give you information on a bogey's height if you only have him on radar.

Use the map to keep track of counters in each sector, but flick in and out rather than staring at it for minutes at a time. The map can tell you a lot about an enemy counter. For instance, if the counter jumps down a sector and then very shortly after jumps across a sector you know that he is actually just crossing the intersection of all three sectors, so you can pinpoint his position almost exactly.

Finally use the radar. Within radar range of your own base you should see the bogey on radar when he closes within 9,000 yards (9K) if not sooner. However he won't see you on radar until you get within icon range, usually 5K. (Note: these distances assume the arena settings are normal).

(Note: In warnights and scenarios you will most likely find radar and enemy counters turned off. This requires you to be even more diligent in the other SA disciplines).

The third SA skill is almost a kind of 6^th sense. In a dogfight it's knowing where the target is without having to look, it's a kind of spatial awareness. This spatial awareness comes from experience, of knowing what the target is most likely to do in a given situation. It means you can perform your manoeuvre, pull through and just know that the enemy is going to be right there in front of your guns.

Situational Awareness is not just using one of these skills; it's not even using all three of these skills. SA is about combining all of these skills to give you a complete mental picture of what is going on around you, but it doesn't stop there. You need to interpret the information supplied to you. Extract from it the bogey's altitude, his speed and his energy state. Assess the threat situation, nearby and far off and then prioritise those threats.

One of my favourite moves involves exploiting another persons lack of SA. There is a partial blind spot in Air Warrior in the low six o'clock position. If you select the rear view you will see an icon for an aircraft behind you even if it is too low to actually see the plane. However if the plane is low enough even that icon will disappear and you will only see it if you use the back and down view. That is the low six blind spot and very few pilots check it diligently. There is nothing more satisfying than getting into that position and sitting there watching the target dipping his wings as he searches for you, while you close the distance relentlessly until you are within about 300 yards and you can pull the nose up and kill him with one burst. To safeguard myself against getting jumped from the low six, or indeed getting jumped at any time when my SA is not what it should be, I set the 'max audible distance' (sound setup/customise sound effects) of other aircraft to 2.5K. This gives me an audible SA alarm of other aircraft approaching. If I hear it I just have time for a radical break to save my life.

Lets now have a look at some other situations where a pilot's SA can get suppressed. You may recognise yourself in here somewhere, I know I do.

• You get out onto the runway and you start doing your takeoff checks. Starting the engine, getting comfortable in your seat, saying hello on the radio…BOOM, your dead. The first thing you should do when getting out onto the runway is check radar and cycle your views. There may be a Vulture circling ;>)
• RTB, (return to base). The RTB pilot is usually low on fuel or ammo, maybe even flying slow to conserve fuel, he is thinking about landing his kills and because he is on his way home, away from the combat area his SA is not what it should be.
• Kill macro, a kill has been recorded! Have you ever noticed when trying to save your wingman that you kill the bogey right after he kills your buddy? That is because he is on a predictable flight path, he is following your buddy and after he gets his kill he relaxes on the stick momentarily while he reassesses the situation. His SA was neglected while he concentrated on the kill and you kill him while he is reacquiring it.
• There is a Squadron mission and they are taking off in force. While it may seem madness to dive into a large group if you have the speed and energy to get back out again there is always going to be someone in the group not bothering with SA. They feel safe in a group, they are relying on each other to look out for danger, if you have the bottle you can exploit that group-hug feeling.
• Big furball, target rich environment, you need to have eyes in the back of your head. You are in a sensory overload situation and your SA is going to suffer. The only consolation is that everyone else in the furball is in the same boat.
• Big furball again but this time you are sitting over it. You watch for a bogey to come out of the fight. He is leaving for a reason, he may be smoking, he may be running, or climbing out for another pass. Either way he is looking back at the furball checking for a tail, his SA in your direction is minimal to non-existent. This is a typical Vulture situation. Circle looking for the weak and helpless, swoop down when they are wounded or unprotected and finish them off.
• Target fixation is probably the biggest suppresser of SA. He has that big fat buff (bomber) in his sights, he is reeling it in, even if he sees you on his tail (he wont if you are in the low six blind spot) chances are he is going to press on with tunnel vision for the buff kill. This works especially well if the buff you are covering is high and the enemy is climbing up to it. They are grabbing every bit of altitude they can, which means they are slow and near stall, so even if they try to evade you it is going to take them time to get the nose down, to roll out or perform any other standard evasive. I have a film of a situation like this where I kill four enemy fighters one after the other as they climb after a buff I am escorting. Not one of them evades or wavers from their single minded pursuit of the bomber.
• Typing death, need I say more?

The first thing you need to be aware of is the armament of the aircraft you are flying. The FW-190A8 has the hardest hitting guns in AW; a quick burst from its guns can kill an enemy in one go. The Spitfire MK1 or the Hurricane 1a on the other hand have some of the lowest ammo loads in AW, so you need to make every shot count or you will find that one kill empties your magazine.

Having ascertained the weight and duration of your ammo load, (see Armament and Ammo Duration Page) the next thing to make sure of is your range. The biggest mistake made by beginners is firing too early, sometimes at ranges of 1,000 yards or more. Not only does this waste ammunition, but it marks them out as a Dweeb, (inexperienced pilot) which means veteran pilots will pounce on them as an easy target. The absolute maximum range of a fighters guns in AW is 650 yards, but their lethality at that range is very low. Recommended firing range is 300 yards or less. The closer you are, the bigger punch your guns deliver. People who complain of no ping kills, (they died without even hearing the hits coming) are quite often killed instantly by a close range burst.

There is very occasionally a reason to fire outside guns range. If you are chasing another plane and not catching him, a burst from your guns at 700 yards or so may just unnerve him enough to make him break, setting up an easy kill for you.

Speed is also important in an attack. If you are closing on a slow moving target at 400 knots the time from getting into guns range, to overshooting the target could be less than a couple of seconds, not much time to get your shot in, so be aware of this.

Having got in range fire short bursts, especially if you are in a low ammo load plane like the Hurricane or Spitfire because you can't afford to waste any ammo. For the same reason make sure you are on target before firing, don't spray and pray and don't walk the bullets onto the target.

Lastly there is the matter of what type of shot. The easiest is obviously to sit right behind the enemy, saddled up on his six while he flies straight and level. Get him in the centre of the gun sight, get nice and close and let him have it.

If he is moving across your line of sight then you will need to lead the target. If you fire straight at a target moving across your path, by the time the bullets reach where the target was, he has moved on, so you need to fire in front of the target so that he and the bullets arrive at the same place at the same time. This is called pulling lead or deflection shooting. The higher the angle between your flight path and the targets, the more lead you need to pull. The floating gunsight will try and calculate this for you, but you shouldn't rely on it. High 'G' manoeuvres especially can throw it off. Exactly how much lead to give is unfortunately a matter of experience, but it won't take you long to gauge it correctly. It gets harder though in high 'G' turning fights where to pull enough lead the enemy actually disappears from view underneath your nose.

The other type of shot normally used is the snap shot. This is where you have the briefest glimpse of the enemy as he flashes across you sights and you snap off a shot to catch him as he crosses. In a plane with a weak ammo load you will not kill with one snap shot, but they may be all you can get against a good opponent and several snap shots will still kill him eventually. In the FW-190A8 the briefest of snapshots is usually all that is needed to bring an enemy down.

Rudders can be used to great effect to fine tune you aiming left or right without moving the whole aircraft out of alignment.

Lastly when you are chasing a fast running target in a tail chase and he starts to jinx, (small radical movement to throw off your aim) you can quite often shoot him down by flying straight and waiting for him to cross and re-cross your gunsight. This can be far more effective than trying to follow his jinxing moves. Beware though that flying straight will not bleed off speed like his jinxing will, so don't overshoot.

G forces represent Earth's gravity on the human body. We normally feel a force of 1G on our bodies. In a fighter plane dramatic manoeuvres and flight inertia create G forces many times above that. At 5G blood is drained away from the brain to the lower part of the body and at 6G (approx.) you will blackout. In AW the effects of a blackout are accumulative. The first time you blackout it should be at around 6G and last a short period of time. Following a blackout there is a recovery period, if you pull excessive G again within that recovery period you will blackout at a lower G and the effect will last longer. Blackout within this next recovery period and it lasts longer still. The other thing to note is that your controls freeze during a blackout. If you are in a roll when you blackout, no amount of waggling the stick will stop that roll and you will still be rolling when you recover from the blackout. This of course can have disastrous consequences if you are pointing at the ground when you black.

So how do you avoid blackouts? Obviously the easiest way to avoid them is not to pull more than 5 or 6 G; this is easier said than done though. Blackouts tend to happen very quickly and you get very little warning. If you are pulling a steady G load there is a greying out of the screen before the blackout takes effect. If you spot this greying out in time you can just maintain the back stick pressure, rather than increasing it and thus stay right on the edge of the blackout. I have a CH Products Force Feedback stick that helps a bit, because as you pull more G, the stick pressure you are pulling against becomes harder. The other answer is to keep one eye on the G meter, but this is not easy in the heat of battle.

If you fly your air combat manoeuvre correctly and smoothly there should be no need to yank the stick back into the pit of your stomach. A smooth and even back pressure will enable you to control the G loading much more.

Negative G works opposite to a blackout, push the stick forward, into a bunt and blood is forced upwards into your head. This can cause a red-out if the negative G-force is severe. The onset of a redout is usually lots quicker than a blackout but the effects are similar.

One of the things players new to Full Realism, (FR) find the hardest is spin recovery. While it is perfectly possible to recover the aircraft from a spin at only a few hundred feet, I have seen new players spinning down from 20,000 feet into the ground. This can easily be avoided with some off line spin recovery practise.

When the angle of attack of your wings exceeds the critical angle for flight, your wings cease to generate lift and the aircraft stalls.

The fairly simple remedy to a stall is to push the nose down to decrease the angle of attack and then wait for the airflow over the wings to increase until lift is re-established.

When you enter a stall if you are manoeuvring, or in a bank, then one wing may stall before the other. The wing that has lost lift drops and the aircraft enters a spin.

To recover from a spin you need to react quickly. Immediately raise any flaps and chop the throttle. Push the stick forward to get the nose down so that you regain airspeed and airflow over the wings, which will help to regain lift. At the same time apply opposite rudder to stop the spin. When the spin stops centralise the rudders and on confirmation of airspeed, (from looking at the airspeed dial) increase the throttle and pull gently back on the stick to fly the aircraft out of the spin.

If you can't see the direction of the spin from looking out of the cockpit, look at the compass and move the rudders in the direction the compass is spinning.

Be aware that if you don't centralise the rudders as soon as the rotation stops you could end up spinning again, the opposite way.

Because of the way Air Warrior models spins and because the rudders and ailerons are co-ordinated, you can also stop the rotation of the spin by using opposite aileron, (move the stick in the opposite direction to the spin) if you don't have rudder pedals.

To practise off line spin recovery take your aircraft up to about 20,000 feet, pull the nose up until the aircraft stalls and try to turn hard. This will produce a spin of varying proportions, depending on how hard you turn and how far below stall speed you are when you enter the spin.

First find a wingman. Ideally someone you know and fly with regularly, though often it is someone you just team up with in flight. Whoever it is you must establish communications, ideally vox, (voice comms') and tuned to a separate channel away from the general chatter.

Keep your radio messages short and to the point in combat. Use the radio to keep each other informed of what you can see and what your intentions are. Initially this will be targeting information; 'F6, P51 North', '2 dots 2 clock high'. When you engage it will be; 'in on F6', 'F6 breaking left', '51 coming in', 'out', (disengaging), 'bingo', (low on fuel or ammo).

If you get a chance, choose planes beforehand rather than teaming up in the air. The best combination is planes of different combat characteristics, like a turn fighter and a B&Z fighter. As discussed later the type of planes will affect your tactics.

The next thing to decide is who leads and who is wingman, although these positions should be fluid and can change mid sortie depending on the situation. The leader decides where you go, what you engage, your rate of climb, (ROC) and your operating altitude. He should communicate all of this information over the radio to keep his wingman informed of what he is thinking. It is important that the wingman acknowledges these messages so that the leader knows he has been heard. The acknowledgement can, by mutual agreement, be two blank radio transmissions, or a double click on the mic' button. (A single mic' click could be construed as a failed transmission and three blank radio transmissions is the AW code for 'Help'.

When you engage the enemy your tactics will be decided by the situation. Make sure you keep each other informed of any decisions. If the enemy is below you and you are in contrasting fighters the turn fighter will engage the bogey, while the B&Z fighter harasses him from above. Eventually the bogey will leave himself exposed to one or the other of you.

If you are both in B&Z fighters then one of you booms, while the other zooms. The target trying to go nose on to the threat will not have time to regain enough speed to do this in between attacks. He will be constantly on the defensive and again he will eventually leave himself exposed to one of his attackers.

I would not recommend two turn fighters, both going down to turn fight the enemy together. You will put the enemy on an even footing and he who rides the edge the best will win the fight, you will have lost your advantage. One of you should use the vertical to keep the attacks coming from different directions. There is of course no reason why a turn fighter shouldn't B&Z.

When engaging co-alt enemies the basic concept is the same, split your attack and split the enemy's defences. As you approach the target separate by 1,000 to 2,000 yards, running in parallel and then both breaking in towards the enemy from opposite sides. Whichever one of you he goes head on to in the break, he exposes his six to the other. If he turns early to try and engage one of you at a time, the other turns immediately in at 90 degrees to his flight path and you achieve attacks from different directions. If one of you makes a lead turn, communicate it, so your wingman can make a contrasting type of reversal.

Should you be engaging more than one enemy try and split them up so that you can destroy them individually. If they split you into separate fights one of you needs a quick kill so that he can then help his wingman. Once one of you has the kill, call on the radio that you are coming in, or if you are lower get your wingman to drag the remaining enemy down to where you can both engage him. Never drag an enemy straight towards your wingman, all you will do is present him with a head on shot at the enemy, which is no help whatsoever. Try and drag the enemy across your wingman's flight path so he can turn onto the bogeys six.

In a furball situation the roles change slightly. Then it is the leaders job to get the kills and the wingman's job to protect him. The wingman must stay loosely on the leaders tail and keep it clear of enemies so that the leader can concentrate on his target. As you can see the wingman has the far harder job, as there is no one to watch his six.

Remember the only rule is to protect each other and never leave your winger in the lurch. It doesn't matter who gets the kill, only that the team gets the kill.

First off, Discretion is the Better part of Valour. As we said in the first chapter, you need to know when to fight, but just as importantly you need to know when not to fight.

Always leave yourself an escape route and constantly re-evaluate your SA. If your countrymen are dropping like flies in the furball it's time to think egress. If your one on one and you see a swarm of enemy coming to help your opponent, disengage and 'Get out of Dodge'. If you blow the merge, look at your enemy's energy level and decide whether you can get the advantage back, if you can't then go defensive.

If the situation starts to look bad, you have excess energy to the other guy and are in the right plane, stick the nose down and run for it, but do it after a merge so you are travelling away from each other and preferably towards friendly territory. Your plane type is important, the P51 is the fastest plane in the arena, but it takes a long time to build up to its maximum speed. In initial acceleration the P51 stinks, while the Spitfire Mk IX accelerates really well. In contrast the 109 and the F4U can climb away from danger, so make sure you have the plane and the energy level to make good your escape.

Assuming you can't run away, then it's time to start thinking escape manoeuvres. Escape manoeuvres always assume your opponent has an energy advantage over you, if he hasn't then why are you going defensive? This is entirely different from the disengage and egress due to the tactical situation.

The standard escape move is the spilt-s and it is covered comprehensively in the chapter on ACM. It never ceases to amaze me when I drop down on an enemy and he tries to go up into an Immelman. He sits there presenting a nice big plan view of his plane right in front of me, and I mumble to myself, 'wrong move sucker'. What he should do is a split-s. I couldn't possibly follow him, as my superior energy state would prevent me from matching his turn rate, so I would have to zoom climb to set up for my next pass, giving him some time to reset his defence or start to create separation.

The defensive spiral works well if you have some altitude to spare, but not enough energy to dive away. Go into a nose low turn with some rudder to help steepen the turn. What you are trying to do is get the enemy to follow you round and down, and overshoot below you due to his faster and therefore wider turning circle. You want to cut the throttle and tighten the turn to the edge of blacking out. If he follows you, with his higher energy state he will definitely black out and while he is unconscious he will drop below you, giving you a snap shot. Keep one eye on the altimeter and the other on the bad guy. A good opponent will pull up and wait for you to finish your spiral.

The scissors is a classic defensive manoeuvre to get the enemy on your tail with a higher energy state to overshoot and put you into the attacking position. It takes a lot of practise to get it right, but when you pull it off the satisfaction is immense.

The scissors is fought almost entirely using the rear view mirror, so it is important that you realise one of Air Warriors anomalies. Objects showing in your rear view as being 1,200 yards away are actually at about 650 yards and therefore you are inside their guns range. Whether this is due to the software, or net delay I am unsure, just remember, 1,200 yards in rear view means they can shoot you.

To start the scissors let the bogey get to just outside guns range on your six and execute a fairly hard break turn. Once you see the bogey in your mirror start to follow your turn, roll your aircraft in the opposite direction and start a break turn the other way. Use rudders to increase the roll rate and go slightly nose low to conserve E. When you see his wings start to roll to follow you, again roll and turn back to the other way. After two or three turns he is going to lose any angle he had on you due to his slower roll and increased turn rate. When he is turning alongside you, instead of behind you, (he will now be in the up or back and up view) the trap is almost complete. One or two more turns and you are behind him out turning him for a shot on his six. His E advantage is gone and he is wondering what the hell happened.

Keep your turns level or nose low so you don't lose too much E, but beware of crossing and re-crossing his gunsight or he will fly level and watch you fly into his tracer. The way to avoid this is watch the rear view and make sure he commits to each turn before you reverse.

An experienced pilot will see that he is in danger of overshooting and go vertical in a variation of a high yo-yo. Continue turning and watching him in the rear up view, as he comes back down you go up, (still turning) and the scissors changes into a rolling scissors, with each of you performing a series of barrel rolls around each other. Once again the higher energy plane is in danger of overshooting. If the scissors flattens out resume your scissor turns.

Beware of compression. In a sustained steep dive when your airspeed goes into the red on the airspeed dial there is a risk of compression. When you hit compression your control surfaces, (ailerons) will cease to work effectively and in extreme cases will actually start to work in reverse. This means the harder you try to pull out of the dive, the steeper your dive goes. The only way to combat compression is to cut your throttle, deploy airbrakes if you have them and wait for your airspeed to drop out of the red area on your airspeed dial, at which point your control surfaces should respond again. As a safeguard no plane will enter compression with a 50% throttle setting or less.

Wing rip is another thing to be aware of. Certain Bombers and Japanese planes especially are prone to structural wing failure when pulling high G manoeuvres. When flying these planes do not pull high G at speed or your wings will fall off. The Spitfire too can suffer wing rip, but the parameters are extreme for it to happen. We are talking about a max G pull out from a 500 knot dive.

A manoeuvre that comes in very handy if you have rudder pedals is the forward slip.

In order to check out the blind spot under your wings you need to bank right over to look straight down, this causes the nose to drop and loses altitude. To counteract the loss of altitude you need to pull back on the stick, which produces a turn. So looking under your wings results in a loss of altitude and/or a change of course.

To prevent this, when pushing the stick over put on some opposite rudder to hold the nose up and you can check out your blind spot without any appreciable loss of altitude or course change.

In addition a more aggressive forward slip can be used to lose altitude without any appreciable increase in airspeed. Ideal for those quick landings with an enemy in the circuit.

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