Fighter Combat - Tactics and Maneuvering

ONE-VERSUS-ONE MANEUVERING, SIMILAR AIRCRAFT 135
energy advantage. In general, the angular disparity should be corrected
first, since this is normally the more dangerous of the two. After drawing
neutral on angles it is much easier to redress the energy balance.
Maneuvering with an Energy Disadvantage
At the beginning of an engagement the pilot may suspect that the enemy
has an energy advantage, with or without an angular advantage. Also, if he
has had to regain angular parity, the defender must assume that he is at an
energy disadvantage. After all, energy bleed has probably been necessary to
nullify the attacker's initial angular advantage. With this in mind, the
defender's next goal is either to escape, an option that is often available
from a neutral angular position, or to regain energy parity. Even though the
trend may have been in the defender's favor, he must recognize that he is
still at a disadvantage, so escaping to return another day is certainly an
honorable choice. On the other hand, the opponent has failed to capitalize
on any initial angular advantage, and the only way to win with an energy
advantage alone is to run the opponent into the ground. Therefore, the
defender has reason to be positive about his chances of success at this
point.
Just as recovery from an angles disadvantage requires angles tactics,
correcting an energy deficit calls for energy tactics. The nose-to-nose turn
is the defender's primary tool for bleeding the energy of a faster opponent.
When two fighters meet essentially head-on and perform co-planar noseto-nose
turns, it is the fighter with the smaller turn radius that gains
advantage at the next pass. In order to match turn radius, a faster fighter
must pull substantially more G and bleed energy at a much faster rate than
a slower opponent. Figure 3-13 illustrates an example of this process.
At time " 1" in this example the fighters meet nearly head-on and about
co-altitude, but the bogey is substantially faster. At the pass, assuming the
defender wants to engage, he checks the bogey's direction of turn and
quickly begins a level sustained turn in the nose-to-nose direction. The
bogey's greater airspeed results in its having a larger turn radius than that
DEFENDER 8OGEY
Figure 3-13. Maneuvering with a Speed Deficit