DCS F/A-18C Hornet | Training a Beginner How To Dogfight! 

Hey guys! These BFM/ACM Dogfighting training sessions are always a ton of fun and I always end up learning something from my students as well! Please keep in mind that if you need some help with your dogfighting skills, I do One on One training sessions with anyone who supports the channel with $15 or more on Patreon! www.patreon.com/Spudknocker

Great video. I love training sessions like these and you‘re really good at making this easy to understand!

Top rate explanation of basic theory plus what it looks like in practice plus hands-on cockpit skills. Many thanks to both pilots.

Thank you for what you are doing for us Spud.

Many thanks SPUD an excellent lesson. Learnt a lot. Happy New Year.

Great stuff Spudknocker, keep em coming.

Great video Spud! Super helpful content look forward to more! I definitely need help when it comes to air to air!

Really usefull content, but in my opinion first basic concepts to learn before a BFM are: positional energy, turn radius, turn rate, corner velocity and vertical turn in order to be successful at BFM. I I learn a lot through these concepts

Great video. Very nice explanations

Youre awesome. I'll take a lesson when you have time in the Hornet

Thank you Spud!

Great video, hope this turns into a series with BVR as well!

great video, very helpful

Very useful video, thank you! It's in my archives now for refresher use. I pull out DCS every year to play with from time to time. Biggest problem is i'm old and can never keep eyes on the enemy, so fail miserably in dogfights! I only wish we had this kind of sim fidelity 30 years ago when I was in my prime:( The Janes set of sims was what I cut my teeth on so long ago! Still have the old metal ring bound manuals for posterity! (Even more basic other sims dating back to the 80's for me!) (All those head-on shot attempts reminds me of the crazy War Thunder game-play, LOL!) The only thing missing was some in-game 3-D tactical replays to show in more detail the maneuvers vs the 2-D white-board discussion that is not very intuitive to beginners. Also since this guy was a beginner in planes; explaining in more detail "the stick and rudder commands" to pull-off the basic maneuvers you did in view of your student would of been very helpful because even at the end, he still was mostly clueless ("How") you performed some of the great maneuvers you pulled off there. He will still struggle shaking an enemy off his six without those important maneuvers under his belt, and most don't figure it out on their own unless they actually have flown real aircraft like many of us that enjoy simming.

Hey Spud! I got a nice cockpit livery for that Hornet ! 😉😁

In the merge who turn last decide what type of fight it will be one or two. I real life scenario you would avoid that kind of fair merge because to win you should secure turning room or choose lead turn.

Im late to this. Im seeing contradictory information on corner speed. A lot of times, it is like it is an insider secret. What numbers i hear is usually 340-360. You said 300.

Do you guys do group training for the F/A-18C? Some of the trainjng missions are good and some go out of sync and kinda need more explaining at times. Got my gaming pc, quest 3 and x56. Been flying on the sims since i was 3 but wanting to get back into it

this video might just help me, tho to be honest I just need to learn to get that shot lined up properly, so far every dogfight I've been in ended in one side running out of fuel XD

I definitely have to get my hands on this. What's the best affordable pc to run dcs on?

Hello spud, I respectfully request a list of what to setup on hosta . There are so many things. I really need a list for the f18 or falcons. I am a beginner at DCS. MY HOSTA are virpil throttle and joystick. Plenty of buttons , but doesn’t know what too add besides pitch , rudder, roll, land gear, flaps.

What VR are you using?

Actually first :)

Hornet won't win a rolling (or flat) scissors against any other aircraft in DCS, every time, hands down. It's very good - but probably only 4rd best (and that's excluding warbirds). The Mirage 2000 is better, the A-10 is probably better and nothing stands much chance against a Harrier in a horizontal rolling scissors.....but a Harrier isn't necessarily guaranteed to win in a steeply descending rolling scissors

As @walrus2847 said. Pretty much between blindingly obvious and wholly incorrect. But I think we need to clarify that somewhat, so lets go................. 3min 48. "The Hornet pilot wants to force a 1 circle fight". That's a nonsense statement. The Hornet is extremely good at 1 circle, but first of all there are better one circle fighters in DCS so why pre-select a 1 circle fight against another aircraft which is better at that......but even if you were facing a rate fighter like an F-16 if you choose to force a 1 circle fight you need to enter the engagement slow. A Viper pilot could enter the fight very fast and climb to high altitude where you cannot follow and dive down as you wallow aimlessly below. As it happens the Hornet is also one of the best rate fighters in DCS as well - easily outrating a Viper (indeed the Hornet is higher up the rate fight league table than it is up the radius league table)...so why make yourself a one dimensional opponent? .................... 4min 57. In your diagram, your aircraft manages to do a 180 turn and 180 roll and another 180 turn to get on the tail of his helpless opponent who did 180 degrees then seemingly stopped in mid air so the opponent could catch up.....but I will give you a break and assume that it's just a drawing error and the reverse happens at 90 degrees...which can indeed work, however you will get a snapshot which if the opponent evades and you miss, you now find yourself in a 2C rate fight with an opponent doing his perfect speed for rate fighting and you are wallowing well under speed and just waiting to die....you can still make this work; but not for the somewhat magical reason you suggest............................6min. At 300kts the radius of a clean fully fuelled Hornet is about 0.4nm....but that's about DOUBLE the Hornets minimum radius of about 0.2nm (fully fuelled). Now I am not suggesting merging at 120kts but if you find yourself in a 1C fight and stick to 300kts against another hornet - you will lose.................... 7min30 you don't want to merge too fast, well that's a blindingly obvious statement, however mach 1.2 might not be too fast whilst 300kts might be too fast. When you merge you need to have a plan and also see what your opponent is doing and if that plan is to out climb your opponent as I said before then 500kts is unlikely to be fast enough. If you want to do a 1c fight and your opponent does the same and he's doing 250kts then 300kts is too fast.............8min 40. Hornet vs Hornet, why on EARTH would you try and force a one circle fight against an identical aircraft? You have instantly limited yourself giving you little in the way of options as presumably your opponent will do the same with you both wallowing around taking pot shots at each other as you cross, the winner being the one with the better control and not the better brain/tactics............... 16 mins. Jinking around is simply going to delay the inevitable unless your opponent runs out of ammunition. Yes you want to throw off his aim, but you need a plan and that plan should involve creating angles which are hard and ultimately impossible to follow, so for example if a defender breaks left and the attacker leads for a shot, then a gentle roll out of harms way might work and as he's leading he will bleed energy and might be unable to maintain a rate fight. Conversely if he does a lag pursuit the defender can reverse (taking care to have a small jink when the inevitable snap shot presents itself to the attacker) which the attacker might struggle to follow and the defender can maybe then climb hard and instigate a scissors, just jinking simply wastes energy. The MOST important thing though it to keep eyes on your opponent and watch for the shot... A gave up after this point in the video this I'm afraid.

Poor bloke has paid for this charlatan to tell him to get on speed in a one circle