I’ve watched many different videos explaining this and read through the theory until I understood it. But this just takes it to a whole new level, thank you sir for making this!
dude ...you have it. Teaching to others is a skill which you have. Also, "learn how to learn" is an attribute which you also have, thanks for the excellent video. By far one of the best (if not the best) videos on the topic.
Those words are humbling and encouraging to me, so you have my thanks. I strive to find ways to teach that are meaningful. I fail a lot, but I'm thankful that from time to time I can find a way to make a difference. Thanks again.
@@rivian4139 I'm honestly not sure I'd do very well at one on one training. I'd like to find ways I can help but I'm just not ever sure I have the right way figured out. And I rarely play online just because my schedule is kind of busy. If you have any specific things you want to know let me know and if I feel like I have something useful I'll find a way to get you the information.
It's very refreshing to see this. Even since the beginning of RU-vid I see people timing how long a turn takes and using that to flame whatever plane isn't their favorite. I've often said, maneuverability is two things, rate and radius, and this helps to illustrate why. The MiG-15 can out rate the A-1 in all flight regimes but the radius of the A-1 is far smaller. By the logic of the keyboard scientist the MiG should win, but that lead to the first American aerial victory of the Vietnam war. At 5:38 the rate fighter is going to have a lot of excess energy to play with. The Tomcat would have a similar turn rate as the Viper as long as the Tomcat was at about 300kts. But when the F-16 is rating at 450kts, it can go into the vertical, and fundamentally change the dynamic of the fight. So in this case, our rate fighter could go for a high aspect gun shot, or do a high yoyo, and abuse God's G on the way down, turning it into a two circle.
Thank you and I agree on what you've said here. I do tire of people picking their favorite spec or attribute and using it as a cudgel to suggest their favorite [insert item here] is the best. It happens in every online community I'm a part of: tools, guns, cars, virtual airplanes, etc. There are trade offs and the slightest scrutiny of military history shows that the superior nature of the tool matters far less than the way the tool is used. Obviously in dogfighting, the pilot that better understands the trade offs and can evolve the fight to suit his or her tool is going to win. Which is why I almost always lose. I'm still a noob. LOL.
Thank you, including the 'per second' spacing was helpful. As an illustrative-suggestion (if not for you, for others): If you pause @5:02 ... irrespective who turns "faster," the fighter on the inside (smaller radius) gets a firing solution bc they'll be in lead while the blue fighter is still (at best) in lag. @5:33 Perhaps drawing the 'cone' (arc someone can target an IR with) 'rotating' out the front to show when each fighter enters the lethal zone of their opponent; perhaps to show why "rate" matters most for all-aspect IR. (which you taught me) @5:33, the blue aircraft (assuming up to 45° L + R or 90° range) already would be in it's lethal zone. In contrast, the red fighter is still 45° from having that same firing solution. That all of course is predicated off my general ignorance as I neither play video games nor (obviously) have actual experience as anything more than private pilot lessons...and in which I would assume I'm still wrong in some ways, etc. But as merely potential suggestions of what I think I learned from you. Again, thanks.
Those are great tips/ideas. My "animations" are pretty crude because I don't know how to animate and don't have any decent software to do it, so sometimes I'm limited on that but those are great tips and I appreciate the feedback. Thanks!
Fantastic - finally, after three or so years of ‘knowing’ what rate-radius meant, I actually understand it. As said, it’s the representation of time that made it just click into place.
That's what it took for me. I was drawing it out on paper and still couldn't make sense of it, then it dawned on me that I needed to see positions related to time. Thanks!
@@Jedigreeny My problem is it takes me forever to understand something well enough to try to talk about it. LOL. But I would like to make more videos like this. Thanks again!
Thanks and I'm happy I could help. A lot of videos out there will mention rate or radius, or one circle or two circle, but they don't ever explain why it matters. It got kind of frustrating for me. I hope at some point to understand things better so I can do some deeper dives in videos.
could you maybe do a video on explaining how to turn (haha yes irony) the fight around? like transitioning to your advantageous circle fight when you are at a disadvantage, or how to shake someone who’s tailing you for example
I can try but it might be a bit. For one I don't consider myself to be an expert on dogfighting and I hesitate to get too deep into the technical concepts if I don't fully understand them. But I may be able to throw something together at some point.
@@marianandnorbert This is a really old comment thread so you may have already found your answer, but the reality is that tuning a fight around depends a lot on the conditions. For example, if you have an energy advantage and you have gotten stuck into a two circle fight you don't want to be, you could go vertical. The chasing aircraft will lose it's energy before you do (hopefully) and be forced to nose down to regain speed and lift earlier. The result is basically as if you both slow down to a stop and then start going the other direction, and suddenly it's now you who are chasing them! But that assumes an energy advantage, and also that the chasing aircraft isn't that much more powerful that they can overcome the discrepancy - such as say an F-15K chasing an F-18C, where the Eagle's thrust-to-weight might be that much more than the Hornet's that it can overcome the difference in energy. There's a lot of ways to potentially turn a fight around and it all depends on what you're flying, what's chasing you, and what the conditions are. Are you laden with ordnance? Do you have any significant altitude to manoeuvre and/or trade for energy? Are there nearby terrain features that can be used to force a certain manoeuvre? Hell, even just is your opponent paying attention? - As alluded to here, knowing the sort of circle fight your opponent wants, you might fake left but go right in order to trick them into turning the wrong way and accidentally engaging you in your preferred circle fight. Likewise you could use a sudden change of direction and/or feint at one to encourage a better fight - for example in the above 1 circle fight, the F-16 could jink to dodge the F-14's shots, and then fake a continued left turn only to turn back right when the F-14 commits to going all the way around it's circle. It may not solve the issue right away but it will disrupt the fight and give the F-16 breathing room to try and re-engage in a more preferential way.
Nice job with this. The illustration of distance traveled with respect to time slices (the difference in length of red vs blue line segments) illustrates the point well of rate vs radius. You are also correct that, upon bringing your nose to bear, you would drive to the approximate ‘elbow’ by holding the adversary at the ‘assessment window’ in what’s known as a high-aspect lead turn designed to keep you pointed near the front of their control zone. The decision to execute that lead turn also depends on the relative aspect of the adversary. If it becomes apparent that I could remain behind his 3-9 line on the way to the merge, I would instead drive/extend for a turn circle entry. If it is instead apparent that I could not remain behind the 3-9 on the way to the merge, I would execute a lead turn (drive to the elbow).
I kind of understood the basics, but to see the red and blue in 1 second increments visually was very very good. I could "kind of" draw it in my head, but to see it animated on a screen was very good. Thumbs up!
In a two circle gun fight, the goal of the plane with a larger radius and higher turn rate appears to be to take the excess energy from turning fast to gain a position advantage behind the slower fighter. The rate fighter can choose to lessen the turn and align the circles better, or choose to use the vertical component to do a high yo-yo style maneuver. At least, that is what my immediate thoughts are
That seems right the more I study this and the more I play DCS. If I can rate in 2 circle it seems like I can offset vertically and if I position and time things correctly I can do an excursion and trade excess energy for position. I'm not good enough yet to get that right every time, but the option seems to be there.
Thanks, I was hoping this would help explain things. Now if I could just get to the point where I understood more concepts I'd try to help with those as well!
@@311Gryphon cool, thanks :) I’m trying to learn this stuff because I’d like to build a monster PC in a year or two with VR, so I can get really good at DCS.
@@311Gryphon Looks like we're approaching DCS from a similar vector point...although our group focuses on replicating what we can from real-world open source documents and drawing from related military experience to provide quality DCS content...perhaps we will meet up and fly together sometime. JUICE
When I say "best circle" I mean that the plane is using the appropriate speed and G to get their best sustained turn rate or best sustained turn radius, whichever they need. Thanks for the tip...I'll try to think of a better way to say that.
@@Hypafrag That's another point where I think I can cause confusion if I'm not careful. Technically I think that is true. In a given configuration a plane would have a best rate and a best radius (and then there is sustained and instantaneous turns as well). In any given conflict the pilot will either need to make the best rate or the best radius depending on the situation, and in those cases the "best circle" that I'm referring to would be whichever one gives the best advantage compared to the opponent. I hope that makes sense. There are a lot of variables and I'm not necessarily the person with the best grasp on them for sure!
Yeah, I understand there’s no perfect way to explain it, you either making good explanation for those who want it as simple as possible or for those who want as many details as possible.
the best video explaining the difference !! excelent. As in for the rate advantage in guns only, the fact that the blue can fly strait towards the elbow for 2-4 sec before the second merge, gives him a big energy advantage for the rest of the fight: for example he can climb a little before the second merge so on the second turn around can pull more than sustained T/R cause of the gravity assist... etc
@@311Gryphon :)))) be carefull as a well flown F14 out-rates all DCS planes by far ;) In a 2 circles fight the f14 is unbeatable ! Unless he does some big errors
@@dinubunica An F-14 can definitely turn...but it shouldn't be able to out rate a Viper. I think it can get close but if both are flown properly the Viper should have a more rate and won't have to slow down for it. Although that's the trick...not slowing down. If they're both going 300 knots the Tomcat would undoubtedly have the advantage, so I guess in a practical sense you're right, although I would not say the F-14 is unbeatable in any situation. The one big advantage the Hornet and Viper have over the Tomcat is that they can exchange huge amounts of energy for angles and get it back fairly quickly (the Viper more so). If I read things correctly the Tomcat will destroy itself if it tries to keep up on G alone. But...it's undeniable that the Tomcat can turn really well and is dangerous in a knife fight.
@@311Gryphon I'm not talking about reality, but only about the game DCS. I did all the tests with 1% gas and 50% gas . I can give you the tackview files if you want ;)
@@dinubunica Gotcha. I'll take your word for that because I know DCS isn't exact. I'd love to take a look at the tacview just for fun but I believe you.
Not necessarily. It's just a case of needing to know how your plane stacks up against the other plane and how to use that to your advantage. Which is easier for me in a radius fighter but I tend to like rate fighters better.
@@Eucsneto I wish I did have more videos like this but sadly, my understanding of these concepts is usually not as good as some other channels. I'm trying to understand some other concepts a bit better and then come up with ways to show those visually but I just haven't had any breakthroughs lately.
@@311Gryphon Thanks.. your video was very helpful anyway. As you are also studying all of that stuff, I strongly recomend you this video series: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-Vse3Fn0jx2w.html&ab_channel=ZELATOR
