Lords Of The Sky: Fighter Pilots And Air Combat, From The Red Baron To The F-16 - Plot & Excerpts
Interestingly, most of them would never change and survive, in one form or another, to this day. Others, most notably aircraft performance and weapons capabilities, would evolve dramatically over the years. New technology would permit new tactics. Methods of fighting would vary with all this but the underlying rationale would be as familiar to Edward Mannock or Oswald Boelcke as they are to a modern fighter pilot.BASIC FIGHTER MANEUVERSThe notion of the Turn Circle—the radius made by a turning aircraft—is a prime example. Visualize a plane leaving a wake in the air as a boat does in the water, a wake you could see if you were sitting on a cloud looking down at the moving fighters. Not truly a circle, it’s more like a series of expanding and contracting ellipses created by a maneuvering aircraft.The Turn Circle grows or shrinks as the conditions in a dogfight change—airspeed, altitude, and aircraft performance all influence this as do the pilot’s maneuvers. Now, understanding this concept was vital because it meant getting into an ideal firing position.
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