Game:

Falcon 4.0 (1998)

Duration: 4:11

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"...such an endeavor requires energy tactics. Energy tactics involve a rather protracted process of very predictable turns to deplete the opponent's energy, then some sort of zoom climb at a critical moment to convert an energy margin into a position advantage."
-Robert L. Shaw



"I would love it if he did this. I have fought hornets that have tried to meet me at the vertical, and it never works out for them because all I'll do is I'll go up, we'll go up a second time, he won't be able to do it, and I'll follow him right down...a clean Block 30 Big Mouth could do it all day long."
-M



"On the fight that I remember, at the merge I turned hard across the Tomcat’s tail and then went into a max G oblique turn about 45 degrees nose up. The Tomcat matched my oblique turn and we had a second merge in the vertical inverted. The Tomcat was slightly out in front of me. His wings were fully forward, and he had a lot of vapes (vapors) coming over the wing roots.

Being in a slick Hornet I was able to start and second climb, this one pure vertical and the Tomcat turned across my tail and then started a descent in a left hand turn to try and get his speed back. At about 70 degrees nose up I had enough separation and I executed a rudder pirouette to the right, I got the nose on, a lock on, and called two simulated missile shots.

I remember the pirouette because it was so crisp."

-Louis Gundlach



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Robert L. Shaw-Fighter Combat - Tactics and Maneuvering
Naval Institute Press (1988)

Figure 2-15. Nose-to-Nose in the Vertical Plane

Here the fighters meet essentially head-on and both immediately pull straight up vertically, creating a nose-to-nose condition. Both fighters have similar turn rates, but one has a considerably smaller radius because of less airspeed. From the previous discussion it would be expected that the tighter-turning fighter would gain an advantage from this maneuver, and indeed it does at time "3," where it has generated some flight-path separation.

This generally is not a good gun snapshot opportunity, unless the high fighter is very slow and separation is minimal. Likewise, the rather close range and high aspect involved would cause minimum-range problems for most missiles.

If he is unable to fire, the attacker must reverse for a lead turn to capitalize on his flight-path separation. In this case, however, the aircraft does not have sufficient energy performance to execute a second vertical maneuver at the top of the first. Unable to press his advantage, the pilot of the lower fighter is forced to level off or to dive to regain airspeed. This may allow the high-energy fighter to employ its gravity assist, taking full advantage of the resulting separation to convert to an effective offensive position at time "4."

The moral of this story is: Flight-path separation is of little value if it can't be used.



Referenced text:
[USNI] Fighter Combat - TACTICS AND MANEUVERING - By Robert L. Shaw
[USAF] F-16C BASIC EMPLOYMENT MANUAL - VOLUME 5
[USAF] T-38C INTRODUCTION TO FIGHTER FUNDAMENTALS (IFF)
[CNATRA] P-1289 - BASIC FIGHTER MANEUVERING, SECTION ENGAGED MANEUVERING



Falcon BMS is a complete upgrade modification for the game Falcon 4.0 from 1998. It uses official aerodynamic data from NASA wind tunnel testing of the F-16 and features 100% integration of the real F-16 FLCS developed at Langley AFB coded directly into the sim.
https://www.reddit.com/r/hoggit/comments/bpu3r8/bms_flight_modeling/
https://www.benchmarksims.org/forum/content.php?45-documentation

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