From opus@ihlpf.att.com  Wed Oct 20 22:41:01 1993
From: opus@ihlpf.att.com
Date: Wed, 20 Oct 93 22:35 CDT
To: 666th@cactus.org
Subject: Boom and Zoom Film
Content-Length: 1775
X-Lines: 36
Status: RO

Okay, I made up a film of me B&Zing drones.  I saved the first flight
I made, so you can't accuse me of picking the my best performance.  When
you see how I do, I think that will become clear enough!  :^)

I fly with four other P-51s against a B-17 (keeps the enemy drones
together), three Spitfires, and two P-38s.  I started the film just as
I was about to engage.  I took off with 50% fuel, the same as the drones
have.

Because there are so many drones and the film is so long, the file is very
large (about 700K uncompressed).  I don't know if anyone really wants to
see it, so I'll hang onto it unless I get requests.

Notes from the fight:

- Instead of diving in immediately, I make one loop to buy time and see
  what's what.
- I often get left and right confused and start turning the wrong way
  toward targets in the rear view mirror.  :^)
- I let a Spitfire get on my tail once.  In a real fight, I would have
  gotten pinged and probably even killed.  I tend to get overconfident
  around drones since I know they're such poor shots.
- My marksmanship sucks as usual.  My situational awareness wasn't too
  hot either.  I sometimes didn't match up dots with icons correctly--how
  embarrassing!
- At the end of the film, I'm pretty much forced to run away since I
  got impatient and squandered my energy advantage in level turns.  I
  lasted quite a while before I fell into this trap, however.
- In a real fight, I would have run away earlier, but I the drones are so
  predicatable that I hang around for a bit longer that I really should
  have.
- I used the P-51 to demonstrate how well it sustains its energy when B&Zing.
  I probably would have gotten more kills with a FW190, but I would not
  have been able to hang around for as long as I did.

Robin