The problem with a loaded reversal is that, if you execute it and the bandit doesn’t overshoot, you will have a bad guy in your chili at close range, and you won’t have the airspeed to maneuver. A loaded reversal is used to stop your aircraft in the sky, and if doesn’t work, you’re in trouble. For this reason, let’s go over a few overshoot rules of thumb.
► When in doubt about a bandit’s overshoot, don’t reverse your turn.
► It is best to reverse when a bandit is overshooting your flight path inside 2,000 feet with a high line-of-sight rate.
► Outside 3,000 feet, it is best not to reverse your turn. The bandit has too much room to correct his overshoot and maintain a 3/9 advantage on you.
Guns Defense
You have flown perfect defensive BFM, but the bandit has flown perfect offensive BFM and is closing for a gun shot. What should you do?
Snapshots and Tracking Shots
There are basically two types of gun shots: the high line-of-sight snapshot and the stabilized tracking gun shot. This chapter has already briefly explained how to defend against a snapshot. When a bandit is closing with a high line-of-sight rate on your jet with his nose in lead, think “snapshot.” A snapshot is usually not the result of perfectly flown BFM, but it can still kill you. To defend against a snapshot, you should break out of plane. The only tough part is judging when to make your move. It is better to make it too soon rather than too late. If you go early, the bandit can correct, but when he does, you can jink out of plane again. If you jink late, you may end up having a valuable appendage carved off by the bandit’s gun.
How about tracking gun shots? These are harder to defend against because the bandit is not passing his gun through you quickly, as he does in a snapshot. In a tracking gun shot, the bandit is in a stable position behind you and will take multiple shots. For this reason, you will have to make multiple out-of-plane jinks to keep from getting shot. The key to guns defense is to make sudden jinks at least 70° out of plane with the attacker. Keep a tally on the bandit, and before he gets established in this new plane of motion, jink again. This type of defense is a random guns jink.
The Snake
A popular guns jink, currently in vogue in the F-16 community, is the “snake.” Here’s how you do it: when you see the bandit pulling his nose into lead, you unload rapidly, roll 180°, and reverse your direction of turn. Hold this course and make the bandit pull his nose back into lead. If the bandit reduces power to stay behind you, he may end up getting stuck in lag. If his nose is stuck in lag, keep turning with your lift vector above the horizon.
If the bandit has the energy to get his nose back into lead, unload again and roll 180° to reverse your turn again. This time, reduce power to bait him into an overshoot. As the bandit repositions to lead pursuit, unload and roll 180° again and reduce power further. If you have lived this long, you should be jamming the bandit and forcing an overshoot. Anytime you see that the bandit is going to overshoot, get back into full burner, set your wings level with the horizon and pull max G. This will help him fly out in front of your 3/9 line.
This maneuver is not a magic move. If the bandit is highly skilled, he will probably gun you — snake or no snake. It is worth a try, however, because against a plumber, it will work almost every time. If you’re lucky, you might get a chance to see his best guns defense.
Fighter Pilot Training Sorties: Defensive BFM
When a fighter pilot practices defensive BFM, it is important that the offensive fighter fight at reduced power or make some pronounced BFM errors. If both guys have similar abilities and fight full speed (no restrictions on the use of the throttle), and if the offensive fighter starts at 1 nm, the defensive fighter will get killed and will not get a chance to do anything but a guns jink. Here are some defensive BFM scenarios.
In Scenarios 1-4, both fighters should fly at corner velocity.
The offensive fighter starts at 2 nm. Both fighters fight at full speed, but no missile shots are allowed until either fighter completes 180° of turn.
The offensive fighter starts at 1 nm and pulls immediately into the vertical. After getting 40° nose-high, the offensive fighter is free to maneuver as necessary.
The offensive fighter starts at 1 nm and flies a lead pursuit course all the way in for a gun shot. Both fighters fight at full speed, except that the offensive fighter must maintain a lead pursuit course until the overshoot.
The offensive fighter starts at 1 nm and fights his best BFM, but at reduced power.
The offensive fighter starts at 3,000 feet and 300 knots. The defensive fighter is at corner velocity. The offensive fighter fights at full speed but does not take a shot until the defensive fighter makes his first break out of plane.
Use the same “Fight’s on” call described in Chapter 2 to start each fight.
Conclusion
Defensive BFM is straightforward. Pull hard with your lift vector right on the bandit and watch what he does. If he makes a mistake, capitalize on it. If he drives to a lag entry window, keep fighting, but you will probably end up doing a guns defense. It is critical that you maintain the will to survive when fighting defensively. Never give up. Push the aircraft to maximum performance at all times.
The “Defensive BFM” academic lecture on the videotape will help reinforce the material in this chapter. After watching the tape, you can take the quiz in “BFM Lesson Plans.”
Chapter 4
HEAD-ON BFM
It was just another BFM ride with a new lieutenant in the squadron. This lieutenant, who will remain nameless, was a pretty solid flyer according to his training gradebook. On this mission, we were going to fly one offensive, one defensive, and one head-on BFM setup. The lieutenant did reasonably well on the offensive and defensive setups — nothing to write home about, but not too bad. The last engagement was the head-on fight, and this is where the real action started.
Before describing this engagement, I better take a minute to relate how the flight briefing went. On a head-on setup with a new guy, I usually brief that I will fight in military power. In other words, I will not use the afterburner. This is just a standard way I do this type of sortie.
Well, I was in the process of briefing the ride this way when this lieutenant interrupts my briefing and offers his opinion on the subject. Now we usually don’t have a lot of “open forum” briefings. If the flight lead asks the flight for their opinion, they provide it. If he doesn’t ask, then everybody keeps his mouth shut and executes the mission as briefed. Period. So, here I am briefing the mission to a brand-new guy just back from training and he interrupts me with a creative thought. Creative thoughts are good, and I have nothing against them. Orville and Wilbur had a few good ones, but there haven’t been many since then, and I severely doubted that this kid had one now. It turned out that I was right. It seems that he didn’t think that it was such a good idea that I fight him in military power because he would kill me too easily and not get a chance to practice any real BFM on that engagement. I successfully fought the impulse to burst out laughing and politely told him that we would do it anyway. He could just get some more gun tracking practice with me as a target.