Top Gun: Maverick

You can't beat the speed of The F-14 Tomcat with F/A - 18 when it comes to a dog fight. I'd have F-14 Tomcat please.
While it's true The F/A - 18 Hornet is slower than the F-14 Tomcat and The Cat can beat the hornet in high speed vertical dogfight , The Hornet can force the Cat to go horizontal instead, Hornet is much more agile and can do tight horizontal turns, like the pirouette maneuver, a high AoA maneuver that allows the pilot to reposition the nose laterally at very low speeds. It can be very handy in a low speed and thus all boils down to the skills of the Combat Pilot.

Like in one of the missions I flew in DCS. Guns Dogfight vs 2 Su-25s. Did a really tight slow speed 180 degree horizontal turn in an "instant" in the Hornet, not possible in the Cat, at 8:34 ish:


The Cat is The Queen Of Vertical Dogfights, no doubt about that.
 
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So Ash Ash have you seen the movie?
 
While it's true The F/A - 18 Hornet is slower than the F-14 Tomcat and The Cat can beat the hornet in high speed vertical dogfight , The Hornet can force the Cat to go horizontal instead, Hornet is much more agile and can do tight horizontal turns, like the pirouette maneuver, a high AoA maneuver that allows the pilot to reposition the nose laterally at very low speeds. It can be very handy in a low speed and thus all boils down to the skills of the Combat Pilot.

Like in one of the missions I flew in DCS. Guns Dogfight vs 2 Su-25s. Did a really tight slow speed 180 degree horizontal turn in an "instant" in the Hornet, not possible in the Cat, at 8:34 ish:


The Cat is The Queen Of Vertical Dogfights, no doubt about that.
That's awesome. You did got closer to the ground. Heard the altitude warning you got twice or so. That's one good a shoot down.
 
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That's awesome. You did got closer to the ground. Heard the altitude warning you got twice or so. That's one good a shoot down.
Hornet's Computer AKA "Bitchin' Betty" will say that altitude warning if you drop below below 4800 feet from a higher altitude.
I did the tight 180 turn by pointing my fighter's nose downward --hence loosing altitude-- to quickly re-gain the energy that's lost during the turn, using the earth's gravity to my advantage. Especially with the Hornet engine that's not as powerful as the Cat's.
 
Hornet's Computer AKA "Bitchin' Betty" will say that altitude warning if you drop below below 4800 feet from a higher altitude.
I did the tight 180 turn by pointing my fighter's nose downward --hence loosing altitude-- to quickly re-gain the energy that's lost during the turn, using the earth's gravity to my advantage. Especially with the Hornet engine that's not as powerful as the Cat's.
Yeah, and that can be tricky if you're not good enough. I couldn't stop laughing hearing her warning lol. It's just like what happened in the Top Gun : Maverick movie when Cruise was training those pilots for their next assignment.
 
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Yeah, and that can be tricky if you're not good enough. I couldn't stop laughing hearing her warning lol. It's just like what happened in the Top Gun : Maverick movie when Cruise was training those pilots for their next assignment.

lol thus she's nicknamed "Bitchin' Betty" like I know Betty, chill down! lol

In the movie during the final dogfight Maverick did the right thing by going vertical with the F-14 Tomcat, taking advantage of the Cat's really powerful engines, however, splitting the throttles would only give you yaw force independent of the control surfaces authority and could put you into a dangerous unrecoverable flat-spin state, So a no-no. If you want to do something like that do The Rudder Reversal/Hammerhead Turn Maneuver instead, however that is only useful when the enemy has no close range Air to Air missiles.
 
lol thus she's nicknamed "Bitchin' Betty" like I know Betty, chill down! lol

In the movie during the final dogfight Maverick did the right thing by going vertical with the F-14 Tomcat, taking advantage of the Cat's really powerful engines, however, splitting the throttles would only give you yaw force independent of the control surfaces authority and could put you into a dangerous unrecoverable flat-spin state, So a no-no. If you want to do something like that do The Rudder Reversal/Hammerhead Turn Maneuver instead, however that is only useful when the enemy has no close range Air to Air missiles.
Flying into the narrow canyon did helped him in that fight, otherwise he would have gotten shot down quickly.
 
Recorded Guns only Vertical Dogfight in the Cat , Taking advantage the Cat's Powerful engines and Excellent Pitch Authority, in DCS. 2 F - 14 Tomcats VS 2 Su-27s. Su - 27 is also an excellent dogfighter. The second bandit bugged out not long after I shot down the First one.

 
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F-14 Tomcat is a Queen in vertical Dogfight but the F-15 Eagle is an air to air Combat Goddess lol, Recorded a guns only dogfight with 2 F-15 Eagles vs 2 Excellent Dogfighters Mig - 29S piloted by Ace Combat Pilots and 1 Mig - 29S piloted by normal level skill pilot, with outside camera and in-cockpit view, A tough Battle, My wingman got shot down early during the engagement, in the end I managed to shoot down both of them Ace Mig - 29S despite sustaining heavy damage to my HUD, Radar and targeting system:

 
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F-14 Tomcat is a Queen in vertical Dogfight but the F-15 Eagle is an air to air Combat Goddess lol, Recorded a guns only dogfight with 2 F-15 Eagles vs 2 Excellent Dogfighters Mig - 29S piloted by Ace Combat Pilots and 1 Mig - 29S piloted by normal level skill pilot, with outside camera and in-cockpit view, A tough Battle, My wingman got shot down early during the engagement, in the end I managed to shoot down both of them Ace Mig - 29S despite sustaining heavy damage to my HUD, Radar and targeting system:

That's one hell of a fight there.
 
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That's one hell of a fight there.
Indeed! It was really really tense, 1 Vs Multiple excellent dogfighters with guns only, both of my hands, one on the flight stick and one on the throttle and both of my feet on the rudders were all sweating lol had to really push my Eagle to the limit, pulling continuous high-G maneuvers, using the mountainous terrain for cover, to survive the fight!
 
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It's sad I never watched this movie till now. I'm going to do something about it since I just come across it again now. Tom is a great actor, I shouldn't have abandoned this.
 
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