JDK wrote:
Randy Haskin wrote:
- Have never maneuvered two aircraft against one another with the specific intent of achieving a WEZ on, and killing, the other aircraft.
Thankfully, we don't have to rely
only on the opinions of those with firsthand experience. As several people have pointed out already - some like myself delighting in zero fighter pilot experience - there are numerous
real examples of unexpected results in unequal combats.
While that's certainly correct and valid, I seriously doubt that the people advocating the "Mustang wins, hands down" position were doing so based on the evaluation of such evidence. If they were, then my mistake, but I saw no evidence of that.
The reason I prefaced my post with that statement was not be be elitist or condescending, but rather to point out that experience is the only truly valid way of gaining an understanding of, and appreciation for, all of the numerous variables present in a 1 v 1 dogfight. So frequently I hear (on television, on the internet, at airshows) people talk about dogfights as if they were tests between sheets of statistics, plugged into a computer, and wargamed to a logical end. That often seems to be the way that non-fliers resolve such "who is best" discussions, and the reality is that while the numbers games are important factors, they ignore many other random factors that are just as important (not the least of which is the human factor). If the number crunching was a valid technique, then every day that I've gone out and fought F-15E vs F-15E BFM should have ended in the same dead stalemate (which, in case it's not obvious,
isn't what always happens even between two competent pilots) since the aircraft are both equal on paper.
So, I made my comment to point out that much of the discussion in the thread was based on some opinions that were simply ignorant to many of the factors that play in to the argument.
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ellice_island_kid wrote:
I am only in my 20s but someday I will fly it at airshows. I am getting rich really fast writing software and so I can afford to do really stupid things like put all my money into warbirds.