Barton

Figured I'd consolidate the HFTRE series into one post. All videos in chronological order. Will post future videos here.

In your attack on the Breguet your intercept angle was too conservative. Should have come further right earlier to get above him. From the angle you were at you probably could have closed in to take a 2 to 3 o'clock high slashing attack. Continuing the dive and coming right from there would have put you into the low six position you were trying for If he didn't break or ran for the deck you'd have been able to get more shots from closer and if the gunner was concentrating on you Luft could have made a run at him. At any rate, your approach kept you alive and that's what you're aiming for ultimately

Most of the trouble I've seen people get into (and gotten myself into) involves rushing into a situation without taking in as much information as they can. Every second up until the direct engagement should be spent surveying the area for threats. Keeping my head up when trying to come down on a lower enemy has kept me safe a lot by allowing me to catch other enemies at higher altitudes. Too often I see people see a contact and attack it like a dog on a three-legged cat and end up flying directly under another bandit with predictable results. Then when they're staring at their wrecks as it burns on the ground they swear up and down he "came out of nowhere." I've done it too and it ended the same way for me. One thing I notice people doing is losing awareness as soon as they're under attack. Just as they lock onto a bandit when they are offensive they lock onto the bandit trying to kill them and forget where their wingman is. I have had easy kills made much harder by wingman who, trying to evade the bandit, made my shot needlessly difficult or impossible. On the other hand, I have had very difficult situations made easy by a wingman who did what they needed to get the enemy into my sights. I recall a fight I had with Archer in IL-2 1946 where we were flying Fw-190 A8s and while leaving the combat area were chased by a Spitfire Mk XIV. He was gaining on us fast and we were in a bad spot on the deck. He went after me first but I was able to use my roll rate to spoil the shot and Archer went at him. IIRC the bandit ducked Archer's attack and then began pursuing him. Both of us were just about in panic mode since either of us would be an easy kill if the other went down. Having lost a lot of energy in our maneuvering it would not have been very difficult for a good pilot in that XIV to fight both of us as it was. But Archer immediately asked me what I needed him to do and did it. He was flying away from me and I was in a right hand turn trying to come back to him so I called him to come left and I leveled out to cut his corner. As he crossed my nose I had him break hard right and the Spitfire followed. I got a beautiful picture of the plane as he followed the turn and got in a lethal deflection shot with what may have been my only opportunity to kill him. Too often I see us fly not as a group but as a group of individuals and I have been part of the problem by flying as an individual and also by not reeling in others who I noticed doing so. Erich Hartmann's greatest accomplishment wasn't any or all of his 352 victories but never losing a wingman (besides a poor guy who was a bomber pilot thrown into 109s).

I went the super cheap route and dug the Saitek X52 out of the storage container. It's 11 years old and at the moment has a few bugs but it works well enough at the moment that I can fly and fight. Jumped on Wargrounds and had some fun (I still got it).

I thought about that TM 1600 and it seems to be a pretty good one for the money. Need to get back in the air again

Finally given up on my Thrustmaster Warthog. Could buy another throttle but my stick is on it's last legs as well. Not willing to shell out that kind of money on a stick again. Don't want a yoke. Any suggestions as to which stick I should get next?

Warming tires is a bit harder on dirt. I just bought all of the dirt tracks iRacing has out right now so there should be more dirt track racing to come. Got a pretty good tune off of another racer and improved it a little bit. Next is to start picking up new dirt track cars and work my way up to a B class license.

Having a good race finally after learning how to tune a little for dirt. Had a good battle up front!

Sorry for being so late here but CONGRATULATIONS BARON! Very well done!

Congrats to all!

I should keep an eye out for these guys. If they end up near Vancouver I would definitely make the trip across the lines to see them!

I shoot all of my videos almost exclusively live with shadowplay, especially CLoD because I never knew about that tool. Good find, indeed Vonrd!

They're all real tracks in iRacing. Laser scanned, in fact. Only sim that does it. You can tell, too when you're running Daytona. Holy hell is that place bumpy! Thanks guys! Not all races go this well, though. I just had one at Charlotte that was very good all the way up until the last turn that I'll be posting soon.

Good driving Hess! Love the paint!

Yeah it's a lot like Rise of Flight but with a monthly subscription. It's a load of fun though. It'll probably take me a while before I branch out into paid tracks and cars but I'll get there. Even as much as I pay I've paid monthly subs to MMOs for years for 1/4 the fun I'm having in iRacing.

It was loads of fun! Nerve wrecking. Couldn't figure out who to draft!

First win ever!

Yeah it's a ghost of your fastest lap. I've since turned it off because I found it to be distracting

This is way harder than I thought it would be. Ran my first race just a bit ago. Will make a video as soon as I can get Windows Movie Maker to recognize the files. It's odd because it's MP4 just like the ones from my flight sim but it doesn't want to edit these ones. I had to upload that video raw!

The even I went to a couple weeks ago was only $20 for two days of driving through the local Sports Car Club. And I used my bone stock daily driver with factory tires! But I am beginning to get into helping build my friend's car and may be looking for a track car myself.