#Basic air combat maneuvers how to#
#Basic air combat maneuvers manuals#

helicopter tactics, although not without a shot of irony. The author even goes to the extent of covering fixed wing vs. Basic and Advanced Flight maneuvers are all there, 1-1, 1-2, 2-2 tactics, tactics when fighting in non-equivalent aircrafts, guns, missiles and performance aspects are all thoroughly covered. The engineering appendix is just beefy enough to define terms cleanly and the book itself is covering all aspects necessary in a very clean and thorough way. This book gives a solid foundation onto which one can build flying and killing skills. Although I have a PP and 200 hours logged, playing fighter sims, especially WWII variety, is a different ballgame, and a very hard one to figure out. This is an excellent foundation for any figher simulation fan (and probably real fighter pilot, but I didn't meet any). The author really does an excellent job of presenting the subject matter. It also has many, many quotes from real pilots which are related directly to the subject matter (for example, teaching the appllication of a high yo-yo combat maneuver and then a quote from a WWII P-47 pilot who used it to out-turn and shoot down a very surprised FW-190 pilot!).

#Basic air combat maneuvers how to#

If you just want to pick up some gaming tips on how to outfly the enemy, you will find this book very helpful for that, also. If you want to be a combat pilot, this is the one book you absolutely have to have. I have met quite a few military aviators, and they all have a deep respect for both Shaw and his book. Although this book was written by a pilot for pilots and is thus not a graduate-level physics textbook, a little bit of background in theory of flight, math, and physics is helpful (but not necessary). There are not a lot of flashy pictures, and the reading can be a little bit tedious at times. It covers a wide range of material including basic flight maneuvers, dogfighting maneuvers, weapons theory, and tactics for small engagements. He went to great lengths to research his subject matter and present his material in a usable fashion because his friends' lives were at stake.

Robert Shaw wrote this book because at the time, there was no definitive work available to train real pilots on real tactics and maneuvers used in life-or-death combat struggles. I work in the aviation industry, and have a very large aviation-related book collection, including a complete set of Janes, but this is without any doubt the book that I cherish the most and find the most useful.

#Basic air combat maneuvers manuals#

Shaw shows you how it is done.I recommend this book to current fighter aircrew - it is a great supplement to fighter weapons training manuals and courses that sometimes emphasize particular aircraft capabilities while being a bit light on fundamentals. Readers may find it useful to re-read some chapters - the text is fairly tight and there is much of value in here that might get overlooked.While individual aircraft systems and weapons vary, the basic principles of aerial killing have not changed since WWI: see before being seen, kill before the enemy realizes he is dead, protect your wingman, and come home alive. It is not light reading, but fighter aviation is deadly serious - high speed, three dimensional chess where the loss of the game is a very ugly death.His approach is to begin with the basics (flight sim players might find it useful to consider his chapters 'lesson plans' for practicing) and gradually take the reader into greater depth. As someone with some experience in the real world of fighter aviation (316 combat missions, F4 Phantom II RIO), Shaw's book is one of the best single-source volumes on the complexity of modern aircraft combat maneuvering.