When to use combat flaps?

[tkhanh11]

Hey lads, when should I use combat flaps in a dogfight?

[Egro]

For turn fight, no?

[Depression_pills]

when trying to turn, if aiming ahead of the enemy aircraft with no flaps doesnt cut it, flaps will slow your aircraft and make a tighter turn but doing this a below minimum speed will stall you and effectively makes you an easy target for others.

[tkhanh11]

Originally posted by Depression_pills:

when trying to turn, if aiming ahead of the enemy aircraft with no flaps doesnt cut it, flaps will slow your aircraft and make a tighter turn but doing this a below minimum speed will stall you and effectively makes you an easy target for others.

Does landing flaps makes an even tighter turn?

[Mr.X]

Originally posted by Yowbaby:

Originally posted by Depression_pills:

when trying to turn, if aiming ahead of the enemy aircraft with no flaps doesnt cut it, flaps will slow your aircraft and make a tighter turn but doing this a below minimum speed will stall you and effectively makes you an easy target for others.

Does landing flaps makes an even tighter turn?

Landing flaps are usually used when you are at the top of a vertical loop with low energy and you need to point your nose down quickly, with the goal of making your vertical loop tighter than the enemy. In dogfights it will make you bleed too much speed or more likely just rip off (in RB).

[Depression_pills]

Originally posted by Mr.X:

Originally posted by Yowbaby:

Does landing flaps makes an even tighter turn?

Landing flaps are usually used when you are at the top of a vertical loop with low energy and you need to point your nose down quickly, with the goal of making your vertical loop tighter than the enemy. In dogfights it will make you bleed too much speed or more likely just rip of (in RB).

^^^

landing flaps for typical dogfight isnt recommended it will really slow down your aircraft to stall speed and it doesnt take speed faster than 200kmph so you will rip it off if you do it.

vertical loop would be the best scenario to use flaps in general and to give you an idea, if you watched the Victory is Ours live action trailer theres a part where an la tries to out climb a bf109 vertically until the bf109 stalls first and the la chucks his power and used his flaps to point his nose down to the bf109 to get behind him

[Pozieres]

a good wing man is much better than combat flaps

[Suthirak_D42]

Hurricane with its 250 km/hr broken flap

[rigolgm]

In my heavy-ish P47 I try to avoid using my combat flaps in dogfights unless I really need to turn, as the best tactic is usually to speed away from people after I shoot at them. I think that applies to a lot of USA airplanes, as per historical 'boom and zoom' tactics. Every bit of retained speed/energy can make the difference between me suffering return fire or not. But I do use them quite a lot when I'm going up and down over a ground forces battlefield dropping bombs or rockets - as they help me get on target quicker and at a speed that isn't too fast for me to acquire targets.