Taktik tempur di udara menjadi kunci kemenangan. Termasuk bagaimana pilot mampu melakukan manuver dengan benar sesuai keadaan. Lalu apa saja jenis manuver yang dikenal dalam pertempuran udara? Ini dia



The counter to a well executed barrel roll attack is for the defender to dive away and increase speed. While doing this he must keep a sharp lookout for a missile attack and be ready to evade it. If he reverses his turn, he will probably set himself up for a gun attack.



For a pair in combat spread to reverse their direction of flight by traditional means would be a long and cumbersome affair, with large lateral displacement. To reverse course through 180° the aircraft cross-turn exchanging positions.

The defensive split is used by a pair to divide the ^ attention of the attackers. The split is made in both the vertical and horizontal planes. Whichever one the attackers choose to follow leaves them liable to counterattack by the other.


If the attacker is closing fast and is caught by surprise he may easily fly through and end up in front, the positions reversed. If he attempts to follow the barrel roll, he will probably end up high and wide of the defender who can then turn in towards him, forcing him down and in front. But woe betide the defender who attempts a barrel roll in front of a slowly closing attacker who will follow him through the maneuver, ending on his tail in easy gun range. His only recourse in this event is to jink.
The High G Barrel Roll is a difficult maneuver to execute successfully, and is in fact easy for the attacker to counter. It will only work if the attacker has been led into, or is in, a high angle-off, high overtake situation.
The High G Barrel Roll can be very effective against an attacker closing fast from astern. Commencing with a break turn to put the attacker in a high angle-off position, the roll is then carried out in the opposite direction to the turn.

The high-speed yoyo is a very difficult maneuver to perform well, and demands perfect timing and precise execution. If it is commenced too early, the defender can counter by pulling up into the attack. If started too late, the attacker is forced to pull up at an excessively steep angle to avoid overshooting. This allows the defender to disengage by diving away. A common fault in executing the high-speed yoyo is not pulling the nose high enough. This can result in the attacker ending directly above the defender. Some pilots find that they obtain better results from a series of small yoyos than one large one. A variant on this maneuver, used to prevent overshooting or to reduce the angle-off, is the rollaway.

LAG PURSUIT ROLL
This is used when at close range with a high overtake, high speed and high angle-off. The defender gets the nose high and rolls to the outside of the turn. He uses maximum g to pull the nose up and towards the target. This puts him in a ± 30° angle-off missile envelope.
When overshooting is mainly the result of excess speed, position can be maintained outside the radius of the defender’s turn by matching his rate of turn, thus maintaining both speed and initiative. The pursuer is hidden beneath the defender’s tail, which could cause him to make an error. This is called lag pursuit.

The most widely used variant of the low speed yoyo is used in a turning fight to break a stalemate caused by lack of overtake. Dropping his nose to the inside of the turn, the pursuer can cut across the circle.

There are many variations of the offensive split. Here the leader visually identifies bandits, who turn towards him. Meanwhile his No. 2 has crossed under unobserved to pull up hard from underneath for a belly shot.



The scissors is the natural outcome of a successful break which has forced the attacker to overshoot. It consists of a series of reversals to get behind the attacker by forcing him out in front. The more manoeuvrable fighter has an advantage in the scissors.
Full power is used throughout the scissors but with the nose trimmed high to reduce the forward velocity vector. Airbrakes can be used to force the flythrough but if they are used too early they will advertise the defender’s intentions. The scissors may turn into a stalemate with neither side gaining the advantage. The stalmate can be broken by one fighter rolling inverted when passing through the adversary’s six o’clock and diving away to gain speed before pulling back up,preferably into sun. This will hopefully take him by surprise. Scissoring for more than a couple of reversals is not recommended against an opponent who is able to turn faster and/or tighter, and it should not be attempted if there is more than one attacker, either. Fighter pilots recommend that unless the advantage is gained after three reversals, the pilot should, aiming to pass head-on to the attacker, since this would put him at a disadvantage in having to turn back toward the defender as he runs out.

Most defensive maneuvers are designed to counter an attack coming from astern, mainly by forcing an attacker to overshoot. What are the attacker’s needs? Much depends on whether he is planning a missile or gun attack. As we saw in the attack phase, a missile attack should be fast, deadly, and conclusive. But, as World War I German Chief of Staff von Moltke observed many years ago: plans rarely survive contact with the enemy. The fighter pilot should be prepared for his attack to fail and know precisely what he will do next, either disengage or enter into manoeuvring combat.
If his attack is from head-on, much will depend on the maneuver potential of the two opponents. The more manoeuvrable fighter will have the edge in a turning fight. (The more manoeuvrable fighter at this stage is frequently the one travelling slowest rather than the most aerodynamically capable.) If this is the attacker he should endeavour to pass wide of his opponent to give himself turning room. If there is any doubt about relative maneuver potential he should pass close to deny his adversary turning room, then pull high in the turn. In either case he should pass down-Sun so that his next change of direction forces his opponent to look into the dazzle. If after a head- on pass both aircraft pull high a vertical ascending scissors may result.
A missile attack from astern is normally made at a high closing speed. If the attack fails the attacker must zoom climb to dissipate his excess speed if he wishes to continue the fight, although it is easier and probably safer to disengage at this point. A gun attack should be made with an overtake speed of about 50 knots (just under 90 feet, 2 7m) per second). This gives time to track the target in the sight, minimises the risk of overshooting and retains an energy advantage for manoeuvring combat.
The defensive maneuvers described earlier place much stres on forcing an attacker to overshoot It is obviously important to avoid overshooting, so how is it done?
An overshoot is caused by one or two factors. The first is an excessively large angle subtended between the fuselages of the respective aircraft. The second is excessive closing speed. This is difficult for the attacker to spot until he is fairly close in. Either way the attacker is faced with overshooting. His first remedy is the high-speed yoyo.
The Split S is a time-honoured method of disengaging from combat. Known to the Royal Air Force as the Half Roll and the Luftwaffe as the Abschwung, it uses maneuver in the vertical plane to evade attack.

Two forms of break are possible, depending on the circumstances of the attack. The defender can use a maximum-rate sustained turn in which he does not lose speed, or the hardest possible turn in which he almost certainly does. The speed loss attendant on the hard turn aids his chances of forcing the attacker to overshoot, as does the smaller radius of turn, but oft-quoted maxims such as “speed is life” act as an inhibitor. If the break succeeds in forcing the attacker to overshoot, the next maneuver is the Scissors.
The break is a life-saving maneuver. It is used against an attacker who is about to achieve a firing position (or already has). It consists of a hard turn into the direction of attack, to generate angle-off as rapidly as possible to present the most difficult target.

A pair working as a team is much more effective than two fighters working individually. They guard each other’s visual blind spots and, as illustrated in the Attack Section, hunt as a co-ordinated unit. The wide spacing is dictated by two factors: the long reach of contemporary weaponry, and the large amounts of sky needed for maneuver at high subsonic or transonic speeds. There are few set maneuvers for the pair; just a few general tricks to meet certain situations, as follows.
Back in 1916 the original Immelmann turn was more akin to the vertical reverse than its present-day counterpart. The modern version of the Immelmann is a vertical climb or half loop, possibly aileron-turning during the climb, then rolling out into level flight at the top. Its main value lies in using the vertical plane to change the direction of flight in the smallest possible horizontal space. Horizontal turns at normal fighting speeds take up a lot of room laterally. Using the vertical plane enables the fighter to turn square corners in relation to its position above the ground. This maneuver makes repositioning for a further attack, or to meet a threat, much easier than would be the case using horizontal maneuver only.

The vertical reverse is only for the fighter with exceptional low speed handling. It is used at the end of a vertical climb when all flying speed is lost, the aircraft being ruddered around sharply into a dive.

More often, the low-speed yoyo is used to break a stalemate in a turning fight. The attacker drops his nose to the inside of the turn, then cuts low across the circle before pulling up towards his opponent’s six o’clock. The gain is often marginal, but repeating the process nibbles off a few degrees of angle each time, due to manoeuvring in the vertical plane. The pull-up should be started when a position of about 30 degrees angle-off is reached. It is important that the angle of cut-off is correct or the attacker will arrive in a fly-through situation with too much angle-off as he approaches the target. If this happens then he must endeavour to pull up into a high-speed yoyo.
Defence against the low-speed yoyo takes two forms. The first is to copy the maneuver while remaining in phase with the attacker. This maintains the stalemate. The second counter is more positive. The defender holds the turn until the attacker starts his pull-up. He then eases his turn a trifle, lifts his nose, and makes a rolling descending turn into his opponent.
If the attacking pilot has tried to lead the defender by too much or dived too low by being greedy, the defender can also pull up and barrel down onto the attacker.
Sumber: combataircraft.com