This guide is for new players who want to know how to fly their aircraft with skill and elegance.
Basics of Maneuvering
The very first step to getting good at maneuvering is learning how & when to use your flaps.
Flaps are essential to maneuvering in a fight, they give your aircraft additional lift for pulling harder and/or slowing your aircraft down. But there is one problem with flaps: they break off at certain speeds. To ensure your flaps remain on your aircraft you need to know the maximum speed threshold of your flaps.
Here is a rough estimate of good speeds to deploy your flaps:
- Rank I-II 150 kmh (93mph) – 200kmh (124mph)
- Rank III 250kmh (155mph) – 370kmh (229mph)
- Rank IV 300kmh (186mph) – 430kmh (267mph)
- Rank V-VIII 300-400kmh (186-248mph)
Please note that you can go below the “minimum” speed, it’s just the best speed to perform turns with flaps!
But with the additional maneuverability that flaps give you, comes increased G-Force loads! Be careful, you don’t want to lose control mid dogfight!
Additional Movements in Flight
Just because you can turn faster than normal with flaps doesn’t mean you can always out-turn your opponents, so you will have to dodge their gunfire!
You can do so by pitching and rolling slightly to constantly make them correct their aim. This will 90% of the time keep you alive long enough to have your teammates assist you.
Well-Known Maneuvers to Use in Flight/Combat
Here is a list of well-known maneuvers and how to do them, these are extremely useful in Combat but can also add some extra flair to your next Air-Show performance!
- The Canopy Roll: whilst rolling, pull up with your positive-pitch key (S or whatever you have it set to)
- The Split: roll until your aircraft is inverted, pull up with your positive-pitch key until you are no longer inverted and are facing the opposite direction of when you started the maneuver.
- The Immelman: pull up with your positive-pitch key until you are inverted then roll until your aircraft is no longer inverted.
- Loop-the-Loop: do a vertical 360 degree pull (pull up with your positive-pitch key until in the position that you started the maneuver in)
These maneuvers are effectively mandatory if you want to survive a dogfight with a skilled player.
That's everything we are sharing today for this War Thunder guide. This guide was originally created and written by Shinobi_o_o. In case we fail to update this guide, you can find the latest update by following this link.