Chapter 243: The Immelmann Turn
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Pilots are isolated by nature. The moment they climb into the cockpit and take to the skies, their fates become inseparably tied to their aircraft yet disconnected from everyone else.
In a somber tone, Charles warned the trainees: "You must get used to this reality, gentlemen. Learn to rely on yourselves. Study what you need to know, and train to fight alone. Only then will you survive the battlefield and truly become skilled pilots."
The room was silent for a moment before breaking into enthusiastic applause.
After the classroom session, Carter led Charles to his office. The office doubled as Carter's command center as the vice-captain, and it was just as cluttered as before. Even the chair he offered to Charles had just been cleared from a pile of paperwork and other items.
Once seated, Carter began going over some reports, "Right now, we have around three hundred experienced pilots and a hundred new trainees, with over three hundred fighter planes. At this rate, our club's facilities are reaching capacity. We'll need to expand if we want to keep up with these numbers."
Charles nodded but remained silent. Expansion? Carter was getting ahead of himself. The lack of battles lately meant there had been no losses, but when combat resumed, both planes and pilots would inevitably suffer casualties. The new recruits would barely be able to fill in the gaps.
Carter seemed to realize this as well, and he hesitantly asked, "So, the air battles… they're going to start soon, aren't they?"
From recent newspaper coverage, he'd picked up on the push for consolidating Army aviation under the Flying Corps, a clear signal that the military was preparing for air combat.
Charles didn't answer directly; instead, he asked, "Are you ready?"
Carter straightened up, his confidence unwavering. "Yes, Colonel, we're ready! We've been practicing the Eight Air Combat Tactics rigorously. If the Germans don't have something similar, I'm sure they won't be able to match us."
Charles nodded, "That may be true at first, but once you bring those tactics to the battlefield…"
Carter finished the thought, nodding in agreement, "The Germans will learn them quickly. Soon, they'll use those same tactics against us."
"Exactly," Charles said. "So, you must keep improving."
"Understood, Colonel!" Carter replied.
As he stood to make coffee, Carter chuckled, shaking his head as if sharing some absurd anecdote. "Many pilots have asked me what to do if they get tailed by an enemy plane."
"I tell them to ask God—or just start praying," he laughed.
Charles didn't respond. An idea had just come to him—a maneuver suited to this era that might help pilots escape an enemy plane on their tail. If it worked, it could further boost the squadron's effectiveness in combat.
Carter handed Charles a cup of coffee. "You're not actually trying to come up with a solution to that, are you?"
He laughed at the idea. From his perspective, having someone on your tail was just part of the game. The same way they could tail the enemy, the enemy could tail them. It was as unavoidable as dodging bullets.
"There's no way to avoid casualties. No matter how much we train, there will always be losses." Carter took a sip of his coffee.
Seeing that Charles still hadn't spoken, Carter's expression grew serious. He looked at Charles with cautious hope. "You… you're not saying you actually have a solution, are you?"
"I'd say there's a way to increase the chance of escape," Charles replied calmly. "But it will take practice."
"Good God!" Carter stood up so fast he knocked over his coffee, spilling it all over the table. He grabbed a rag to clean up, then hurriedly reached into a drawer to get paper and a pen.
"No need to write it down, Lieutenant," Charles said, spotting two model airplanes on the table—probably from Carter's previous work in the club when it was more like a tourist attraction. He picked them up and used them to demonstrate.
"This is simpler than it sounds. Watch carefully, and you'll understand."
With one model held behind the other to mimic a tailing position, Charles explained: "If the pilot tailing you is experienced enough, he'll be able to anticipate your movements no matter how much you try to shake him. Even if you make feints, it's difficult to break away."
"Right," Carter nodded, sensing a dead-end. In that scenario, the enemy simply had to pull the trigger, and the pilot ahead would have little chance of escaping.
"Here's where we can try something different—climbing," Charles suggested.
Carter quickly shook his head, rejecting the idea, "Climbing will only get you killed faster. The enemy will just fire at the moment you start to climb."
For Carter, this was a clear tactical blunder. In his experience, the worst thing you could do when being tailed was to climb. While you could dodge left, right, or even down at high speed, climbing exposed your aircraft at a low angle and with low acceleration, making you an easy target.
But Charles insisted, calmly continuing his demonstration with the models. "Of course, we can't just pull up directly. First, you make a shallow dive…"
"A feint?" Carter asked, confused. The scenario had already assumed the enemy was too skilled to be fooled by feints.
"It's not a feint, Lieutenant. It's part of the climb maneuver," Charles explained. "After the dive, quickly pull the nose up at a steep angle. Instead of a slow, shallow climb, the plane will ascend almost vertically, gaining height much faster than usual. The enemy often won't react quickly enough."
"Will… will it really work that way?" Carter was stunned. He had never tried such a maneuver.
"Yes." Charles nodded. "You'll find that after the ascent, the plane will briefly end up in an inverted position, belly-up. From there, a quick roll will bring it back to level flight."
Carter gasped with realization, "Then we'd be higher than the enemy. A single dive from that altitude, and we'd be the ones tailing him!"
Charles gave a small nod of confirmation. This tactic wasn't something he had come up with; it was actually developed by Max Immelmann, one of Germany's earliest fighter aces, and later became known as the "Immelmann Turn" or "Roll-Off-the-Top."
Even in modern combat training and aerobatics, this maneuver remains a vital part of a pilot's skillset.
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