Stall Fighting
by Soda

Soda’s TnB Theory -

One style of fight is commonly referred to as Turn-n-Burning (TnB). The TnB fight is basically a battle where one aircraft attempts to turn more quickly, and often in a smaller radius, than the other, winning the angles game until it has gotten into position so that it can take a shot. TnB fighters tend to be a little slower in top speed but offer more lift to make turns faster. Many fighters of WW1 and early WW2 were TnB’ers since turn-rate was given a high priority (since people felt that all fights would be turn-fights).

Turning can of course happen at different speeds though, not just slow. Slow speeds tend to give the smallest turning radius, but not always the fastest turning rate. In fact, many planes have a superior turn rate at higher speeds though the radius of their corner would be larger. A plane may be slower and thus turning inside a faster aircraft, but it may never be able to actually gain enough on angles to get a shot since the faster aircraft is turning just as quickly and always staying ahead of the slower aircraft.

Diagram (Two radius turn).

TnB fights, in general, tend to always trade off anything to get the highest turn-rate available to the aircraft. You may think that a Zero will always win a TnB fight since it is the fastest turner, well, that may be true at low speed, but may not be true at higher speeds. Either way you look at it, TnB style fighting tends to involve circling a lot, sometimes using maneuvers to improve turn-rate, but generally simply circling until one or the other gains enough advantage to take a shot.

TnB style fighting is inevitably adopted by many new pilots as it is simple to understand and tends to lead to the easiest shooting angles, from the rear. They select their aircraft based on the one that can turn the best at slow speeds, feeling that all fights must eventually get slow where their superior turn rate (and usually radius) will rule the day. When they get beat by an aircraft they perceive out-turned them, they adopt that aircraft and try again; failing to note the real reason they were beaten.