Chapter4:

Chapter4: Utilization of the Throttle and Rudder

The throttle is perhaps the most extremely useful control in Red Baron. Yet it is as well one of the least used! I feel so strongly about this I am dedicating most of this entire chapter to the throttle!

                There are many different situations where you will want to lower or raise your throttle setting. First though it is important to make sure you can use it during a game. If you are a serious Red Baron player you should have some sort of joystick. A joystick will improve most players performance by a factor of 10. Its simply designed to let you fly more easily. The mouse and the keypad are not.

                Assuming you have a stick, its pretty clear that one hand will be on that for the entirety of the game. The other hand for most pilots will use one finger, perhaps two, on the Rudder keys. If you rest your pointer finger on the right Rudder key (the "." or ">" key) you can pivot your middle finger to the top row of the keyboard, and it should pretty naturally hit somewhere about the 9. The smaller fingers will easily hit lower throttle numbers. The importance of "naturally" hitting that throttle selection is that you don't really want to spend a lot of time looking at the keyboard! You really need to be paying attention to the screen.

                You should practice flying like this, letting your hand learn the position of the numbers, and just like when you learn to type you should not look at the keys! Listen to the engine, let it tell you what speed you just hit! The engine is your feedback for the throttle. It will tell you when you are going to stall, or when you are going really fast. You don't even need to look at the speedometer to know if you are going fast or slow. (Its still a good idea to be aware of what speed you are at, as some planes will have their wings rip off at excessive speeds.)

                Now its time for some specific uses of the throttle. First, it is very important to impress upon you that control is the importance of the throttle. You want to control your plane. The basic control of your plane is done with the stick, which controls the pitch and the roll of the plane. The secondary control is the rudder. The rudder will help you control Yaw. Yaw helps tighten turns, or in planes like the Dr.I it can be the source of the turn by itself.

                The throttle is the third control.

                "Okay" you say, "so the throttle makes the plane go faster and slower, so what?" Were you aware that you can turn faster sometimes if you go slower? Yes, that's right, you can turn faster by going slower in the right situation. In a tight turning battle, when you use the Low Yo-Yo you cut throttle as you dip across the circle. Do you know WHY? Its because if you didn't the full speed of the plane would cause to you pull across the circle, instead of cutting a small scoop out of it. Cutting the throttle allows your plane to drop its nose inside the circle, and then bringing it back up allows you to maintain your course behind the enemy.

                When doing the High Yo-Yo it is also important to cut the throttle. At the high part of the turn you cut the throttle so the nose will drop back towards the enemy. If you kept the throttle constant you would extend the turn into a long arc, and probably take so long it would let the enemy come around and get in a shot at you!

                Triplanes are very heavy planes. For the most part they will usually fly at maximum throttle. One method of countering a triplane's turning power is to fly slower. The triplane will be flying so quickly that it may not be able to get in a good shot because of the closing rate. Also at that high a speed the Dr.I is so responsive that tiny movements of the stick result in large movements of the plane, making it hard to fly steadily and aim. (If the triplane slows down too much, he is likely to stall, will probably lose altitude, and will be in most cases an easier target.) If you fly slowly against a triplane you will usually be very steady, and be able to get in some very nice shots. The triplane may very well overshoot his aim on you.( by flying slowly vs. a triplane, depending on which plane you are in, I mean somewhere between 6-8 on the throttle) Naturally you should be careful when flying slowly vs. a triplane, against an expert opponent this will not do you much good, or worse it may get you a backside full of lead!

                It is important, though, in any situation to vary the throttle. The reasons for this are:

Varying your throttle will cause the buffered positions of your plane that your enemy receives to be more likely to be incorrect. This can result in a light level warp in your favor.
Flying at a constant speed it becomes easier for a good pilot to get on your six. Whereas when you vary he has to be constantly aware of how fast you are going or he may either overshoot you, or fly so slow he becomes a sitting duck.

Have you ever been flying along, and seen an enemy directly ahead and below you? Did you then nose the plane down? What probably happened was that you didn't cut the throttle. Maintaining full throttle and in a dive you went so fast you really didn't get in much of a shot, because you were closing so fast. The solution is simply cut the throttle enough to drop the nose. This will keep you from overshooting him, and give you time to nail him. (Naturally you should keep enough throttle that you still have control of the plane.)

Sometimes when in a very weak plane (structurally) like the Fokker DVIII when you find it necessary to dive steeply you will have to cut the throttle, probably all the way down to 1. When this happens you'll notice you lose almost half of the control of your plane. Even though you may still be going quickly due to the fact you are diving, your plane will react more slowly, especially if you go into a steep turn. Your choice here is to decide how quickly you have to make it to point X. Say for example you shot down your opponent and you want to dive on him as he is taking off, getting in some nice clean shots. If you dive too quickly, obviously you will rip the wings off. If you dive too slowly he'll be off the ground, and ready to tangle, taking away a large part of your advantage. Use your judgement, use the throttle!

Use of the Rudders

The rudders are also very important to control your plane in Red Baron. Recently I've been finding that some pilots don't use the rudders at all! In some cases they are good pilots, in some cases.. not so good. But I think that learning to use the rudders will improve any pilot due to their effectiveness.

First you should be aware that the rudder keys are the comma and period keys. I like to look at them as the "<" and ">" keys although these functions are not available unless you press the SHIFT button, simply because they show the direction that the rudder is being applied in!

What does the rudder do? It controls the YAW! What is YAW? Yaw is the rotation of the aircraft on the horizontal plane. For example; lay a pencil on your desk, now turn the point to the left. That is what the rudder does! The rudder is another way to help you turn.

The rudder is usually best applied in the same direction you are turning. This will probably result in a tighter turn.

Occasionally you will find that applying opposite rudder in a Yo-Yo, or even Immelman type of turn (depending on what plane you are in) will help whip your plane around "-" <-- that much faster! Sometimes that small amount could make the difference between making a shot or not. So if the importance of using the rudder still avoids you, all I can say is good luck vs. the

On to Chapter5: Often asked questions and general info.
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