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Lead pursuit

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This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Chris the speller (talk | contribs) at 02:25, 18 August 2014 (replaced: gun shot → gunshot; punct using AWB). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

Lead pursuit is the basis of all the dogfights since the World War II era. It describes when a chasing pilot has to gun down the bandit (or the target) it is following. It is the most common way of air-to-air dogfight where many a times pilots feel it to be the most natural way to hit a target.

As air-to-air manoeuvres take the relative motion into play, many times gunshots fired directly at the target miss it due to the constant movement of the target, and the chasing pilot feels that the shot is late to reach the target; meanwhile, target has moved from that location.

The most common way to correct this issue is to anticipate in which direction the target is moving and try to shoot in the future path of the target, anticipating that if target follows the same path in future then there would be a higher probability of hitting the target.

To counter this, the target has to constantly alter the trajectory of flight and keep changing the direction of the flight, best captured in any air combat games and flight simulators.

References