The Rules of Engagement for the event were as follows: players would head toward each other and would merge. As both planes were exactly passing each other, a judge (Victor Zaveduk) would call out "Fight's On!" and players would begin manouevering.

More specifically, there was not to be any firing until after the merge and no lead turning into the merge. IMO, the rule of no lead turning "evened out" the field a bit because an experienced pilot can turn a well done lead turn into a quick victory (which I executed in my one practice fight, quickly sending my opponent to flames in one pass). Thus all players were left to fight based on one mans' "announcement".

The no firing before the merge was smart because actual planes merging at near 1000 knots will not fire before merging. Trying to line up a shot head-on like that would be utter suicide. The eight players were split up into slots with the 1st place player flying versus the 8th place player, and 2nd place versus 7th place and so on. In addition, each bracket would get two practice rounds to help adjust to the new gameplay. Rounds would be played best two out of three.

In my first match I lost the two practice rounds to my opponent who was quite good. However, I used the time during the practice to figure out how my opponent fights. Taking this information, he lost the round to me once the "real" fights began, 2-0. I watched the other rounds play out after mine as the number 1 competitor fell in the first round leaving me the top finisher for the remainder of the competition.

Pete was standing behind each of us quietly watching his students' battle each other. He simply smiled the whole time. As the remaining parts of the 1st round came to a close I knew who my opponent was and how he flew the F16. He enjoyed working in the vertical like a lot of people.

This is a VERY risky move, but nevertheless, VERY popular. In fact a number of my squadron mates flew this way in EF2000 and found out very quickly that in Head to Head, a skilled opponent seeing one move to the vertical was always delighted due to the obvious lack of energy from having to push the plane into a climb. My second opponent lost 2-1 in what turned out to be a closer match than I would have liked. We both succeeded in getting guns hits on each other but he managed to get a few more. =)

During the first two matches I was particularly impressed with Falcon 4's stability, especially knowing the code was not quite ready for "beta" yet. Competitors were moving in and out of the Dogfight screens and no one lost packets or stability. The F16's didn't seem to have the greatest sense of speed but our starting altitude was 10,000 feet so it's hard to complain about that.

I particularly love the sound effects of the bullets bouncing off the planes. The sounds, flames and explosions were very similar to the DEMO. Damage modeling was very impressive, with individual systems capable of being knocked out. In my second match, one of my fuel lines apparently got hit because as my engine was shutting down and I was floating to my death, I noticed my fuel was dropping at a horrendous rate even through the turbine was almost finished completely "whining" down. Seconds later my plane blew into thousands of parts. Very impressive!

Before the finals, the decision was made to reboot both machines and the match became the best 3 out of 5. After Falcon 4 had been started again and the correct options set for both machines, the finals began! This time my opponent seemed to understand BFM very well. He watched his speed closely, controlled his energy and I knew if would be a tough fight. After wishing each other well, the match started.

As we pulled along side each other and "Fights On" was called out we both broke hard. Seconds later we were both falling to the Earth with heavily damaged F16's. Neither of us had any control of our jets and thus, the 1st fight was a draw. So we began again. This time my opponent managed to get a few more hits on me than I did on him. I had no control and hit the ground. His plane had "Bitchin Betty" screaming all about various warnings but he was able to fly away and went up 1-0. To that point, I had been in control of my previous matches because I always seemed to win the 1st fight. After losing the first fight in the finals, I got a little nervous.

The third fight went a lot like the first fight. I hit the ground after a hard break with heavy damage. I ALMOST pulled out of my fall but had no real control inputs. His plane was completely damaged and exploded in midair a few seconds before mine hit the ground. I realized at this point I was going to have to concentrate hard on keeping my energy just perfect or I was going to lose. Thus, I took the next 2 fights with clean kills.

As we played what became the final battle, I made what I felt was a near perfect break and caught my opponent still trying to pull over toward me. I squeezed off a few rounds which he saw and instead of trying to force me to overshoot he made a fatal error and broke back in front of me putting me right on his "six".

Click to continue . . .

As he broke, I could see the glow of his afterburner completely engaged. I really thought I would finish him off in just a few seconds but I was dead wrong. My opponent was skilled and managed to trade altitude for energy and extend away from me. Being careful not to allow him to get me into a vertical or horizontal scissors, I held my speed back a bit and allowed him to extend to almost 1.5 miles and out of my gun range before I knew it.

I got a little nervous when I saw his range because he was picking up room to maneuver and although he was still pulling pretty heavily to avoid my gunfire, he managed to get his energy back up to a comfortable level. I decided to move in and be more aggressive. He encouraged my aggressiveness by announcing his intention to fly into a nearby canal. Realizing that I might actually lose sight of him (something else Falcon 4 models very well is the difficulty of seeing planes against the ground under VFR) I got nervous and kicked my F16 into afterburner to try and close the distance.

By this time, I had shot off all my rounds and was having to wait 10 seconds for the guns to reload. This option was set under the game rules for the dogfight. I knew I was taking a big risk because I thought he might try and force me into overshooting. I was watching our closure rate carefully and sure enough, he popped his brakes and broke vertical about ½ a mile away from me. My guns by this time had just returned and I noticed the drop on my closure rate, popped my brakes and was able to get my "snake" all over his plane and was awarded with a huge fireball.

Few of the fights during the day lasted more than 10-15 seconds. My last dogfight lasted about 2 minutes. I felt that once I got on his tail it was all over, but he managed to frustrate me by evading all my rounds. Eventually his opening mistake forced him to pay and I got showered with beautiful women asking me to take them to Hawaii with the 1st class tickets I won. =)

Now came the real fun. Before the matches were over, Pete had agreed to play the winner in some Head to Head. I quickly grabbed him by the arm and motioned him to the chair. Our first fight (we had six total Head to Head) was the best by far. After we merged Pete broke high and I went low. Both of us maneuvered to gain an advantage and I felt I had the upper hand. After breaking low to catch me and with me breaking high to catch him, I had managed to lose a lot of energy as we merged for the second time. He broke RIGHT IN FRONT of my plane and was climbing quickly.

The F16 is no nose-authority champion but I tried to squeak the last inch of nose authority out of the jet to get a quick flash shot at him as he roared above and to the left of my jet. I just didn't have the energy and my nose started to swoop straight down as he continued to work the vertical. Well, I knew I was dead and sure enough just a few seconds later, I was dead.

Although I had much better success in the next five dogfights versus Pete, (I actually won a few) this one was the most memorable. Immediately after killing me, Pete was passionately explaining the dogfight just as every fighter pilot does, with his hands. Pete was saying, "As I pulled up and over you, you should not have followed me Bubba! Bubba, you didn't have the energy, push past me and pull over. Push past me and pull over he repeated more and more fervently as if we had just gotten back on the ground from actually doing the fight.

To emphasize the point he kept thrusting his hands one under the other. I could see the love of the fight in his eyes. It was a great feeling and I felt awesome. I was forced to leave shortly thereafter due to a previous engagement but promised Pete I would return to get more into the campaign.

Click this picture to go to Dan Crenshaw's BFM series.

Go to F4 Competition Part 3