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The majority of this guide will be in form of a video. The complete playlist is available on YouTube here: http://raku.yt/acm-en.

This guide tries to explain the basic theory and practical use of the maneuvers used in the BFM - the Basic Fighter Maneuvers.
Whenever I search for documents or information regarding BFM, I found very well written documents explaining the various maneuvers and showing them with some pictures. But I didn't find any videos and certainly not from a cockpit pov.
I don't know about you, but I can't imagine how to fly a maneuver by reading about it and looking at a quite complex image of it. For me it was a huge difference to see it "live from the cockpit" and I had more than one aha experience!

I want to get rid of this "problem" and showcase the various maneuvers for you out there.
The first episode will be theory-only, because we have to clarify a few terms. But then it will be pure flying. You will see every maneuver from my pov in the cockpit and we will go through advantages and disadvantages when we analyse it in Tacview.

Have fun!

As said earlier, this episode will be about the theory behind the BFM: angle-off, aspect angle, pursuit types, ...

The aileron roll is... well... a roll with the ailerons. Quite self-explanatory, huh? ;)

In its pure form it will almost never be used in real combat. The point here - and in the following manvuers - is, that you have to get a feeling for the aircraft you are flying. Here, especially the roll rate is of interest.

The barrel roll may seem like an aerobatics maneuver at a first glance, but trust me: it's the basis of many different, other maneuvers, like the barrel roll attack or the rollaway.
It's a basic maneuver and should teach you further to get a good feeling for your aircraft.

Let's finally go full vertical! The "most vertical" maneuver is - of course - the looping:

One of the most - if not THE most - basic maneuver is the so called break turn. I'm pretty sure almost everyone flew it already, may unknowing... :)

The Split-S may look like an aerobatics maneuver and that is certainly true, but it has a non-deniable tactical relevance!

The Immelmann turn is the counterpart to the Split-S: it's going down... ;-)

The Rudder Reversal may be known by other names, such as Hammerhead Turn, Wing-Over, Stall Turn or even more. It may even be controversial, but nevertheless you should know what you're talking about.

To finish the solo-training we will practice two very important flight states:
the inverted flight should become your second nature, because the flight controls are... well... inverted. Pushing the stick forward will effectively bring our nose down towards the ground!
The use of the speedbrake should be practised to familiarise yourself with the accelerated speed depletion.

The first maneuver that we don't fly alone.
We will practice to aim our guns at a bandit coming head on in order to get a feeling for the flight path of our bullets.
Usually the displayed situation is very unlikely to occur. You will rather meet a bandit head on in a tight turning fight. If you have a feeling for the flight path of your bullets and are able to recognize that the bandit will be in a good position shortly and you can react really quick, then you might hit him with a few bullets.

The BFM will usually be opened by this maneuver: two pilots merge and start to turn either horizontally or vertical. This training servers the purpose to familiarise you with this scenario.

The Low Yo-Yo is designed to reduce the distance to a bandit in a turning fight.

The Low Yo-Yo Counter should - as its name implies - counter a recognized Low Yo-Yo in order to at least deny the bandit a shot or even to go offensive in the best case.

The High Yo-Yo is the exact opposite to the Low Yo-Yo. Here we don't want to decrease the distance, but we want to minimize the risk of overshooting or we event want to gain distance.

A Straight Yo-Yo is a Yo-Yo not on a circular path, but on a straight path. Of course, both possibilities exist: pitching up or down. I will only show the variant to decrease the distance to another plane.