Hartmann confirmed the downed enemy plane, and then began to climb.

The 109 is an excellent fighter with good energy retention, but he can't help but maneuver continuously, and the attack just now made him lose a lot of energy, so he has to accumulate energy before thinking about doing something else. The basic essence of the theory of energy air combat is that it always has more energy than enemy aircraft, either flying higher than enemy aircraft or flying faster than enemy aircraft, and it is best to have both.

As he climbed, Hartman's eyes widened, looking around.

He felt uneasy in his heart, always feeling that the enemy was already eyeing him in his blind spot.

Fortunately, he is now climbing, and his vision in the upper rear part has been slightly improved due to the posture of the airframe, but the lower hemisphere is still "pitch black", and he cannot detect what the enemy aircraft are doing in this area.

It is said that the Academy of Aeronautical Sciences in Potsdam was studying the installation of an alarm device in the tail of the aircraft to alert the pilot when it sensed the hot air coming out of the enemy's engine, but unfortunately this device was too large to be installed on a test machine converted from a Junkers airliner.

Hartman waited for the attack of the imaginary enemy aircraft, but no enemy fired at him.

The surrounding air was full of exploding fires.

Malta's British Air Force had been fighting the French Air Force and the Italian Air Force since the beginning of the war, accumulating considerable combat experience, and then fell behind for a time when the French Air Force began to replace it with new fighters, but with the arrival of fighter jets ordered by the British government to the United States, they once again achieved air superiority - this was last year. In short, the British pilots were experienced, no worse than the German ones, as Hartmann had learned in just a few minutes of fighting.

At this time, he saw two high-speed black dots whizzing down from the sky.

It's a sea female fox.

They are much larger than the average piston machine, and with a very pronounced tail spout glow, it is easier to spot than the average piston machine, but its speed is more than enough to offset this small disadvantage.

The sea fox quickly disappeared from Hartman's field of vision, which gave him a sudden urge to flip the body so that the cockpit was facing down, so that he could continue to watch the sea fox hunt from the sky, but he did not do so.

Hartman glanced at the altimeter and felt that he had climbed high enough, and that he was not too slow because he had been climbing at a steady angle. Your body has accumulated a lot of energy and can start hunting again.

He switched to level flight, keeping his head close to the canopy and peering under his wings, looking for targets to attack.

He is now alone and no one can take care of each other, so he must be careful.

Black dots can now be seen all over the sky, and it's hard to tell if they're friendly and what are enemy because of the distance. Identifying targets in air combat has always been a difficult problem, because at a distance of more than two or three kilometers, even an object the size of an airplane will become a small "spot" that can barely distinguish the outline, and it is unrealistic to distinguish friend or foe by appearance.

In response, the Luftwaffe uniformly painted the fuselage with a yellow nose, which improved recognition in air combat - but only improved.

Hartman's eyes widened, his current strategy was to search for the bodies that were in his vulnerable position to identify, and the rest was none of his business.

The headphones were filled with combat communications, and from time to time the voices of the British could be heard, as if German pilots and British pilots were scolding each other.

That's when Hartman suddenly had a brilliant idea.

He changed course and flew towards the island of Malta, as he pulled out the map board and checked the chart.

The airport on the island of Malta is off the northeastern coastline of the island, right next to the island's capital.

Since it is not possible to directly identify the target, it is possible to identify it by the behavior of the target, and eighty percent of the enemy planes approaching the airport while lowering the altitude are enemy planes, and if the enemy planes are still adjusting their course and preparing to enter the landing route of the airport, they are 100 percent enemy planes.

Hartman licked his tongue, although fighting at medium and low altitudes on the island may be greeted by ground anti-aircraft guns, in Hartman's opinion, it is better than rushing into a chaotic battlefield in order to identify the target.

At this time, Hartmann heard the captain's order that the planes of the 52nd Group all circle to the left in order to distinguish the target, he thought about it, and did not follow the order - after all, he has now entered the theater of operations under the responsibility of the brother troops, and the battle has been going on for fifteen minutes, there should be no friendly fighters flying higher than Hartman, so there is no need to worry about being attacked by friendly forces--it is stupid to attack the enemy planes flying higher than himself, because the attack on the back will lose a lot of energy, and the shells are because of the problem of falling curves, It is more difficult to hit the target.

Hartman flew for a while and spotted his prey.

Three warplanes were on his lower left, speeding towards the island of Malta, they were not at high altitudes, and they did not seem to have any intention of climbing, they should be enemy fighters that had been shot and returned home.

Hartman licked his tongue.

He adjusted his course so that the enemy aircraft remained within the limits of his view in the lower left of his wing. The enemy is now flying straight towards the friendly airfield in order to get out of the battlefield quickly, and when they feel safe, they will definitely adjust their course so that they can go around the axis of the airfield runway and cut into the approach route.

That's when Hartman attacked.

Hartman looked up at the sun, and although he wasn't in the best backlit direction, the sun's presence would still provide him with good cover.

Come on, Hartman whispered.

At this time, the enemy aircraft began to turn and cut right into Hartman's course.

Without saying a word, Hartman manipulated the mech to roll, then jerked the joystick to turn the mech into a dive.

His body rushed almost vertically towards the sea, and for the first few seconds the enemy plane was invisible in the blind spot, but then it broke out of the obscured zone of the nose, completely exposed to the very center of Hartman's cockpit vision.

Hartmann lightly netted the nose of the plane, so the enemy plane disappeared again in the cover of the nose, and Hartman pressed the fire button.

The next moment, the enemy plane rushed through the area covered by the barrage with almost the maximum projection area, and Hartman saw a fire on the tail of the enemy plane, and then formed a black column of smoke, and it dragged the smoke to the sea.

Hartmann jerked the joystick to pull the airframe up, and then he made the airframe do a 360-degree somersault in the air, and when the airframe flipped 180 degrees, Hartmann used the cockpit glass cover to search for the movement of the other two enemy planes - at this time he had a downward view with almost no dead ends.

One of the two enemy planes circled to the left, the other to the right, and the one that circled to the left obviously deviated from Hartman's course at a smaller angle because of the extra roll action before circling, and the attack was easier to succeed.

Hartmann decisively adjusted course and rushed towards the enemy plane hovering to the left.

The enemy plane, apparently seeing Hartmann's movements, immediately rolled around, apparently preparing to cut into the left circle again to avoid Hartmann's line of fire.

Obviously, the enemy pilots forgot in a hurry, and a continuous change of direction of the hovering would cause the aircraft to lose a lot of speed.

Hartmann decisively pulled up the nose of the plane and gave up the attack, flew a short distance at level, and then circled and cut into a new attack course.

At this time, the enemy no longer has the speed to make a big maneuver to evade, once it forcibly evades, the plane will lose control because the speed is too low, at that time its nose will turn directly to the sea, and it will not be able to do other actions until it has gained enough speed through this uncontrollable dive - this is not a game like "World of Fighters" where the fighter plane drives like a flying saucer, this is a real air combat.

It seems that during the period when the Italians betrayed the Allied Forces' control over the Mediterranean, the British still did some things, such as disassembling the newly produced Spitfire fighters from the mainland, crossing the mine blockade in small boats, and transporting them to the big ships like ants, and then sending them to Malta.

Spitfire's excellent low-altitude and low-speed performance made the sway of the enemy plane quite agile, and Hartman took a sip and decided to pull up and break away with a casual attack.

However, the barrage that hit the central axis of the enemy plane's swaying action directly cut off the Spitfire's wing with an oval tip and sent it into the sea.

Hartman prepares to climb when tracer bullets come from behind him.

He turned his head sharply, but he couldn't see the enemy plane—the protruding structure behind the cockpit canopy to increase the strength of the hatch blocked his view.

Hartmann wanted to climb and adjust his body's stance to gain a backward view, but he immediately realized that this would give the enemy a chance to shoot at a large angle of deviation, and his body would pass through the enemy's barrage with a large projection area.

After a short period of judgment, Hartmann decided to make a feint.

He rolled to the right first, and when he rolled to 90 degrees, he didn't immediately pull the lever to cut into the right circle, but immediately turned to the left roll.

The 109's roll performance is excellent, especially when switching scrolls like this, which is surprisingly smooth, compared to many rival planes that can't change roll direction so quickly.

And the enemy pilot probably didn't expect this sudden switch—he must have thought that Hartmann was going to circle to the right, and maybe he had already taken the nose of the plane in advance and prepared to shoot in advance.

Hartman cut to the left and circled, then looked up at the original rear.

As a result, he was surprised to find that the Spitfire was still following him, of course, because of the 109's roll performance advantage, the British circled a beat slower than Hartman, and the firing line fell behind Hartman's tail, unable to hit him, but Hartmann knew that the British body was designed according to the idea of traditional air combat "dog fighting", and its hovering ability was much better than that of the 109.

This Englishman is a good hand.

Hartmann felt every cell in his body get excited, and he shouted over the radio: "I'm the German pilot Erich Hartmann!" Put your name on it, British! ”

Hartman has traveled to China, studied Chinese and English, and is fairly fluent in English.

"I'm sorry, I'm Canadian," a female voice came over the radio, "but I'm volunteering to join the Royal Air Force to clean up on you arrogant Germans." ”