Targets were getting thin that night a few camps ago, and the Rapier, Sandman, Vaper and a few other Az were tooling around looking for things to shoot. SM decided that he would move to the Bz, to make things a little interesting. After one of the many times that my keister got shot down that night, I pulled the gear up on my FW and thought "Gee. I do THAT well at least." I have had soooooo much practice at pulling the gear up, in fact, that I can do it any way you like. I can pull them at one foot agl; I can even roll inverted at 15 feet agl and let them fall into the wells without taxing the hydraulic system. In any case, I was feeling kinda out of sorts. Hadnt gotten any kills, and made a few dweeb moves in front of the squadron CO and all.... "Hey guys, look! ZORCH is here!! . I was looking to prove my worth, and headed back into the fight. Arriving at about 2k feet above the, now, 1v1 between Rap and that eeevil turncoat SM, the daring Zorch pressed his steed downwards. Translated loosely, "I went diving down." I was hoping to close with SM before he really saw me, and the timing was perfect as Rap reversed at a merge into one of the prettiest drags that I have ever seen. With me about 1400 yds away, he reversed on SM into a climbing zoom away from me, and the Sandman followed after him with saliva oozing out from the ammo ejection ports on the bottom of his FW. I started to drool, too. NOW I WOULD SHOW THAT I WAS WORTHY OF THE MUSKIE SWORD. My fingers already were warming up to hit my kill macro as I closed through 1000 yards. I remembered to chop the throttle to avoid the dweeb move of flicking past SM at mach .96. - I also resisted the dweeb urge to open at 900 yards, bouncing harmless bullets off SM's plane as he saw me, laughed and put on one of those "now you see me, now you don't" Spottke mooves. Oh yes, he would be mine. As I closed through 800 yards, SMs plane floated out of my pipper, moving up and to the left. Could it be that he really doesnt see me? I thought, as I corrected with a gentle pull back and to the left. CRAP! I was about to depress the trigger, but wanted to line it up dead center so I eased back and to the right again as SMs plane floated a leeeeetle to the right. He was almost stalling by now, but he was very hungry for Rap and was completely intent on him. More aileron now, eeeeeasy... aaaaand....... - by now, I was at 600 and wanting to shoot, but my nose had floated high over the top and I was in a 90 deg right hand bank.. I had, in effect completed half of a beautiful barrel roll around SM as the point. With Rap hanging inverted in his seatbelt muttering "Shoot Zorchie", I began to realize that I could blow the whole deal. DONT PANIC I thought, just poke a little right rudder in there and let the nose fall! I stabbed for the "9" key, as I did not have pedals, and hit the "6" key instead. Finding myself staring out the right side of the aircraft, I quickly released the button, and the keypad jammed. Now, this rarely happens, but when it does, I find that the view sticks until I punch the "up" (5) or "forward" (8) keys repeatedly. I did so, and managed to both get the forward view back and lower the flaps simultaneously. I had also held the same stick pressure and was, by now, inverted. With 200 yards remaining, SM was looming in the top right hand side of the windscreen and still outside of the hit bubble. I made a desparate pull, but could not get a guns solution, and completed a perfect barrel roll as I flicked past his canopy without even pressing the trigger. I can only hope that he wet himself. Rap pulled his nose down and dispatched the now wet and laughing SM, muttering something about training sessions. I have now bought some very nice rudder pedals. I'll GET YOU, RED BARON! ---)----ZORCH-----