Tales from online; ignorance of energy....

[Jumoschwanz]

Yep, being smooth on the controls is important, but flying straight away from danger is not a good idea.

You can do both, when I am running I dive in a shallow turn so that anyone trying to hit me does not have a straight shot. It does not have to be much of a curve in your flight to make it so your pursuer has to make a lead shot instead of a straight shot. Then if you very slightly change your direction over several seconds you are in much better shape.

It is a balancing act, those running while putting in heavy control inputs are not going to pull away, and those who are so smooth on the controls that they offer their opponent an easy shot may not get too far either.

The IL2 pilot that is consistently completing his missions while scoring against his opponents has to have a very large bag of tricks he can draw from.