Lots of the readers here are now understanding a lot more about E....Energy.
The art of building your speed/height investment in a fight. A skill in itself. The art of turning VERTICALLY.....not horizontally. The art of Boom n Zooming...properly.
We have some ace planes in FB + AEP + PF...but to use then properly, is a skill. A hard skill. One that I briefly grapple with, and then end up in a turn situation as do many of us.
A good example.....you are flying along at 400 kph and see a bloke in a plane on your 7 o clock ....co altitude with you....heading slowly away from you.
Rather than bank over to the left and turn tight.....which scrubs off speed, a good pilot might climb nearly vertically and as he/she gains the top of the climb, pull the nose to the direction the enemy is at, hence keeping all of that energy, in the "bank". Then once the direction has been moved to, in a VERY tight turn, cos he/she isnt moving, the plane then accelerates toward the target in a shallow dive, gaining huge energy.
ie the distance moved along the HORIZONTAL PLANE (x and y) (north and south) is minimal.....he/she climbed.....moving very little along the floor,, pulled the plane over onto its side or canopy, and then dropped back toward the target.....RATHER than turning a huge circle