Roll- The motion of a craft left or right. To accomplish this type of movement, the control stick (the "joystick") is moved left or right. 

Pitch- The motion of the "nose" of a craft up or down.  

Yaw- The motion of a craft rotating left or right. 

Dive- This is the easiest of all possible maneuvers. Point the nose of your craft down and you will proceed rapidly in that direction. 

Loop- To bleed off speed and get behind an attacker, go into a dive (or climb, an upward movement) and hold the stick back instead of releasing it. 

Barrel Roll- Also known as the "corkscrew avoid". To perform this maneuver, bank your craft hard while applying back pressure on the stick. 

Half Loop- Also known as an "Immelman Turn". Use this movement to gain altitude and reverse direction. Begin as if you were going to perform a loop, then roll and level out before the top of the loop. 

Renversement- After making a diving pass at an enemy (at full speed), pull up and reduce speed, then apply full rudder (turn hard), roll and pull back slightly on the stick. If your timing is correct, you will be diving back down in the opposite direction, making another pass at your opponent (albeit a head on pass) possible. 

Retournment- A good followup to the "Renversement", this will put you on the tail of your opponent. Climb and continue to apply rudder as you roll your craft after you have looped and come over the top. Instead of reversing directions, you will be going in the same direction as you were before the maneuver, but hopefully on the tail of your opponent.

Split-S- An excellent way to escape an attacker. Roll until you are inverted, then pull back on the stick to perform the last half of a loop. When you level off, you may repeat this maneuver until you escape your attacker. 

During a minor planetary confict on the planet Earth, called the First World War by the inhabitants of this planet, a pilot by the name of Oswald Boelcke wrote a group of suggestions for young pilots. Called "Boelcke's Dicta", they still form the basis for combat tactics today.

2) One of the most common mistakes made by novice pilots is to attack a target and attempt to disengage halfway through a firing run. This often has the effect of exposing one's tail to the enmy, who will proceed to blow it off. A pilot must be aggressive. Once you choose your target, stick to it. Your ferocity and aggressiveness will often times frighten your opponent into making a mistake that you can take avantage of. 

3) Sucessful pilots almost exclusively close to within close range of an opponent before firing a decisive burst of fire. In the Imperial Navy, the added bonus is that because you lose points for every round fired that misses, it is advantageous to take very sure shots. 

4) Occasionally, a pilot will feign a jump to hyperspace, or will make his craft appear more damaged than it really is. Do not be deceived by this. (But do not hesitate to use these tactics yourself if you think they will work!) 

5) The art of deflection shooting (hitting an opponent headed in a diffrent direction than you) is often very diffcult. It is easier to attack an opponent from behind as they present a greater target profile. Attacking a capital ship from the rear is advised because capital ships have a more difficult time attacking a pilot behind them. 

6) If you break away from an attacking craft, you will be a choice target and will present your tail to the enemy. While the attacking pilot might be grateful for this, you will not be. If you turn into an attack, you will be in your adversary's line of fire for only a moment, and then have the opportunity to take a shot at your opponent's tail. 

7) Know where your mothership is, or where you have a chance of getting into hyperspace. Better a live pilot than a dead hero. 

8) If five X-Wings attack five TIE Defenders, then the odds are even, right? Not if four of the T/D's attack one X-Wing. This will leave only one T/D against four X-W's, and then the X-W's will have an unobstructed shot at the T/D's. In a dogfight, make sure that every member of a flight takes one enemy pilot. 

Situational Awareness- SA is the ability to rapidly store, process, and use information in the rapidly changing arena of a dogfight. SA involves a group of questions that are everchanging and defined by the pilot alone. Is the enemy nearby? If so, how many? What are they flying? Are they more or less heavily armed then me? These are only a few of the questions a sucessful pilot must ask himself. It is because of SA that it becomes advisable to tell a pilot to avoid engaging in a large dogfight. While ten of fifteen craft are circling, a pilot spends most of his time attempting to avoid other craft. because of that, a pilot sacrifices almost all of his SA. This is seldom tolerated in combat.

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