DOGFIGHT BRACKET
SFL Pilot SPINS
Format
3 SETS
Best two of three
Engagement
HABFM
High-aspect BFM
Aircraft
F/A-18 / F-16
Eligible types
Weapons
GUNS ONLY
The whole nine yards
Mission Overview
Each matchup in the Dogfight Bracket is three HABFM sets — the higher UIS wins each set, and the pilot who wins two sets wins the matchup
Set 1 — Abeam, Altitude Split
Higher seed takes the high fighter; lower seed takes the low fighter
Set 2 — Abeam, Altitude Split (Reversed)
Starting altitudes swapped from Set 1
Set 3 — Traditional Abeam (Co-Altitude)
Both fighters co-altitude
Mission — Kill or Be Killed
- Deny your opponent weapons-employment opportunities
- Achieve the first weapons-employment opportunity
- Gain positional advantage
- Employ weapons
- Timely transition to DBFM, if required
Admin — Overview
Map Study
Not required
Line Up
Eligible aircraft: F/A-18C Hornet | F-16C Fighting Falcon
Environmentals
Ceiling and visibility unrestricted (CAVU), winds light, sun overhead
Fuel
F/A-18 starts with 3,500 lb (32% fuel)
F-16 starts with 3,500 lb (49% fuel)
Parity note: 3,500 lb provides ~197 seconds of fuel in maximum afterburner at sea level for both airframes.
Comm
Per TechAdmin SOP
Admin — Start & Recovery
Marshal / Taxi / Takeoff / Departure
All sets: Competitors spawn airborne at PADS
Recovery
Not required — an aileron roll post guns-kill is encouraged
TacAdmin
Fires
- 20MM Full loadout / slick aircraft
Expendables
- All buckets filled with flares
Threats
- Your bracket opponent
Navigation
- Not required
Comm
Voice SFL Discord event voice channel — per TechAdmin SOP (App. B § B.3.3)
Control Competition Control callsign “CLASSIC”
Operating Area
- Nevada Test & Training Range (NTTR)
HABFM PADS
Sets 1 & 2 — Altitude Offset
Position: Abeam (line abreast)
Altitude: 17.5k′ AGL + 12.5k′ AGL (swap on 2nd set)
Distance: 1.0 NM
Speed: 350 kts IAS
Altitude: 17.5k′ AGL + 12.5k′ AGL (swap on 2nd set)
Distance: 1.0 NM
Speed: 350 kts IAS
Set 3 — Co-Altitude
Position: Abeam (line abreast)
Altitude: 15k′ AGL
Distance: 1.0 NM
Speed: 350 kts IAS
Altitude: 15k′ AGL
Distance: 1.0 NM
Speed: 350 kts IAS
15k′ AGL is used as the razor for the altitude split.
HABFM Comm — Fight’s On
Fight setup
CLASSIC assists in fight setup; Competitors will be in server pause
Once Competitors are set
CLASSIC: “Call Ready Left” — LEFT FIGHTER: “Ready”
CLASSIC: “Call Ready Right” — RIGHT FIGHTER: “Ready”
CLASSIC: “3, 2, 1, Fight’s On”
TechAdmin
Authoritative source: SFL Charter Appendix B — TechAdmin SOP.
Required reading: all Competitors must read Appendix B in its entirety prior to competition.
Dogfight-specific: § B.8 — Dogfight execution standards.
Required reading: all Competitors must read Appendix B in its entirety prior to competition.
Dogfight-specific: § B.8 — Dogfight execution standards.
Relevant SOP Sections
- § B.2 Registration, entry, and qualification (register, enter, qualify, compete; account verification; qualification runs)
- § B.3 Live OTS execution flow, Competition Control (CLASSIC), comms standards
- § B.4 Competition environment: DCS server, MIZ files, MODs, terrain, aircraft
- § B.5 Client requirements and prohibited assistance
- § B.8 Dogfight execution standards
- § B.9 Timing, reporting, troubleshooting
- § B.10 Acronyms and definitions
The Bracket
Eight competitors, single elimination. Seeding is based on competitors’ combined score from the trials phase — highest score is #1, lowest is #8.
Bracket Rules
Three HABFM sets per the PADS on the TacAdmin tab
Each set is won on Unified Impact Score (UIS); the pilot who wins two of the three sets wins the matchup
A 0–0 set stands
Scoring — Unified Impact Score (UIS)
Everything converts to Impact Seconds. Scored per competitor, per set; the higher UIS wins the set, and the pilot who wins two of the three sets wins the matchup. If no kill occurs, UIS alone decides the set — no judging.
This section publishes the complete scoring specification — the same math, thresholds, and detection logic the scorer runs. Nothing is scored that is not written here.
S = TCZ + TOFF + (TDENY × 0.5) + (TPURSUIT × 3.0) + (Ri × 0.75) + (WDEFEAT × 5.0) + (OSHOOT × 15.0) + TBONUS
Engagement States
Every moment of the fight, each competitor is in exactly one of three mutually exclusive states — so TOFF + TDEF + TNEUT = TMATCH:
Offense — all three, simultaneously: AOT ≤ 90° (on or aft of the bandit’s 3/9 line), AON ≤ 45° (bandit within 45° of your nose), range ≤ 5.0 kft
Defense — the bandit meets the Offense criteria on you
Neutral — neither competitor is on Offense
Pursuit is a scored condition, not a fourth state — its range gate (> 5.0 kft) puts it outside all three, so it can only occur while both fighters are Neutral.
Term Definitions
Positional Time
- TCZ Control Zone Time: seconds on Offense inside the bandit’s Control Zone — AOT ≤ 30°, range 800 ft–2.5 kft. The 800 ft floor is deliberate: inside 800 ft you are too close to be in control — that is not the Control Zone
- TOFF Offense Time: total seconds in the Offense state
- TDENY Deny Time: while on Defense, seconds you keep the attacker out of your Control Zone — credited at 0.5 s per denied second. Offense must out-pay defense: earned pressure nets the attacker +0.5 s per second over the defender’s deny credit, so score separation comes from penetrating the Control Zone — not from circling outside it
- TDEF Defensive Time: total seconds in the Defense state. Not a term in S — used only in tie-breaker 4
- TNEUT Neutral Time: total seconds Neutral. Not used in the S calculation
Pursuit
- TPURSUIT Pursuit Time: seconds chasing a fleeing bandit — all three, simultaneously: range > 5.0 kft, your AON ≤ 45° (bandit near your nose), bandit’s AON ≥ 120° (you are near their tail — they are running). Credit begins only after the geometry is held 8.0 s continuously — the first 8 seconds never credit, and breaking any condition resets the sustain clock. Credited at 3.0 s per pursuit second; the fleeing competitor accrues nothing
Running from the fight feeds your opponent. A full-set run donates roughly double the best scoring rate of a fought set — no lead survives it. The runner controls the credit completely and ends it by turning back in. Normal fight resets — mutual extensions, beam separations — earn exactly zero: the cones are tight and the 8-second sustain filters them out.
Gun Effects
- Ri × Tr Rounds on Target: weighted bullet impacts at 0.75 s per weighted hit. Weight tiers are set by the damage each hit does to the target — the fraction of airframe life that hit removes: Vital ×3 (target destroyed by the hit, or ≥ 60%), Major ×2 (> 10% and < 60%), Peripheral ×1 (≤ 10%). Every impact counts, from any range — there is no employment gate on hits. If you hit the jet, you hit the jet
- WDEFEAT × TD Weapons Defeated: +5 s each time you defeat a valid gun employment against you — the attacker’s track broken and held broken ≥ 1.0 s (full detection logic below)
- OSHOOT × TO Overshoot Forced: +15 s per true role reversal — the attacker driven out in front of your 3/9 line. A role reversal is a really big deal
Detection Logic — Gun Solution, Defeats, Overshoots
These are the exact triggers the scorer runs, from telemetry: slant range R, gun-line (boresight) error to the target line-of-sight ε, line-of-sight angular rate ωLOS, gun selected, and each fighter’s angle-off-nose (AON, 0° = on the nose).
Gun Solution (GS) — the definition of a valid gun employment
GS = TRUE when all of the following hold continuously ≥ 0.25 s:
Gun selected
R ≤ 2,500 ft
ε ≤ 3° (bandit within 3° of the gun line)
ωLOS ≤ 15°/s (stable tracking solution)
Weapons Defeated (awards 1 × WDEFEAT)
The attacker’s GS was TRUE, then goes FALSE and stays FALSE ≥ 1.0 s, and
R ≤ 2,500 ft at the instant GS breaks
Cooldown: 2.0 s between counted defeats
Forced Overshoot (awards 1 × OSHOOT)
A true role reversal — the attacker driven out in front of your 3/9 line. Both crossings below must occur within 1.5 s of each other:
the attacker’s AON to you crosses up through 90° (you pass behind the attacker’s 3/9 — the attacker slides out in front), and
your AON to the attacker crosses down through 90° (the attacker enters your forward hemisphere)
Hold: after the later crossing, both hold (attacker AON ≥ 90°, your AON ≤ 90°) continuously ≥ 0.50 s
Role precondition: only a competitor reversing out of a defensive state is credited — you must have been on Defense within 10 s before the earlier crossing. An overshoot cannot be forced from Neutral
Cooldown: 2.0 s between counted overshoots
Precedence: a defeat that would credit within 1.0 s after a credited overshoot is suppressed — the overshoot maneuver itself never also pays a defeat. A defeat credited before the overshoot stands: breaking the shot and forcing the flush that follows are two separate credits
Hold-Window Semantics
“Continuously” means no frame may violate the condition during the hold window; a timer cancels immediately if its enabling condition is lost.
Activation, Match Clock & Kill Bonus
TBONUS = (TMATCH − TKILL) + 50 if a valid kill occurs · TBONUS = 0 if no kill
ActivationScoring and the set clock start at the earlier of: (1) the fighters first closing within 1.0 NM of each other after “Fight’s On”, or (2) Pursuit Activation — the instant one competitor holds pursuit geometry for 8.0 s continuously. Pursuit Activation fires immediately, without waiting for the Merge Window — a runner starts paying the moment pursuit is established. Nothing accrues before activation — no state time, pursuit, hits, defeats, or overshoots
TMATCHFight time limit per set: 180 s, clocked from scoring activation — not from “Fight’s On”
TKILLTime of your first valid kill in the set. Kill = gun kill, CFIT, ejection, fuel mort, or any opponent death condition
TBONUSKill Bonus: flat +50 s kill credit plus the set time remaining at TKILL — finishing fast pays. No kill → TBONUS = 0, full stop: the no-kill case is exactly zero, not the formula evaluated at TKILL = TMATCH
Merge Window
Competitors have 20 seconds from “Fight’s On” to activate scoring — either by closing within 1.0 NM, or by one fighter establishing 8.0 s of pursuit geometry on a running opponent. If neither happens, CLASSIC terminates the set; it is recorded 0-0 and stands — regardless of any pre-activation death, no kill or kill bonus is awarded. If one fighter runs, Pursuit Activation fires the instant the 8-second sustain is met — scoring starts and Pursuit Time accrues right then, not at the 20-second mark. There is no free run.
Pre-Activation Kills
A death condition after “Fight’s On” but before activation counts as a valid kill only if activation subsequently occurs within the Merge Window; its TKILL is clocked at 0 s. If activation never occurs, the set is 0-0 and no kill is awarded.
Mutual Kill Criteria
Kills within 5 seconds of each other are treated as mutual: both pilots receive the kill bonus, computed at the first kill’s timestamp — equal time-remaining for both; no time-differential is awarded between them.
Tie Breakers
Tie Breakers (only if a set’s UIS ties)
Applied within the set, in order:
1 — More finishes (gun kill > no-kill)
2 — Higher (Ri × Tr) — Rounds on Target
3 — Higher TCZ — Control Zone time
4 — Lower TDEF — less time on defense
If all four remain tied — the set is re-flown (sudden death)
0-0 Stands
If both pilots score 0 UIS in a set, the set stands at 0-0; no tie-break is applied.
Constants Quick Reference
Offense gateAOT ≤ 90° · AON ≤ 45° · range ≤ 5.0 kft
Control ZoneAOT ≤ 30° · range 800 ft–2.5 kft
Deny conversion0.5 s per denied second
Pursuit gaterange > 5.0 kft · own AON ≤ 45° · bandit AON ≥ 120°
Pursuit sustain / conversion8.0 s continuous before credit · 3.0 s per pursuit second
Hit weights / conversionVital ×3 (kill or ≥ 60% damage) · Major ×2 (>10–<60%) · Peripheral ×1 (≤ 10%) · 0.75 s per weighted hit · no range gate
Gun Solutiongun selected · R ≤ 2,500 ft · ε ≤ 3° · ωLOS ≤ 15°/s · hold ≥ 0.25 s
Defeat+5 s · GS broken ≥ 1.0 s at R ≤ 2,500 ft · 2.0 s cooldown
Overshoot+15 s · role-reversal crossings paired ≤ 1.5 s · held ≥ 0.50 s · defensive entry required (no credit from Neutral) · 2.0 s cooldown · same-event defeat never double-credits
Kill creditflat +50 s, plus time remaining at TKILL
Match clock180 s per set, from activation
Activation / Merge Window≤ 1.0 NM range · 20 s window · Pursuit Activation the instant 8.0 s pursuit sustain is met (immediate, no window wait)
Mutual-kill window5 s