Here’s the link to a pdf of the book, scroll down to Chapter Six. It’s the best piece of nautical prose I’ve ever read, and worth reading even if you don’t give a fig about 18th century naval warfare.

https://readerslibrary.org/wp-content/uploads/Hornblower-and-the-Hotspur.pdf

For example, the faster plane has the advantage, or the pilot which speeds up first. The pilot in front has the disadvantage, Pilots win by taking advantage of things like roll rate, turning radius, rate-of-climb and other aircraft performance parameters. In general, it is better to be above and behind your opponent.

Key to it all is kinetic energy. The more kinetic energy you can acquire, (say by climbing above your enemy and diving) the more speed you will have. Assuming the aircraft are comparable in performance, the pilot in the better position will win. And the pilot who first recognizes what he has to do to get into a better position, will win. So its all about training, muscle memory, situational awareness.

In the real world, it may be a bit more complicated, since both planes may have different pros and cons. Some may have faster roll rates, or perform better or worse at different altitudes. The pilot (or AI) must be aware of this and avoid his own weaknesses and exploit his opponents. The mission matters, too. An escort fighter’s main mission is to protect his bombers. an interceptor’s job is to shoot down those bombers. Their optimum tactics will be very different if they simply meet one another in an empty sky.

Abd the most important factor of all is speed. The guy in the faster plane can CHOOSE whether he wants to fight or fly, depending on the circumstances of the encounter, The slow guy does not have that luxury, his enemy will always have the initiative.

I don’t know much about aerial combat, but I have studied the tactics of sailing ship actions. All else being equal, the Captain with the weather-gage has the advantage. He always has the choice of either attacking or not. The leeward vessel can only respond.

An encounter between two skilled Captains sailing comparable vessels during the age of sail was usually preceded by elaborate maneuver ballets and tacking duels as each ship endeavored to work his way to windward of his opponent. From what I’ve read about most aerial combat, unless its an ambush and somebody gets jumped, both pilots spend all their fuel trying to maneuver into an advantageous position. The faster plane can always escape whenever he likes. The slow guy, whatever his other advantages, has no choice but to fight.

A computer can think faster and will make no mistakes. It will have an edge over a human pilot, even if it is not AI. It will know precisely the advantages and disadvantages of every maneuver before it executes it. It will only make moves that are advantageous to it, or if necessary, will only make the least disadvantageous maneuver when it has no good move to make.

Similar results occur when good pilots in good aircraft, do battle, unless one starts off from an advantageous position, they usually dogfight until they run low on fuel or ammo and are forced to break off the engagement. If there is a victory, is usually because one of them just made a mistake; perhaps not a critical error, but one that caused him to lose a minor advantage.

My grandfather used to say, in regards to chess, “A novice player trades pieces for pieces. A strong player trades pieces for positions. A champion trades position for position.”