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alt title(s): Missile Tag Classic aviation scenario. The enemy is right behind you, on your tail, six o'clock and closing hard, with a lock-on, you in his sights and you just can't shake them.
So what do you do? There's no way you can return fire, not with them right behind you. Evasive action might delay the inevitable, but you need to do something to take them out for good. Some kind of really evasive action, some kind of suicidally evasive action...
Look there, a conveniently placed canyon! Of course! By flying through the narrow winding canyon at top speed, not only can you display your flying prowess, but your pursuers either won't be able to keep up or will smash themselves to pieces on the canyon walls in the attempt! You can win the day while looking cool!
What's this, though? One plucky pursuer somehow managed to keep up. There's only one thing for it: You'll have to dive into the ground as fast as possible in a crazy game of airborne chicken! Be sure to pull up at the very last second, so you can be properly framed against the giant explosion of your opponent splatting himself against the landscape in the most dramatic manner. Don't worry, your victory is assured. As the hero, you're granted +5 turning ability while flying.
We're still being followed though. Damn, somehow that last one must have got a missile off before the end. No, don't be stupid, of course we won't use chaff or flares to lure it away, those are for wimps! Never fear, we can put this to good use. As it happens, I forgot to pack the missiles this morning, but if you fly straight toward the target and then swerve away at the last second, we can destroy the enemy HQ with one of their own missiles! Mmmmmmm, I just love the taste of ironic destruction.
Named after the Quidditch technique where one team's Seeker will pretend to see the Snitch near the ground and go into a dive to attempt to lure the opposing Seeker into crashing into the ground. Don't worry if you've never heard of the Wronski Feint, it's only mentioned once in an obscure little book called Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire; probably not many people have read it.
Compare Top Gunned, Try And Follow.
Examples of the Wronski Feint:
- Occurred in Real Life, as seen on History Channel's Dogfights show. In the episode, "Desert Aces", the to-be Israeli jet ace Geora Epstein is chasing a MiG-21, which tries to shake him off by doing a Split-S maneuver at dangerously low altitude - a Suicidal Gotcha. At first Epstein thought he had crashed and died... but then, the MiG began rising out of the swirling storm of sand kicked up by his jet afterburners. The feat was Awesome But Impractical, and Epstein used common sense, casually flying up to the struggling MiG and scragging it with his cannon.
- As mentioned above, it was demonstrated quite effectively in the Quidditch World Cup by Viktor Krum in the book Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire.
- This Troper has used this in Star Fox 64. Team Starwolf would tail you unmercifully. You COULD pull an Immelmann Turn and shoot whoever was following you that way - but it's waaay more fun to fly almost right into a pillar, then pull an Immelmann, and have Wolf die an instantaneous death. Cue Evil Laugh.
- However, due to technical limitations this would only work if you had the victim in your sight.
- In the first Fantastic Four movie, the Human Torch uses the Wronski Feint to dispose of a missile, when his attempt to lure it with flares proved ineffective.
- Han Solo and the Millennium Falcon do this in The Empire Strikes Back during the famous asteroid chase scene.
- Slightly different from the normal Wronski Feint in that the TIE Fighters were simply too big to fit through, while the Falcon could turn sideways and be skinny enough to fit through a tiny crack in the canyon wall.
- Gundam Evolve 7, a computer-generated short based on Gundam Wing, has Heero use the colony cannon he's attempting to destroy for a Wronski Feint.
- Galaxy Quest uses magnetic space mines in a Wronski Feint to destroy the Big Bad alien's flagship.
- Truth In Television: Roald Dahl recounts in his autobiography, Going Solo, that he flew his Hurricane very close to the ground to escape a group of pursuing German fighter planes. Not a full example, as he did not succeed in taking down any of those planes by doing this.
- This is actually fairly common in general in air combat although admittedly less often by design of one of the participants then the victim just losing track of where he is in the confusion of combat and flying
into something.
- A real-life inversion occurred when WWII German ace Erich Hartmann (coincidentally the highest-scoring fighter pilot of all time, with 352 kills), attacked a flight of 4 Russian IL-2 Sturmovik attack planes. The Sturmoviks dived to get away, but were so heavily loaded with bombs they themselves smashed into the ground.
- At least four confirmed air-to-air combat kills in the first Gulf War came from this: an American plane would pull a tight half-loop which the less-maneuverable Iraqi plane couldn't match.
- At least one example of the missile version happens in Star Wars Clone Wars: Anakin, pursued by a large numbers of enemy fighters, orders his squadron of clone pilots to fire their missiles across the bow of a capital ship and then lures the enemy fighters into the path of the missiles.
- The Lightcycles in TRON use a unique variant, creating their own walls for their pursuers to crash into. They use the standard version when there's a wall already in place.
- Skandranon, the hero of the Mercedes Lackey & Larry Dixon novel The Black Gryphon does this in the first chapter of the book.
- Occurs unintentionally in Red Vs Blue Reconstruction. The reds are fleeing from a pair of freelancers in a car chase. Grif races towards a cliff, believing he can make the jump over the river, but changes his mind at the last second and brakes just in time. The freelancers are not so lucky and go flying off the edge. Simmons shoots them with the car's turret as they go down for good measure.
- The finale of Justice League Unlimited had Batman do this with the Omega Effect (self-guided Eye Beams of Ret Gone); he throws down a Mook he passes trying to elude it so said Mook bounces into the Effect's path at just the right moment.
- The Gargoyles use this trick against the Steel Clan a couple of times.
- Late in the second season, one of them ecen lampshades it: "It's amazing how many times that works"
- In the movie Blue Thunder, the hero (flying the titular helicopter) dodges two heat seeking missiles fired at him by military F-16s by luring them into the sun reflecting off a skyscraper and a Chinese barbecue.
Examples of the canyon technique:
- This happened in Real Life, as shown in an episode of Dogfights on History Channel, "MiG Alley". USAF F-86 Sabre pilot Robbie Risner and his flight encountered a flight of 4 MiG-15s in MiG Alley and engaged them. Risner shot off the lead MiG honcho's canopy, prompting the Soviet pilot to take dangerously evasive action with a Split-S maneuver at low altitude. The MiG pilot miraculously survives and the chase descends into a dry river bed. The honcho brakes and accelerates but can't shake off the Sabres, which inflict a bit more damage. After rolling over a small mountain, both the MiG pilot and Risner again race through the river bed side by side. The MiG breaks off and leads the chase to his base in China, hoping AA fire will shake the F-86s off his tail. It fails and Risner gets another shot, setting fire to the MiG's wing. The MiG pilot tries to land in desperation, but the Sabres are still after him and shoot him down over the runway. The burning MiG crashes on to a row of parked MiG-15s, destroying them all, to end what was an incredibly awesome real-life chase.
- The movie Stealth inverts this trope by having the out-of-control robot plane use it to dispose of one of the hero's squadron.
- Will Smith uses this trope to escape the pursuing space invaders in Independence Day.
- When a conveniently placed canyon is not available in X-Men 2, Halle Berry's character, Storm, uses her weather manipulating powers to create one from tornadoes, giving the X-men jet a chance to escape.
- In X-Men Evolution, a more unusual form of this is done to evade missiles and fighter pursuit. Instead of bothering to pull out of the dive, Kitty Pryde phases the entire jet through a mountainside. The missiles crash harmlessly into the rock and the pilots (not knowing about mutants) swear never to speak of it again.
- Subverted (of course) in the Firefly episode "The Message". When this trope is attempted by Serenity, the pursuing ship simply flies above the canyon, keeping the ship in view. And when the heroes try to hide, the pursuers flush them out with saturation bombing.
- The film version of The Hunt for Red October has two Wronski Feints. The first time is the Red October using the canyon technique (remember, underwater), and the second time the October manages to lead an incoming torpedo right into the bow of the (more maneuverable "Alfa" class) sub that fired it in the first place.
- Hot Shots has Charlie Sheen's character luring enemies into a canyon and Top Gunning them by stepping on the brakes. Yes, he's piloting an airplane. No, that's not because it's cool.
- airbrakes!
- He later pulls off the "missile" variant, when he's being tailed by one (possibly more) heat-seeking missile. His own plane is out of ammunition save for bombs, so he lets the missile[s] follow him to Saddam's base to use as extra ordinance.
- Rescue on Fractalus was originally going to have this be the only way to defeat enemies; George Lucas said that was silly.
- The Millennium Falcon performs this version too, in the attack on the second Death Star in Return of the Jedi. Complete with Outrun The Fireball for extra Tropey Goodness!
- How can we forget the canyon chase in the asteroid field from The Empire Strikes Back? Probably the most well known example of this.
- And then again in the prequels, several occasions.
- The Star Wars Expanded Universe loves this in general. If a book has "X-Wing" in the title (and even occasionally if it doesn't), expect there to be at least one Wronski Feint of some sort.
- The Futurama episode A Clone of My Own features an extended parody of the above scene during the escape from the Near-Death Star.
- The series Tale Spin did this all the time with Baloo being a master pilot. For instance, in the climax of the first story, Baloo leads a merry aerial chase into the bowels of the city, causing all his pursuers to eventually crash and him crowing "If you can't fly, don't mess with the eagles!"
- Another episode had Baloo pull up in front of a wall in a cave. Don Karnage hit it, with the statement "What a lousy place for a wall!"
- Because this troper can't find a land-based version of this trope, he'll put in the played-straight example from the original Terminator. Sarah and Reese are driving flat-out in a parking garage with Ah-nult just behind them. Sarah spots the wall but Reese is too distracted to listen to her (you know, what with the gunfire and all). Sarah slams her car into park, but Ah-nult doesn't react in time to avoid hitting the wall at top speed. Of course, with him being a cyborg and all, this is just a minor inconvenience.
- For a half-and-half, air-and-land version, one Garfield comic strip had the titular feline chasing a bird at ground-level, at full speed, only to have the bird pull up sharply (90° angle!) at the base of a tree. Garfield did not dodge.
- Truth In Television: An unarmed Israeli Fouga Magister trainer aircraft got an Egyptian MiG-21 on its tail during the Six Day War in 1967. It flew through a bunch of canyons. The faster MiG couldn't pull out and crashed. The Israeli pilot got credit for the kill despite having no weapons whatsoever.
- Subverted slightly earlier with an Israeli Mirage III chasing a Jordanian Hawker Hunter. It was the Hunter in this case that ended up in the Mirage's gun sight- resulting in a kill. The pilot would have been happier had the ejecting Jordanian pilot not smashed into a wall as he ejected (pilots generally prefer their enemies to eject - chivalry, professional courtesy and all that).
- This troper remembers a WWI air combat wargame, complete with a set of tips for winning dogfights. One tip was for the case where your enemy is behind you, but you have an excellent understanding of your craft. You take your plane to the bare minimum altitude for a split-S (tilt over, then pull a 180 down). If this is done correctly, and your opponent isn't quite so good, the game promises that "the cumulogranite clouds will wipe him off your tail for you".
- This troper owns an obscure Techno-thriller called Storming Intrepid wherin a pilot does this. He flies down a canyon and through an arch with less than six feet to spare on each side. The opposing pilot pulls up, thinking the first guy crashed, and the first guy simply pulls up behind him and lights him up. Admittedly, it was a laser dogfight. The second pilot later realizes that if he had tried to follow the first guy, he would've crashed anyway, and the first guy must be a sociopath to risk both their lives on an interservice competition. He's right.
- In the intro for Wing Commander Privateer, the player character lures a pirate's missiles around an asteroid, and then sends them back at the firing craft. How he did that in a ship that can't outrun or outturn the missiles is an exercise best left for those who forget the MST 3 K Mantra.
- In an Episode of Storm Hawks, Aerrow tries this to defeat the Dark Ace. As demonstrated earlier in the episode, the very end of the canyon is so narrow, one must turn their fliers to motorcycle mode to get through, and then back again as to not plummet to the ground. The trick here is that earlier in the battle, Aerrow stuck a wrench into the Dark Ace's wing mechanism earlier in the fight, preventing him from retracting them.
- So, the good guys won by cheating?
- More by being a Combat Pragmatist. Besides, in that same episode, Dark Ace and the Cyclonians had rigged a race to weaken a bunch of Sky Knights to leave them vulnerable to capture, so it's not as if Aerrow's bit of dirty fighting was the worst thing in the episode.
- In the original Wing Commander game, one of your fellow pilots suggests that asteroid fields are great equalizers when you're outnumbered. Asteroids are great shields, and you only have to concentrate on not hitting them, while your pursuers have to divide their attention between shooting you and not crashing. Sooner or later, they're more likely to screw up than you are. While it actually didn't work out that way in that game, it sometimes does in the later games or the Free Space series.
- This Troper managed repeatedly, in Privateer, to make the bad guys chase him through an asteroid field, and get scraped off by some floating bit of astrogeography. The trick is to take advantage of a quirk of the game engine, where if you repeatedly pitch or yaw (but not both) back and forth quickly while on afterburners, you can usually keep the game engine from drawing fatal rocks in front of you before it gets out of view with the next zig (no, not the ones you move). Particularly useful when in an underpowered ship and Gothri show up, or the "disgruntled pirate ambush" missions.
- Dan Dare actually went and subverted this in at least one of its iterations, during the 'All Treens Must Die' storyline. After being released from his imprisonment for genocide as Earth, now with its defences offline, came under a surprise assault from the Mekon's invasion force, in a last, desperate bid to do something, Dan and his crew were bunged into the Anastasia and told to do whatever they could. When one enemy fighter launched a missile on their tail, Dan tried to use the Wronski Feint with a local canyon to escape it. Unfortunately, the missile was just as good, and his attempts to get back out of the canyon were thwarted by fighter wings at a higher altitude keeping them pinned down. With a mountain looming up ahead, Dan tried pulling straight up anyway, noted the missile was still unfazed, and just turned to his crew and apologised. Annie promptly took the missile up the tailpipe.
- A Variation in the Area 88 OAV, where several pilots fly through a canyon to avoid SAM batteries. Many don't make it.
- Cheetor tries this with a canyon that has many close pillars in Beast Wars. Even though he manages to shake off the Mooks with this technique, Megatron just plows head-first right through the pillars to no ill effect.
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