I don't know whether it was intentional or not, but we don't play it that way. We've been playing it wrong (unintentionally), but I like the way we play it better.
We roll one die for both tight turns and half loops. I can't think of any reason why you'd make a half loop that much more difficult to perform.
Other than a design flaw in the rules. Besides, it already costs 8 MPs when successful.

On a different topic, I ran a game last night for four of my gaming friends, three of which are long time hard core wargamers. They had no serious issues with the rules, other than the following.
For banking, we restricted them to only the direction of the current order marker. For a left turn, you can only bank left. For a right turn you can only bank right. And for a straight maneuver you can bank either direction, and even both during the same movement phase.
Tailing was the other area of concern. They like the concept, but there are a couple of situations where it's probably a little too effective.
The case we had was where a plane flew in behind another and got a rear shot off. The plane being tailed then activated later in the turn, and was shot at again by the first plane.
Simply put, we're going to restrict tailing shots to those planes that have yet to be activated during a turn. Once a plane has been activated, it no longer gets a tailing shot.
There also is the case where a plane is tailing another plane, but has to activate before the plane being tailed. Per the rules, the tailing plane can make an attack before it actually moves. This makes sense. But the fact that it can't attack at the end of it's move kind of contradicts other situations when a tailing plane can attack two times during a turn.
I don't have a "release" version of the rules, so the above areas may have already been addressed.
Kevin

I'll give that approach a try in my next game.  It does seem to me that the 2xturn cost in MP is sufficient to differentiate a half loop from a tight turn - one die might suffice for both.  I do like, by the way, that you pretty much have to dive into a tight turn or half loop - makes wonderful aerodynamic sense. 

Doug

But you already do that by having a half loop cost double the movement points of a tight turn.
I can't think of any fighter that just flat out can't perform a half loop. And having the mechanic you do now pretty much eliminates some of them from even trying one.
Just keep the maneuver attempts at a single d6 regardless of the maneuver being attempted, while adjusting the MP expense based on the maneuver being attempted, and you'll be pooping in tall cotton.
Pooping in tall cotton I say!

Kevin
PS: While it might not seem like it, pooping in tall cotton is considered a good thing.

A thought occurred to me today (it happens sometimes, despite the meds :shock: ) about this subject.  What if you simply remove the restriction that an aircraft must begin each turn with it's TR in straight ahead movement?  If you allow a plane to begin it's movement with an immediate turn, there is more buffer for the die rolls, allowing more chances for a plane with a high TR to successfully complete a maneuver.  This could be done in place of, or in conjunction with, using just the one die roll for half loops.

This approach will, it's true, arbitrarily making the planes more maneuverable by allowing them to go directly from one maneuver into another across the turn-turn gap, but so what?  The original way is arbitrarily making them LESS maneuverable.  The obvious middle road, of course, is to carry over hexes of forward movement from turn to turn.  This could be done fairly easily with a D6 on the flight stand, but I'm not sure I want the additional record keeping and/or focal point for disagreements. 

What do y'all think?

Doug

Me too.  It'd be ok with just a few planes, but a few planes is not the point.   :?

Doug

True enough... although with the counters already out on the board for altitude and maneuver, do you think dice would be too much clutter?