After playing several games, I'm starting to think that a variant of the ace skill Height Control should be allowed for all aircraft as part of the normal rules. How it would work is:

- If you have climb counters: You may elect to, instead of descending an altitude level, to stay at the same altitude and remove all your climb counters.

- When descending an altitude, you may elect to either:
1. End up one altitude lower with no climb counters.
2. End up one altitude lower with 1 climb counter.

The reason for this is that, particularly when intercepting bombers, we generally try to end up with some planes having climb counters (any number), and some planes none, to prevent collisions. This led to the awkward situation of, once climbing above the bomber to break off, having to do a dive, then a climb the next turn, to make another pass at the bomber without the risk of collision. These rules basically let you decide whether to have climb counters or not, without creating awkward cases of having to do a combination of dives and climbs to end of at the altitude below your current one you want, rather than simply being able to descend to the level you want in the first place, without making it too precise.

Perhaps (but only perhaps) to make it more planned, at the end of the phase before revealing a dive, after tailing is revealed to other aircraft, but before tailing is revealed to your aircraft, take a counter and place it face down. If it's a straight, you lose your current climb counters and stay at the same altitude, If it's a steep, descend a full level with no climb counters. If it's an Immelman, descend one level and end up with 1 climb counter.

Thoughts?