The goal of the flat scissors is to get into a successful firing position; the attacker and bandit each pull their fighters' noses toward the other, executing consecutive reversing nose-to-nose turns, while trying carefully to use energy depletion methods, or using slightly oblique, out-of-plane turns to get behind the enemy. The resulting flight path looks like scissors in the sense that both fighters approach each other, cross over, and then separate again, over and over while the scissors continues. The maneuver results when both fighters initially bank (or "roll") about 90 degrees toward the opponent and turn (In the theory of fighter combat turning is often called "pulling", due to the pilots' efforts to tighten their turns by pulling back on the control stick - the banked attitude would cause the aircraft to turn in any case in a sustained "1 G" turn, but pulling back on the stick serves to "tighten" (decrease the radius of) the turn. All level turns result in a loss of speed and energy, and the tighter the turn - the more "pull" used - the greater the resulting loss of speed and energy, and in the pilot experiencing higher "g-forces" in the turn) toward the opponent until their flight paths cross, at which point each pilot flies outward trying to assess if he has an offensive advantage or disadvantage, and then reverses his turn (to avoid flying out too far into a disadvantageous position, where a quick turn "reversal" (a 180 degree roll accompanied by the resulting turn) by the enemy would result in the enemy pulling in behind the pilot) by rolling opposite the initial turn by 180 degrees of bank, and pulling toward the opponent again.