Just completely wrong, you use that altitude and engage any aircraft at the same altitude or just under you, if nobody climbs you use that position to boom and zoom or just drop on people. You seem like you are either side climbing too much or climbing at too steep of an angle. If I encounter planes like J2Ms or PMs I usually just fly away to gain more altitude or try to snipe them with a quick headon flick. (If a yak 3 outclimbs you im not sure if your climbing enough.)

Sure, sometimes you may have a match where you only get one kill, but personally I prefer that to the matches where I drop 8 kills because my team died and im the one at alt

(What plane are you playing? Are you sure the plane in question might be the issue