Alright this is my first post so i might make a lot of mistakes. I do encourage any suggestion to make this post better though. There is never room short for improvement ^^

So when i was playing with some of our 13th mates i noticed that there are some tips and tricks with the jet that i could share with you guys. Now i know that jet is usually not part of the competitive gaming in battlefield 3 but i hope this post will help you make a better predator in the air.
For this post i will be excluding the F-35, because it has a slightly different mechanic. I will however edit this post and explain the F-35 too.


Flying

-While turning your speed should always be between 315-300. Flying above and below these numbers will widen you turn radius making you an easier target to enemy jet. REMEMBER to compensate the speed loss with afterburner while flying up and to break while flying down.

-After a strafing run on the ground or on a heli you want to use your afterburner to get a moderate distance away from your target before turning around to take an another run.

-DO NOT OVERCOMMIT. The biggest mistakes a jet pilot can make is overcommit on a ground target and crash the jet. If you couldn’t get the target, its ok as long as you didn’t trash you vehicle, you can come back for an another strafe.

-Right-Mouse click and move your mouse to look around in the cockpit. ( fairly basic ). Try and spot enemies on the ground and you can serve as a UAVish support for your team.

Combat

-Your priority as a jet pilot should be the ENEMY JET, as they are the biggest threat to you. After the skies are clear of enemy jet you should focus on the Attack Chopper and the Tanks. Try and support the ground whenever you can, as this is the main role of the jet.

-While in a dogfight I highly recommend switching between 3rd and 1st person views. 3rd for when you are circling, because it offers you a wider field of view and 1st for when you are shooting.

-Lead your shots when shooting an enemy jet while its on a curve. This might see hard at start, but you will get better at judging distance the more you practice.

-Fire in bursts. Jet main cannon doesn’t have a recoil or bullet deviation, but it does have an OVERHEATING mechanism. If the enemy jet is flying straight in front of you try to be as accurate as you can and fire in bursts. If It takes a curve, lead your shots and fire full auto, as the enemy jet will be restricted in manoeuvers while on a turn making his movements easy to predict.

-When an enemy jet is on your back try using unpredictable movements. E.g. Turn left and immediately dive down. Or do a barrel roll . (I can make a video with a few maneuvers I use to lose enemy jet if requested)

-When engaging an AA vehicle it is important you keep your distance. Get too close and it will drop you extremely fast and before you know it, you are disabled. Make distance and empty your rocket pods.

-Dodging heatseekers. You can dodge heatseekers. Its not hard but takes some practice. If it’s a stinger you want to fly up with afterburner and make a sharp turn towards the ground. If its an Aircraft heatseekers try and take a sharp turn towards the target AFTER the missiles are fired. Stingers usually locks faster than an aircraft missile, so be make sure you pay attention to how long it takes for the missile to lock on.

-Use the “below radar”attachment. Most people underestimate this but if you fly near the ground, you cant be locked on by enemy heat seekers and laser painters. Additionally if you have been spotted, that spot will disappear and you will vanish from the enemy air radar. Handy in a dogfights .

-Rocket pods do the same damage at any angle on a tank. But the main cannons on the F35, Flanker-E, Superhornet, Frogfoot and the thunderbolt deals about 4 times more damage on the back.

-When engaging the ground, i highly recommend keeping the "break" button pushed so you fly slower.

Attachments

-Rocket Pods. This in my opinion is the only viable attachment for your jet. (Considering you are not taking the Frogfoot or the Thunderbolt). It is extremely effective against enemy tanks and can be effective for destroying buildings. It can also be used to heavily suppress the enemy infantry. Does 56% if all 14 rockets hit.

-Guided Missiles. Viable attachment. But can get countered easily by smoke and wont disable a tank in 1 shot if the target is NOT soflamed. Can also be blocked by reactive armor.

-Heatseekers. I wouldn’t recommend using these as they can be countered with ease by countermeasures. But if you are quite new to flying and can’t seem to shoot enemy jet with the main gun, this weapon would be your choice. Just don’t forget to train with your main gun, as it is far more effective at destroying jets and helis than the heatseekers.

-Air Radar. Very important to keep track of enemy air vehicles. This attachment is very useful in dogfights because it shows you the position of enemy jet at your back. It also warns you of enemy air vehicle lifting off giving you the chance to warn your teammates ahead.

-Stealth. Possible attachment. You are harder to detect and heatseeking and laserpaint takes longer. But you lose your air radar.

-Flares or ECM jammer? Definitely flares. ECM jammers don’t have such a high chance to deflect rockets compared to the attack choppers. And I have had problems with ECM jammers not launching while im getting locked on. Short: They are unreliable. If get locked just flare and use afterburner to fly out of range. You can still possibly use the ECM jammer smoke trail to blind the enemy jet behind you, but it’s a long shot.

SU-25TM Frogfoot & A10 Thunderbolt II

-These jets have the GAU-8 Avenger. A heavy rotary cannon designed to take out tanks. in other words: you can take out armor extremely easily with the main cannon of the frogfoot and the thunderbolt. You should always use the main cannon on these jets as it is the most powerful weapon and overpower rocket pods.

-However the Thunderbolt and the Frogfoot dont have the afterburner so they lack in speed compared to the Flanker-E and the super hornet. Their strength lies however in sheer fire power.

Jet Keybindings

This can vary from people to people. For example i use the default setup with keyboard and mouse =P. Some people uses joysticks. And here is an alternative for the keyboard and mouse. From what i have seen this setup can be very effective. But i just havent gotten used to it xD.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8hro0A2wCww&feature=plcp

And while you are there check out Rival Iocane's channel. Some nice tips there too

I will definitely be using tips from here, nice job

Thnx! If there are any mistakes please point it out

This is very comprehensive, better than what I thought might have been said . Didn't realise there was this much to a jet lol.

Only mistake I can see is on my behalf. I am "OVER COMMITTED" lol.. I would rather go down in a HUGE fireball and crash into that 1 tank in the whole map than turn around and try again..

I shall pay attention to these tips

DO A BARREL ROLL! xD

Nice tips Saphix, but the optimal speed for turning is 315km/h so the speed should be 300-330km/h.
And you didn't put the guided missle to the attachments. It is a nice weapon if you know how to use it.
And to dodge a missile fired from an enemy jet, the best tactics is to roll 180 degrees (so you are up side down), and then pull hard on the stick (or mouse but I recomend joystick) so you enter a dive, and then pull back again so you end up parallel to the ground. The rocket will lose you 90% of the time. You just have to be careful that you are high enough unless you want to nose dive straight into the ground!

F-35 sucks! Flanker is more way more manuverable. Yes it has the hover ability but it's not very useful. So when I'm playing B2K I ALWAYS use the flanker.

hope it helps!

Oh and I almost forgot. When you are being chased by a jet, you can do a manouver called "speed dumping" (like in the mission going hunting). So you kick in the afterburners and reach max speed. Then you smash the brakes and pull up just a little bit. If you do it right the enemy will have no time to brake, fly past, and you will end up chasing him! You just need to be careful that he's not to far behind because he can shot you down easily if he slows down in time.

dont use rocketpods. use guided missiles.. much easier to kill infantry and rocketpods are way underpowered

Ok guys thnx for the replies.

First, in my opinion the rocket pods are way better than the guided missles. Why? well rocket pods CANNOT be countered. ^^ You are a tank driver and u get locked on by a guided missile? well easy enough just pop smoke and its done. By the time comes for an another run with guided missile the cooldown on smoke is done. So theoretically if everyone takes smoek on tanks, the jets wont hit anything ^^. Where as rocket pods you can use smoke, it wont help you . i used to use guided missiles because it used to look cool. But i mean. no guaranteed hit and only a disable on a single hit? You can get a disable with 1 rocket pod run too. And you cant kill infantry with guided missiles. Rocket pods might not do much dmg on inf, but it does do A LOT OF SUPPRESION. But i use the main cannon for the infantry anyway.

Second. The reason why i put 300-315 is because you turn radius is actually bigger when OVER 315 than under 315. Ofcourse it is critical to stay perfectly at 315, but nobody can do that unless they got some speed modifying hack . thats why i put 300-315, which gives you the optimum speed. Just make sure you dont go over or under these numbers.

Thirdly. Im not sure what you mean choffix but i think we mean the same thing. If you are getting locked on by heat seekers. You just turn and fly towards the source of the missile. But in the case of stingers, you usually cannot see the source, so thats why i wrote "fly to the ground" as this will give you the highest chance ot dodging the missile.

And lastly. Speed dumping usually doesnt workr anymore because they removed handbrakes. Breaking is really slow now so you will be like a sitting duck. Well i have never fallen for a speed dump . Speed dump puts your speed under 300 and you lose your maneuverability. No maneuverability = easy prey. But i shall put it in the post as an option.

Oh and forgot. The F35 DOESNT SUCK!!! It doesnt mean that it sucks just because you dont understand the mechanics of it. I will try and explain how the jet works and hopefully it will help you fly the F35 too

I use speed dumping and it works 90% of the time. You just need to do it right.

And yes, we ment the same thing only I described the exact manouver how to dodge missiles fired from jets.

And I ALWAYS win a dogfight against the F-35! I don't know if I'm flying against noob pilots or the jet sucks. The only good thing that this jet does is speed dumping. You just enter hover mode and wait for the enemy jet to fly by.

Oh and I also use guided missile. I can fire a every single rocket in a tank and not even disable it. Yeah I know that damage is calculated from angle of attack, where do rockets hit and stuff like that, but the rockets are really underpowered.

A lot of good tips there, I think my only problem is being over committed sometimes Looking forward to when you add the bit about the F35, I can't get my head around the mechanics

A quick update here

So me and Blakhole tested some things out. Rocket pods do 4% damage on tanks on ANY SIDE. So the things i said about rocket pods doing more damage in the back or less at an angle is a myth. If you add up the damage from 14 rockets it does a total of 56% damage. Additionally, rocket pods IGNORES reactive armor, where as the guided missiles can get stopped by reactive , IF the target isnt SOFLAMED. A guided missile into an UNSOFLAMED target wont disable it and will leave the tank at about 55ish%.

The main jet gun on the Flanker-E, Superhornet, Frogfoot, Thunderbolt and the F35 will do more damage if you shoot on the back of the tank. The Flanker-E and the superhornet main gun will do about 80% damage ,if shot on the back of the tank WITHOUT missing a single shot. ( which is nearly impossible but you get the idea ). With the Frogfoot and the Thunderbolt you will do up to 4 times as much damage in the back compared to the front.
I still have to test out the F35 main gun damage, because i read a post that the F35 as a stronger cannon.

what i meant by easier to kill infantry is because the guided missile has a much larger zoom, making it much easier to spot infantry allowing you to line up your crosshairs for maingun.
But on pc i have heard that if you have high enough graphics infantry are lots easier to see just in regular zoom.

And with guided missiles i usually dont even use the missile i just use it to spot. and when i do use the missile its on tanks if a helicopter is trying to destroy it. but i use maingun on jeeps and what not.
as for rush jets you might as well use guided missiles just for spotting seeing as to how you can destroy a tank in 2 seconds with mg.

In my opinion i find that when a jet is coming head on with heatseakers or when you are attacking an attack chopper that is locking you, ir flares almost never work. So i would suggest ecm the only bad thing about it is that if you get locked by javs or stinger you will usually get shot down..Than you could land and repair you jet though.
I find that rush jets are better with ir flares though.. just because when you start killing the infantry and the armor they usually come out with stingers. but the cq jets i run with ecm 80% of the time Ir flares 20% of the time.

And this "speed dumping"... just don't do it 99.99% of the time ill shoot you down.

Btw for console it almost impossible to stay at 300-315 so try for at least 290-320
because thats the best you will do.

Well, redviper you are a pro pilot! Shaking a pro pilot is very difficult. I only use speed dumping if I know that the person sitting in the other jet is not pro. I always first test him out and see if he's easy to shake or shot down. If I see he's a pro, I know that I won't last long xD. But If I see he is a noobish pilot or an advrage, I know that I can use speed dumping on him (LOL that sounded wrong xD). I use it and it works. If you prefer another tactic use it!

Anyway, you should always evaluate the enemy pilot to see what's he capable of.

Thnx for the post. I agree with the most part.

But if you use the guided missiles just for zooming, how do you take out armor? (and i mean the normal jets not the rush jets) Ofcourse i also use the main gun in rush because it is just way stronger. A full rocket pod can take out 56% damage on a tank = disable.

And i have noticed that you play on the PS3. Im not sure how it is there but on the PC the ECm on the jet is still kinda broken. As i have said, I would spam the X button when getting locked on and sometimes the ECM wont deploy. Until now Flares have never failed me on the PC when i timed it right.

to take out armor ill usually do guided missile+use main cannon if they dont flair it usually takes them to 40% or so. if they do flare i just use the cannon which takes 3 strafes or so

I just like reading this discussion

Saphixicore and Choffix, you two should make a dogfighting video between you two I am going to try these tips out, jets are not my specialty.

try then with red in a jet on the other team

hehehe thnx

thebronxbomber wrote:

I just like reading this discussion

Saphixicore and Choffix, you two should make a dogfighting video between you two I am going to try these tips out, jets are not my specialty.

1 on 1 Falcons Dogfight tournament?

Ahahaha. Yes!!!

oh yeah! nice idea Death!
and thanks bronx!

it should be noted that even though you think ECM is unreliable ( wich unfortunatly I sometimes have to agree with ) you are also being hidden from radar for it's duration. so when is the chopper guide coming?

Yeah i didnt mention but the ECM does hide you on radars for the duration of it activated. Pretty usefull in Dogfights ^^

yes it is

I was thinking maybe a tank guide with Armoured Kill coming soon? There isn't a lot to it to be fair though.

still a lot of things flying around in armored kill anyway would be nice if some1 did something about tanking like the reactive dance and peeking