Aerial Combat Tips
If you are a half decent pilot and want to decrease your death rate in planes then do this. I MUST WARN YOU THIS ONLY WORKS SOMETIMES!!
Ok lets say your flying around at Wake and a Chinese pilot comes after you. He gets a missle lock. What do you do. I have learned that if you pull straight up like your going to do a half loop but insead keep flying up. As your nose comes starts to point upwards hit your after burners to get out of sight quicker. You may loose him, you may not. If the pilot is a noob he probably wont know where you went or think you turned around. If the pilot is good he may see you and continue after you (in which case dive straight down and start turning hard either left or right) or he may say to "heck with it" and go bomb your carrier. Then fly away from that spot, come back to regular altitude and go get the drop on him. (This all helps if you have a joystick and have some experince with fligh sims) Also if you are in an F-35 on a carrier it IS possible to take off without VTOL. Just gun your afterburners and pull hard up. This is helpful if the enemy pilots are beasts and you need a quick takeoff. Dont try to VTOL over the carrier to re-arm and defintly DONT run out of missles an then re-arm. Fly over your base frequently when you have time or have only 2-3 missles left. (Save them for emergencies since it takes 2 to kill a plane) Finally try to use your gun whenever you can especially against helos since their flares re-arm quickly and by the time you shoot your missles, miss come around and shoot again they will just deploy more and more running you dry. As always practice bombing on a empty server for practice makes perfect.
In Game Name: deathfromabove2010
Ok lets say your flying around at Wake and a Chinese pilot comes after you. He gets a missle lock. What do you do. I have learned that if you pull straight up like your going to do a half loop but insead keep flying up. As your nose comes starts to point upwards hit your after burners to get out of sight quicker. You may loose him, you may not. If the pilot is a noob he probably wont know where you went or think you turned around. If the pilot is good he may see you and continue after you (in which case dive straight down and start turning hard either left or right) or he may say to "heck with it" and go bomb your carrier. Then fly away from that spot, come back to regular altitude and go get the drop on him. (This all helps if you have a joystick and have some experince with fligh sims) Also if you are in an F-35 on a carrier it IS possible to take off without VTOL. Just gun your afterburners and pull hard up. This is helpful if the enemy pilots are beasts and you need a quick takeoff. Dont try to VTOL over the carrier to re-arm and defintly DONT run out of missles an then re-arm. Fly over your base frequently when you have time or have only 2-3 missles left. (Save them for emergencies since it takes 2 to kill a plane) Finally try to use your gun whenever you can especially against helos since their flares re-arm quickly and by the time you shoot your missles, miss come around and shoot again they will just deploy more and more running you dry. As always practice bombing on a empty server for practice makes perfect.
In Game Name: deathfromabove2010
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Using rear view is a MUST for pilots--for checking your tail and also useful for seeing where your bombs hit. I've gotten to the point that I sometimes have entire dogfights in rear camera (yes I play this game WAY too much). It's possible to deny a J10 a shot simply by weaving back and forth constantly, turning every time you see him follow your last turn, provided he's close enough. I've kept J10s at bay for several minutes at a time with that technique (in the F-35 too), allowing my wingman or friendly AA to take him out (you can lead him to the carrier)--all of which has the added bonus of also being very much like Top Gun. 
When in the F-35, you can combine this technique with the 'going high' tactic that sweet69 mentioned. Pump that afterburner to the hilt and keep doing half-loops (aka Immelmans) all the way up to the 700s. Up here your afterburner will propel you WAY faster than the J10 can go, allowing you to escape even if he was good enough to follow you that far. Just be sure to keep your eyes on that altimeter so you don't break 800, because the speed you'll be going at will send you off the map and into death real quick.
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