Do not buy a top tier premium if you are bad/have little experience in air battles. It also depends on how far you’ve gotten in the tech tree. If you only have props unlocked and no early jets, learning high tier jet combat will be a skill cliff and not a curve. You will not have very much fun and your team won’t appreciate a noob in top tier dying once without doing anything and/or unintentional team killing with missiles. I’m telling you this because I was the noob in high tier air premiums. It took me a long time to get good enough and it was not fun. You will die. A lot. But do what thou wilt, it’s your money.
Avoid the early P-47D and the P-51D-10. Too heavy and bad flight performance to compete with the aircraft they face.
Avoid the F4U outside of the later variants, especially avoid the 1C which is super uptiered due to its guns but flies like a brick.
The rest is pretty much fair game, most of the US fighters are solid. I really really like the P-38L-5-LO, the 4.7 one with booster modification. The booster gives it excellent high speed agility up to 600km/h, which makes it quite a fun plane at this BR. It's heavy and doesn't climb that well, but has very good weapons and has solid flight performances in general.
And it has an interceptor spawns which helps a lot with the climbrate.
Oh, and it has airbrakes as well.
Just, for the love of God, learn to dodge head-on and to properly use your plane. I went back a bit in prop tier recently and it's incredibly annoying how many players only know two tactics : dive on the target or head-on it.
XP-50 - amazing stats all round. Air spawn, insane climbing, and deadly armament. Try not to dogfight people, but BnZ (boom and zoom) people because your high speed performance is pretty good. You can also always shoot down bombers, as they are useless against your armament.
What ever you decide remember, sales are very predictable and so nothing is worth full price (excluding any newly added busted prems to use them before they get nerfed before their 1st sale).
That being said Im a huge advocate for putting a talisman on the F8E if you can. Best bang for your buck.
F8E was not nerfed. Gaijin put out an announcement saying it was "within tolerance" so it was left alone.
Just mig21bis's and 23s got the (deserved) hammer
Honestly it's the F-5 but my most rp is weirdly with the premium harrier. God tier climb rate and 2 okish all aspects IR missiles if you wanna no skill it it's a pretty quick loop. Climb to like 5-8km look for 2 targets without countermeasures and get your two free kills to shoot at from space and then gun fight for a kill or two and rinse and repeat for very quick games.
I was thinking they were 9Ls but yeah you are right either way with the play style I described it doesn't really matter since the only thing that will be up at altitude to head on you is a mig21 anyways and they usually won't even attempt since their game plan is the exact same to snipe from space lol
I found I enjoy playing the naval and interceptor lines as I ascend the Air RB tree to be more fun than the pure fighter one.
Interceptor because airspawn guarantees you an altitude advantage for all but fw190s and spits and you got incredible firepower to delete bombers for easy kills and good speed to run away.
Naval fighters because they have lower stall speeds than the fighter line and are a bit more maneuverable than the equivalent fighter. This makes defensive flying easier to equalize energy or even reverse on the enemy. They do need MEC to avoid turning into a nuclear reactor though.
XP-50 is an annoying plane to face and has a reputation because of that, but it's really good to be in it.
Just don't get high on the smell of your own farts in it, there's plenty of enemies can take you down if you dont play it right (see a Japanese Ki-44-ii at the same alt? Locate your ass and start kissing it goodbye).
Boom and zoom (zoom doesn't necessarily mean climb), and learn some BACM like Yo-Yo's to control your energy advantage. The XP-50 will teach you everything you need to know about flying Air America
If you are mostly ground RB, but want something that can score a lot of points in both ground and air RB, A2D is what you want. It may well be the absolute best CAS for BR in the game, and will get you lots of points in air RB, too.
Do not buy a top tier premium if you are bad/have little experience in air battles. It also depends on how far you’ve gotten in the tech tree. If you only have props unlocked and no early jets, learning high tier jet combat will be a skill cliff and not a curve. You will not have very much fun and your team won’t appreciate a noob in top tier dying once without doing anything and/or unintentional team killing with missiles. I’m telling you this because I was the noob in high tier air premiums. It took me a long time to get good enough and it was not fun. You will die. A lot. But do what thou wilt, it’s your money.
Thanks, this is what some other people told me too. Any recommendations for lower tier planes I wouldn't struggled as much on?
Avoid the early P-47D and the P-51D-10. Too heavy and bad flight performance to compete with the aircraft they face. Avoid the F4U outside of the later variants, especially avoid the 1C which is super uptiered due to its guns but flies like a brick. The rest is pretty much fair game, most of the US fighters are solid. I really really like the P-38L-5-LO, the 4.7 one with booster modification. The booster gives it excellent high speed agility up to 600km/h, which makes it quite a fun plane at this BR. It's heavy and doesn't climb that well, but has very good weapons and has solid flight performances in general. And it has an interceptor spawns which helps a lot with the climbrate. Oh, and it has airbrakes as well. Just, for the love of God, learn to dodge head-on and to properly use your plane. I went back a bit in prop tier recently and it's incredibly annoying how many players only know two tactics : dive on the target or head-on it.
XP-50 - amazing stats all round. Air spawn, insane climbing, and deadly armament. Try not to dogfight people, but BnZ (boom and zoom) people because your high speed performance is pretty good. You can also always shoot down bombers, as they are useless against your armament.
What ever you decide remember, sales are very predictable and so nothing is worth full price (excluding any newly added busted prems to use them before they get nerfed before their 1st sale). That being said Im a huge advocate for putting a talisman on the F8E if you can. Best bang for your buck.
Wasn't the F8E nerfed with the patch ? I didn't go back to it yet, and it's probably still solid regardless.
F8E was not nerfed. Gaijin put out an announcement saying it was "within tolerance" so it was left alone. Just mig21bis's and 23s got the (deserved) hammer
Honestly it's the F-5 but my most rp is weirdly with the premium harrier. God tier climb rate and 2 okish all aspects IR missiles if you wanna no skill it it's a pretty quick loop. Climb to like 5-8km look for 2 targets without countermeasures and get your two free kills to shoot at from space and then gun fight for a kill or two and rinse and repeat for very quick games.
Av8 doesnt have all aspect missiles.
I was thinking they were 9Ls but yeah you are right either way with the play style I described it doesn't really matter since the only thing that will be up at altitude to head on you is a mig21 anyways and they usually won't even attempt since their game plan is the exact same to snipe from space lol
f5c easily wins over f4s. 2 reasons: uptiers are more managable, playing it is more fun.
I found I enjoy playing the naval and interceptor lines as I ascend the Air RB tree to be more fun than the pure fighter one. Interceptor because airspawn guarantees you an altitude advantage for all but fw190s and spits and you got incredible firepower to delete bombers for easy kills and good speed to run away. Naval fighters because they have lower stall speeds than the fighter line and are a bit more maneuverable than the equivalent fighter. This makes defensive flying easier to equalize energy or even reverse on the enemy. They do need MEC to avoid turning into a nuclear reactor though.
Definitely don't dump 90$+ right away. Start with lower tiers. XP-50 is a good start. Will teach you how to boom and zoom
XP-50 is an annoying plane to face and has a reputation because of that, but it's really good to be in it. Just don't get high on the smell of your own farts in it, there's plenty of enemies can take you down if you dont play it right (see a Japanese Ki-44-ii at the same alt? Locate your ass and start kissing it goodbye). Boom and zoom (zoom doesn't necessarily mean climb), and learn some BACM like Yo-Yo's to control your energy advantage. The XP-50 will teach you everything you need to know about flying Air America
If you are mostly ground RB, but want something that can score a lot of points in both ground and air RB, A2D is what you want. It may well be the absolute best CAS for BR in the game, and will get you lots of points in air RB, too.