Battlefield 4 tips: Be The Best Damn Jet Pilot You Can Be

This guide has some obvious omissions. The first is weapons. In the stealth jet the 20 mm cannon (default) is best for air to air engagements. All cannons have similar time to kill (TTK) but the 20 mm has faster projectiles and does bonus damage vs helicopters. Only use the 30 mm if you are going against ground vehicles, and use the 25 mm if you are going against air, but want some splash damage.

As for missiles. Heatseekers are the easiest weapon to use; but they are not the best. Most pilots prefer Active Radar. Which are also fire and forget, but do not require lock to be acquired. Of course the hidden jem in the AA missiles is the Passive Radar missile. The big advantage of the Passive Radar is that they are a lock-on missile, which can be fired before the lock is acquired. Meaning that they are a lock-on missile which can be used for longer engagement distances. They can also reacquire lock if broken by countermeasures.

The attack profiles for all these missiles is different. Heatseekers are your basic lock-fire-flair-relock-fire attack profile. They are fire and forget, so they are best for when you can't hold a pursuit for long periods of time. Active Radar can be very nasty when the opponent is not quick enough with their countermeasures, but, when fired at distances greater than 600 m can be "prayer missiles". Inside 600 m you just put your nose on the target and fire...

On the receiving end each of these missiles will sound different. Heatseekers have an acquiring, then lock, then critical tone. Most pilots wait for critical tone before using countermeasures. If you flair too soon, the enemy will just save their missiles and reacquire lock. Active Radar will only give critical tone, and you will only have seconds to react.

The Passive Radar are perhaps one of the most difficult missiles to master; but very rewarding when done properly. They are commonly used in a similar attack profile to Heatseekers, but require the lock to be maintained. This means you need to have an effective pursuit, and so is better for more experienced pilots.

Though, the biggest advantage of Passive Radar is their pre-firing ability. Unlike heatseekers, Passive Radar can be fired BEFORE lock. Which allows the missiles to travel the distance without tone alerting your opponent. A typical long range attack profile on a fairly static target is to release two missiles at 840 and 830 target distance respectively. At 600 distance lock is acquired, and the missiles (which have already had some flight time) will impact only a fraction of a second later.

On the receiving end they will hear acquiring tone (just like any normal heetseeker), but instead of lock tone, they will get critical tone. Depending on how good you are with missile timing they might only get half a second of critical tone before missile strike. Most pilots can't react quickly enough to deploy countermeasures in this time. So this can give you a very fast 78 HP critical hit at 600 distance. Outright killing damaged opponents, and still allowing plenty of air time for a follow up gun attack.

The next thing you need to cover is turning speeds and speed control. The answer to this is simple. Jets will naturally increase speed to full throttle, and at these speeds they will have moderate turning rates. throttling back to a speed of exactly 312 will give the maximum turning rate. Going below this speed will reduce turn rates and bring the aircraft into a stall (making you a sitting duck). Using afterburner increases speed, diving to lower altitude increases speed, and climbing to higher altitude decreases it. The trick with good turning is to maintain an optimum turning speed during out of horizontal plane manoeuvres. Vertical loops require constant change in throttle control to maintain 312 airspeed.

I have 20 hours in jets, and there are lots of better pilots than me. But this is my advice.

Dafaq is this shit guide lol heat seekers for noobs who can't fking aim, always use 20mm for df and I can't fking believe he didn't mention speed control lmao

I have never managed flying in BF, only cut out for ground pounding...

I only use jets in Air Superiority, otherwise I stay on the ground.

If this is "all you know", you are in no way qualified to write a jet guide. Heatseekers? Lolz.

1) "Lolz"? What are you, a hipster? 2) Since when did someone become qualified by a nobody's opinion? 3) If you think you're qualified, please, make that your first post. 4) Start posting before you criticize. 5) Have a nice day troll. :)

There is no need for this...

It's all good. I've just been easily irritated today.