I think certain planes are favored by the game mechanics, and these are F-5 and Hunters just to give an example.
Among jet fighters there are only three ‘personality’ for non ARH BR. Energy fighters, Delta fighters, and Bus.
The straightline fighters like MiG-21 has good speed and acceleration, but it is only like 200kph faster compared to their energy fighter peer. One turn and almost all energy is sapped.
Delta wing fighters also tend to pair really bad guns, such as DEFA or GSH 23, which has low velocity and are unsuitable for dogfighting.
The Hunter is example. It is slightly slower than supersonic jets, sure, but it gets flares and usually good missiles. It can also turn like a UFO while planes like Mirages cannot do much but to run.
The F-5 has vastly better guns than GSH 23 and DEFA; good velocity and can get into furballs, therefore, one can conclude that the killing potential of these planes is very high.
out of those, only Hunter that gets flares is the squadron F.58.
out of those, only the F.58 and maybe with upcoming SRAAM changes the F.6 gets good missiles, others are stuck with 9Bs/9Es and in case of F.1 no missiles at all.
And I cant recall anyone calling Hunters OP. Ive heard people call the squadron F.58 good, but not OP.
Except for the NF-5, the F-5 has the right performance for BR, and the Hunter has poor simple turning power itself, making it a very difficult aircraft to handle unless it is a superior.
To add to this, they only get 2 maximum and are in the BR range where they regularly fight aircraft with better missiles, more missiles and countermeasures and are supersonic.
Not to forget that the 30mm ADENS are honestly unreliable at best. I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve nailed someone in the cockpit in a head-on and got no actual hit registration out of it.
Note. Only a single Hunter gets flares, the rest do not.
As for “it can turn like a UFO”? I would like to see evidence of that, because that has not been my experience. In fact I actually consider them some of the poorer handling aircraft (at least within the british TT) because they require to be kept at very high speeds, and practically fall out the sky at low speeds. Im looking forward to the Hunter F6 getting massive buffs this major. Its barely 9.3 worthy pre-buff.
The F-5s are overperforming in STR and are so cold that most missiles cant lock onto them. But these are specific issues. Beyond that, its just the right combo of dogfighting performance at a BR where a supersonic can still see plenty of subsonics.
And yes, the guns are far easier to use than a lot of guns at that BR.
Well… Decent for a subsonic jet, but far slower than a lot of jets at 10.0. The Hunters, even the 207 hunters, actually accelerate quite slowly, especially compared to the Harriers. and the Harriers actually probably reach a higher top speed. At least when messing around with the F6 on the dev server, I was averaging around M0.86 ish. Harrier will easily hit 0.92
Actually, fairly average, if not maybe slightly below average.
Its okay, but you’ve got to watch how you are turning because it can and will bleed speed fast.
Im sorry what?
Hunters are pigs at low speed. In fact my go to advice for them is to never ever go slow. You are no match to most aircraft.
30mm ADENs. On the Hunter they are fine, (better position and 4 instead of the usual 2) but they are still 30mm ADENs. So I would not class them as “great guns”.
Sure… which is unique for the Hunters… But at 9.7 you have the Harriers with 4x Flare the count. So…
They are Aim-9Ps, not Aim-9Ns
The what?
To describe the Hunter F58 as “fast” in the same comment you say the F-104 is suffering is just hilarious