Does anyone have good advice for dealing with fakours? I know how to notch, but by the time the rwr actually alerts me of the missile, it’s too late. Most of the time I die to a fakour, there was literally 3 seconds of rwr warning. The missile is that fast. Oh and I know someone is going to say watch for contrails, but that doesn’t work if there’s dense clouds or the missile is being fired up or down at you.
if you see an f14 on your rwr at all, you can assume that the missile has already been launched at you and just hasnt pitbulled yet, you can beat the fakours, and any fox three, easier by notching early.
Of course, you said you should pay attention to the smoke trajectory. Early detection and early avoidance are already the best ways. When they are launched, it will be very obvious. Try not to let yourself enter the cloud. If you find that a missile is coming, try to avoid having your position updated by the enemy aircraft’s radar data link. At this time, what you need to do is to align the enemy aircraft’s radar signal source with the 3 o 'clock or 9 o 'clock direction. At the same time, sharply change your altitude because the missile will have inertial attacks. Maybe in the end it predicts that your position is in a dive state, but in fact you are already climbing. In this way, the missile will miss you. The last clumsy way is to stick tightly to the ground, but be careful that there might be some violently undulating terrain that could kill you
Pre-notching is mandatory, try to keep the RWR blips off to your side at 45* or so, that way it’s far easier to pull into the full notch when you get the launch warning, it also makes you a far less attractive target in the first place.
Also “cranking” can help, especially if you do not want to fly off the side of the map, start off with a 45* pre-notch as mentioned but every 10 or so seconds turn 90* so the enemy is again in a 45* pre-notch on your opposite side, that will bleed a lot of energy from any missiles that are tracking you, and if the F-14 (or anybody else) that has fired then stopped tracking you for what ever reason ( died, had to go defensive etc) then you will fly out of the area the IOG is sending the missile.