Basics of/tricks for low tier air arcade?

After playing ground for a while I decided to get into air arcade. I figured out a good trick at Rank 1 is to only use stealth ammo and only fire until you get a “severe damage” popup and don’t bother to keep shooting after that. Some people don’t react at all and most don’t react quickly to being fired upon by stealth belts, and going only for severe damage means I get to pull away faster, move onto the next target, and avoid shots. The enemy is already effectively dead at that point and I’ll get the points for it later, shooting more to get “target destroyed” is just a needless risk and a waste of time and ammo. By rank 2, however, most people are wise to this, and my K/Ds are quickly falling as I progress and I haven’t been able to figure out a trick that gets similar results for rank 2 and without being a rat bastard I’m actually pretty mediocre at air.
win% and K_D
ln(K_D) for 1.x planes
ln(K_D) for 2.x planes
ln(K_D) for 3.x planes
data showing my K/D declining with increasing br.

Is there any tricks you guys use