Since the patch it’s nearly impossible to flare IR missiles coming at you from frontal aspect. I know something is up because R60Ms are ignoring literal clouds of flares behind my plane and smacking me out the sky instead. Why do you always have to re-invent the wheel?
Yet amusingly enough a 9M launched under optimal parameters aka rear aspect 2.5km or less gets defeated by a lazy turn and one or two pops of flares just before it hits the target.
What a crap shoot…
What I could tell is that they made the speakers of all aspect missiles narrower, this means popping a flare and turning away now works less than turning into the missile and flaring. Try and guide the missile infront of your flares and don’t continually pop them. I’ve set a button for flare release and one for periodic release allowing me to pre flare and flare head on missiles while dumping for rear aspect missiles. For frontal ones the more you pop the more you lead the missile to you, less is more with that aspect, only difference with the r60m and the 9m is that the 9m has inertial aiming so you would want to manoeuvrewhile popping flares.