I just got this thing; it also struggles to pass Mach 1 apparently, but it has 2 radar-guided missiles and maybe a good enough radar? But how do I grind in a scenario in a full uptier? This thing is slow.
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I unlocked it the other day and am debating whether or not to put a crew on it; ARB has never been my strength, lol.
I just know that the F8U has some serious wing-rip potential and that you should try and spade the F8E before the next major cause I think its gonna lose its EEGS.
The F8E has fixed the issue of the aircraft pulling 16G then breaking it wing I am sure.
yes it has strengthened wings, you most likely will not rip your wings before you black out. this combined with having EEGS makes it really fun in dogfights
Have you played the F8U-2? Are you talking about the French one? Below I presume you are talking about the American one and have used or at least know some about the F8U.
The Crusader is one of the best dogfighters at this BR, it has good turning and low speed handling from it being a carrier plane (The entire wing rotates upwards to improve lift!) however it is still a very large and heavy plane which means it has lots of inertia at these low speeds and high angles of attack. You may hit the ground because of your boatiness" ; and it is also a big target.
Guns:
It has 4 colt mk12s which are my favorite guns in the game, high velocity, amazing damage, and good firerate and ammo pool. I use the default belts not the air target ones as the air target has less HE and also less tracers at the same time (Due to having a APIT round). If you watch a few videos of this plane you’ll get an idea of how much to lead.
Missiles:
It can carry AIM-9 ‘D’ and ‘C’ variants.
The Aim 9D is rear aspect IR guided and its good for this BR, It has good range and maneuverability but no flare resistance. Its also a caged seeker meaning like an aim 9b you have to point directly at the enemy to fire. You can generally fire at 2km + and easily get kills if the enemy isn’t flaring. At high aspects it might not get a lock and even if it does you shouldn’t fire unless the target is slow because you cant lead this.
The Aim 9C is what separates this from its predecessor, this is a radar guided version of the Aim 9D. Same in flight performance (slightly heavier). Since its radar guided you should try to use this most in headons where it excels, you can get high altitude long range kills up to 9km head on (I believe only locks upto 9km but often you need to be atleast 7km). If someone uses chaff it will not hit. It doesn’t have a cages seeker meaning you can lead it which makes it easier to hit maneuverable targets.
Radar:
AN/APQ-94 is not Pulse Doppler so its not going to be good at targets below you (unless they are also few km above the ground in which case there will be enough separation).
It has EEGS which is radar guided lead indicator for guns but it will be removed next update due to not being historical.
Battle Rating:
It has a higher BR of 10.7 than the F8U of 10.3. 10.7 in my experience is not very good right now, mostly uptiers. It doesn’t fight any scary plane that F8U-2 couldn’t see but you will see stronger planes more often. This means you will face MIG-25s more often which your RWR cannot detect so beware, if you are fighting USSR 11.0+ then don’t fly high for radar kills.
Some other notable aircraft you might face are: F4E (Rare but it has CW sparrows which cant be chaffed, you have to notch aswell), other F8Es and F8Us, MIG 23 MLD (it has good radar and SARH missiles), SU25T and A10C (these have IRCCM missiles which are harder to flare). You can win most fights in the 1v1 but this BR is where third partying with missiles starts to become very annoying.
NOTES
I am not very good or experienced at this game. Any incorrect comparison made here is of my limited knowledge of other tech trees. I have played the F8U more and have a 1.6 K/D in it and a 1.2 K/D in the F8E. This doesn’t mean its a bad plane, just my skill and experience. I spent maybe more than an hour writing this at 2:40 AM so maybe there are lots of mistakes.
Sorry for the generational Yap
Also i didn’t address ur concern over its speed,
Yes its slow but its called “The Last Gun Fighter”. It was not made to go fast, the Americans were making lots of other faster interceptors.
For the grind part I would say that you shouldn’t bring bombs as you are already very slow and you wont reach the bases in time. Try to get altitude at the start and get one or two headon radar kills. Then fire Aim 9Ds at people below you, if you dive on unsuspecting people from high up you will have plenty of speed and can hit about 3km away if they are slow or unaware.
Since this plane is a dogfighter: skill plays a big part here. If you are good at dogfighting and aiming then you will do considerably better.
In a full uptier any thing will struggle and as you grind farther up the tech tree the more problem there will be in uptiers, due to BR compression.
sorry for typing so much, im just tired
“If i had more time, I would have written a shorter letter”