coming after the J-7E, which had great FM and could use its missiles effectively, plus a slightly lower BR of 11.0…
How in hell am i supposed to make the J-8B work.
it doesnt like to keep its speed, yes its a single delta wing. the engines, while praised, dont seem to be doing their job. cant really go past mach 1.09 in normal game altitudes.
keep in mind i am just starting it out, and am stock with only the flares and chaff mod researched rn.
the radar is non PD and the missiles, the Pl-5B, (i love them) feel severely lacking at 11.3, added to the fact that most other jets (that populate the matchmaker rn) have many more missiles than you.
my point/question:
how do i play this thing.
i cant seem to make it work. getting kills is more effort than its worth imo
When stock, the J-8s are quite slow and have even worse energy retention and roll/turn rates than spaded and it makes them absolutely abysmal. Once you are spaded it will become one of the fastest aircraft, only being beaten by F-104s and Mig-23s. It can also turn well, but it still lacks energy retention. It’s acceleration is also very good too.
Get Aspides as soon as you can, and play it like a Mig-23. Climb to just below contrail height, launch your aspides at longer ranges against planes coming towards you, and then turn around and drop your PL-5Bs on enemies below you.
because of the bad radar, the aspides works not so well, usually used as surprise attack
compared to J-7D/E(I put them together because I played most of them when they are same br)
J-8b is heavier when turnibg, has greater speed bleeding, but better energy generation and top speed.
so it’s still similar, wondering around and throwing PL-5B, but more careful about your energy. and usually I carry 1 Aspide, switch your radar to smallest and use it as ACM, get a lock on someone from lower altitude, shoot in 5-7km or closer, the missile is good but not the radar
Aspide provide a minimum head-on attack ability, but not so easy to find a chance so 1 is enough 2 maybe waste.
I used the plane to easily do the f106 event, it’s phenomenal at 11.3. A big advantage it has is the very small vertical search area in the smallest radar mode, which allows you to stay extremely low and still lock people who are quite low. I forget but I think you can use aspide at 8km fine without issue.
You can also stay up high but don’t do this in an uptier. If you do this stay at 5km right below the trail elevation so you won’t draw attention to yourself. When you’re up here and going way faster you can fire from further range. Just make sure to pre chaff at longer ranges I think it helps vs the f4e and mig23. If I remember right this radar does not track well in rear aspect so don’t go wasting one of the two valuable aspides.
Last thing is in late game when there’s like 3 people left go extremely high and fish for kills, like all the way to 10km. I found the planes performance to be great up high. Blatantly go near/above them with your contrail and then go as high as you can. Once you stall flip down and look for their trail or them on your radar and then pre chaff and aspide while theyre trying to climb up to you. If this fails just repeat over and over.
whats worse is that the radar only has a lock range of about 20km so any shots longer than that are out of the question lol
also the RWR sucks
yeah i planned similarly since there wont be enough time for a second aspide
sucks that it doesnt have ACM mode though. almost every jet does so idk why the J8B doesnt
yes is a good thing the missiles are CW guided
also what is it with the tail controls always breaking off at the slightest hit?