I’m about to finish Sweden Rank VI aviation, so I would like some advice on which of the first three Rank VII jets available should I research first. A bit of background on my experience: Sweden aviation is the air tree where I’ve progressed the furthest, so I have zero experience in air above 9.3 (J32B). My aim is passable but not great, so I lean more towards missile usage.
My own thoughts so far: comparing the J35D to the AJ37, the J35D appears to be the better fighter based on stats, but the AJ37 gets RB24Js stock that might make the stock grind easier. Also it gets AGMs, so it might be a bit more useful as CAS. I heard the MiG-21bis is decent, but like I said I have no experience in ARB above 9.3, so I’m concerned that jumping straight to 11.0 might be too much for me.
The J35D is a great fighter, and if it had flares, it would be the instant go-to, but without flares at 10.3 you are asking to have an Aim-9L or R-60M slammed in your face, or a Magic-1, PL-7, R-60 or other High-G rear aspect missiles slammed up your arse that you can do nothing about, so i really cannot reccomend it. The Mig-21Bis is a fine aircraft, and when fully spaded it will perform decently for you, but getting it to a spaded state will be a slog, and even when you do it will still not be amazing, it is not a Meta vehicle, but it is very workable. For me, the AJ37 is the best choice here, the J37 platform is quite nice, fast in a straght line, has the instantaneous turnrate you need to beat basically anything at the BR, and you can use one flarepod, one gunpod and 2x 9J’s and this will give you everything you need to get some solid games in air RB. You do need to remember that turning will bleed all your speed quickly, and leave you a sitting duck for 3rd partyers, but if you manage the speed well and only commit to turnfights when you are 1v1, you can use the missiles for a couple of kills early and clean up with the gun. The Mavericks it can get are decent in ground rb, but after using them quite a bit they seem to have much shorter lock range than other vehicles with mavericks, usually 2.5miles or less, so just keep an eye out for SPAA, and target them first. 2 Mavs isnt great, and is worse than other cas platforms at the BR, cough cough A-10, but you do at least have the flight performace to fight other planes and can still carry flares and a gunpod. Just as a side note, you are getting to a part of the game where there are lots of vehicles that are simply not viable, and you will really struggle to get anything done in, especially stock. Basically every vehicle has a rough stock grind, and there are some vehicles that you should avoid playing to save your sanity, for me the J35D is one of them. It isnt like in props, where you can get kills using any vehicle so long as you get good setup. Situational awareness is really important, and having your head on a swivel to spot people firing missiles is a must. Hope this helps, sweden has quite limited options for planes at this teir, so if you find that you arent liking any of the three, dont be afraid to hop to another nation and try their planes, any of the major nations will treat you well, Britain has a lot of unplayable vehicles but also some really good ones, and has a lot of variety, and france has some decent planes too.
I personally recommend doing it in this order AJ37 → J35D → MiG-21Bis
While all are great planes, the AJ37 has 2 great missiles, with a good cannon and has access to flares with an airframe that is really competitive at its BR. In addition, you get access to ground strike ordnance, which makes it a decent CAS plane. This makes it a really enjoyable plane to play and is one of my favs at rank 7 Sweden.
The J35D comes after as it has the same missiles as the AJ37 but with double the amount. Additionally, the airframe is amazing at dogfighting which makes it a superb aircraft for air-air combat. However, you do not have any access to countermeasures. While I wouldn’t consider this a deal-breaker though as there are ways to get by. So being experienced with this BR is necessary to make this plane work (which you should get with the AJ37).
Finally the MiG-21Bis, which I wont say much as I have yet to spade it (never needed to). To me its quite redundant as an aircraft as I’d prefer to use the JA37 for both air-air combat and CAS. If you want to play it go ahead, but I recommend just buying it and focusing on getting to the JAS39A and C which are both amazing planes to fly.