The F-5C is no longer good

Machinery of War Discussion Aircraft
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and? F-5 on full reheat is colder than an F-117. F-5s are chrononically cold due to how they model heat sigs.

Have you ever wondered why you could 1 tap flare anything in a F-5? Including IRCCM?

Try aircraft like the Harriers if you want to see the difference in trying to flare something, they are on the opposite end of the spectrum and are some of the hottest known things in the universe.

Performance against another aircraft is irrelevant. F-5s are overperforming. Though wouldnt be surprised if the Mig-21s were overperforming as well.

9…7s should never be facing an F-5C. But they do constantly due to it being premium and being spammed.

Congratualations. Friendly reminder, you have subsonics without flares facing the supersonic F-5 with flares.

No they dont. Heck. I’ve seen F-5s outdogfight Mirage 2Ks. They are some of the strongest dogfighters of their BR.

So in a full uptier the F-5 struggles? Good. Though more than a few in a full uptier that would actively avoid dogfighting an F-5 still. Heck, in the F3 I dont go anywhere near them if I can avoid it.

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At least we can stab F-5E with SuperTEMP if they aren’t flying low enough :P

Now imagine when you face them in GR.1 instead… XD

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Yeah, which is what I do, and in fact, I fly high, funny how many people try and hide in MP and dont defend.

But yeah… They suck to deal with in the Tonka IDSs, thankfully you can outrun them.

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Yes it did, however the thread isnt named “F5C used to be bad” , its “F5C is no longer good”.

Well meta is a subjective term.
If you alter your tactic even a little bit instead of bombing / mindlessly rushing the enemy team, both can be very dominant.

With the F5E i have been the sole reason my team won on multiple occasions.

Partially true, individual performance is somewhat irrelevant in the grander view of things , however:
I mentioned my performance with the F-5E because it deviates drastically from my usual stats. (Also it was the most fun i had in months)

While it is true that the first 5-10 matches were horrible , because i tried to play like i normally do.

Instead of rushing i cut the afterburner and i went slow , i found it better to hit the enemy from the side when the main fight is over, since they dont expect it.

5C and 5E have similar engine temps , aka really cold , and that makes it easy to flare incoming missiles.

You shouldnt stick around for a fight you wont win.
Play to your planes strengths. Pulling a reversal on unsuspecting fishbeds is really easy.
Only plane that consistently gave me trouble was the J-7E.

True, the 9J of the F5E(Swiss) is better than the 9E , but at least in my case, AIM-9J was the last upgrade i got.
Most people will see and flare your missiles, so i started using them simply to scare the enemy.

At least 90% of my kills in the F5E come from guns , the last 10% came from AAMs or the occasional AGM-65B shot.

I doubt the F5C is horrible to the extent of being unplayable , maybe a change in tactics wouldn’t hurt.

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I watched the 4 vs 4 air at weekend

Full teams of F5s and canards
If not meta why is everyone using them in a tournament over mig 21s etc?

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what does being TK’ed have to do with the F-5C not doing well?

One thing I will agree with is that the F-5C can be outrated. But that’s kinda their weakpoint historically and if they have a lot of energy you have to make sure you’re not near them. As shown by this dude with a hardwing F-4E.

Look at how much time it takes though. Unless you’re really stuck with a one-on-one. If someone tries to shove you into a rate fight. Just move on.

BTW. I’ve seen people say that Statshark shows the Mig-21Bis outrating the F-4E (Agile eagle) And I believe that’s absolutely bunk as F-4 pilots in the 80’s were taught to rate around 390 knots (720kmh) to fight the BIS. Phantoms in general, should be the better rate fighters.

Are the Bis’ still scuffed where they are having double the acceleration of their 2nd stage afterburner? Decino posted about that years ago and I don’t know if they fixed that.

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Why would it be at 11.0 if the Chinese one gets 9ps at the exact same br

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Maybe when you fly it

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one of the Mig-21s, I think it is the BIS, does use the combat thrust settings for its afterburners. It caused quite an uproar in the Tonka community when that was discovered because we were constantly told that combat thrust settings are not used for any aircraft. As far as I am aware, it still has it.

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Plenty of examples of the same aircraft being at the same BR but with wildly different loadouts (Harrier GR1 vs AV-8A/AV-8S comes to mind) unfortunately there simply isnt the capacity to give every single aircraft their own BR. So probably wouldnt be that big of a deal if 2x F-5Cs were the same BR with slightly different missiles.

The fact is, the F-5C is a total menace when you have to fight them in a full uptier in the subsonic and often flareless aircraft often found around 9.7. Moving all the F-5s up 0.3 BR or giving them some healthy nerfs like addressing their overperforming FM or cold fusion engines would go a long way.

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Love it when gaijin is weirdly biased towards their own vehicles.

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I think every F-5A/C without an all-aspect missile should be 11.0,

Every F-5 variant which don’t have an all-aspect IR missile
(F-5A-USAF/F-5C-USAF/F-5A-Thai/F-5E-Swiss/NF-5-Dutch) should be 11.0BR with AIM-9J/P.

And it seems I forgot to mention ROCAF F-5A… :(

As I claimed earlier, I think giving AIM-9J to send them higher feels good for me.
Well, USAF already stole [AN/ALE-40 countermesure for F-5] from ROCAF
(AFAIK, one of the reasons why Gaijin gave F-5C-USAF CM, was reports about F-5A-ROCAF which was originally came out without CM)
So nothing would be worse if they also steal AIM-9P from ROCAF. :/

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Minute 17:14

Also minute 20:20 on your takes of F-5C having hot engines

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I mean this is hardly biased when its not like the 21bis is a meta jet or oppressive. If the buff was removed it would just end up at a lower BR.

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Again. Imagine having a jet where it’s almost accelerating TWICE as fast as it should.

The russian tree is very strange anyway. Some of the most oppressive aircraft of each respective BR, Almost all Yaks.

Some of the best 20mm cannons, Some of the best machineguns of any nation, only really beaten out by the Swedes

Only time they really falter is in top-tier jets as every country has great options. But then again, Russia to my knowledge is the only nation to get a missile that isn’t even real.

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There’s a real chance of winning if you play the A-10 well

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only really at 4.3 and 5.7, the other BRs are more fair

Russia is like #2 or #3 air tree at worst so its not like I’m saying they aren’t great but the USA and nations like France/China are right there with them. I’d put USA as better overall (and being the #1 air rb nation) but it requires you to have higher skill than ussr or the rest.

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Still annoying though that they “dont model combat thrust on any aircraft” except 1x Mig-21.

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this is just a shill and you can even see him struggling to get kills with the guns while saying “the m39s are amazing” and struggling to nose onto targets while saying “it has a made up way too good nose authority” while also saying that the f-5s still have today a busted damage model while showing complaints from 4years ago only. I’ve one bullet killed f-5s with the gshussy on mig21bis (fact is most of my kills with the mig21bis are with the guns because the missiles are poopoo even point blank). I never liked DwM because he makes sensationalist memified “guides” that shill mediocre junk as goated or the opposite (the spitflyer effect) and up with the true goats that are… literally anything except that thing, or the opposite like saying all harriers are bad while the gr7 is one of the best dogfighter aircraft in the game even without viffing. About the video itself, everything about the f-5s said except the f-5c’s being “OP” is correct. The F-5C is not OP, and it’s the worst of them all. The J7D is the real issue as it not only oppresses the f-5c that is busy dogfighting (also outdogfights it in most situations) it also oppresses planes with flares that can dodge aim9e’s but not PiLi5b’s.

Sure, the f5s all are goated for 1v1, even the f-5c, but is air RB about 1v1? I think not. This is a topic about f-5c in particular which is the worst of them all and it’s for air RB where a 15 minute fuel f-5c gets spanked by a mig21smt on 20 minutes of fuel even in a ratefight with a bad merge where the mig21 can simply turn inside the f-5’s circle.

Also yes, 770 celsius is quite hot, it’s just the heat signature being very small because the engines themselves are very small. If you’re spanish and you like aviation events you may have had the chance to see that f5em tiger from the 23rd training squadron having little to no heat haze behind even on full afterburner. If by 12th of Oktobar I haven’t got any slot to cover at ryanair i will try to attend and take photos of f-5e’s taking off from Torrejón airbase just to show you.

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i’d rather give them their real flight performance and move them down without flares (case-f5c, f5a chinze and f5a murica) and leave the rest as they are. If you have seen Growling Sidewinder’s video on F-5E vs MiG19PT the MiG19PT absolutely slams the f-5e, while in game only the mig19s can compete against the f-5e so yeah, please do that gajung.

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