why do you believe that the f-5e is good at 10.7 when it is the slowest aircraft of it’s br, has the least armament of it’s br and has the least engine power of the br? the m39’s are also very bad guns that deal little to no damage as I speak from my experience using them and getting hit by them.
You are thriving on it because people is getting very slow and you can basically abuse the fact you’re flying in rails to keep boom and zooming.
The moment you actually get a real dogfight you’re not going to do well in the vertical. You have to force flat rate fights that last minutes to actually get a gun solution and you know spending too much time dogfighting is a detriment, right? you risk it getting third partied.
The only fighters that might lose to the f-5e are mig21s and that is if they commit to the dogfight and follow the rate fight. Everything else can out dogfight the f-5e, even the f-4e if it gets slow enough. And I say it because I WAS the phantom E out dogfighting F5E.
I really never had an issue facing f-5e’s, i just give them the Zero treatment and go golden. Even yet when I engage I try to assess the situation and try to force slow speed dogfights and peel off the moment the f-5 is going for the rate fight.
You can’t really say “uh uh the f-5e is better than the j35xs” (yes, the draken has insane post mach retention like double delta doritos do such as j7e) . The J35XS does on the deck flat 15 degrees per second of turn rate with six missiles and 21 minutes of fuel. But it can go up to 28 degrees per second at 800 IAS. The F-5E on the same fuel amount barely does 23 at the same speeds and does 28 at mach 1, however the draken will turn tighter and get inside the loop, easily planting itself on the f-5e’s six.
Turn rate is not really everything, if your loop is too wide the enemy will eventually get your six when the turn rates get similar albeit different speeds that tighten the loops. Such as happens with the MiG19S in minimum fuel and the F-16A block 15 when it came out when it maxed 27 (min fuel too). MiG19S does 30 degrees of turn rate and F16 Block 15 does 27, however the f16 turns tighter while having a similar turn rate. Such things happen with the F-5 and Draken.
The armament: M39s are very random and are only good at clipping wings and when someone is going defensive against it it’s harder to hit the wing. I usually attack the engine to ensure the enemy no longer has power to continue flying and finish off in case i don’t get a full kill.
Two assists that would have been kills if the guns actually worked. White text.png.
summed up: no speed, no engine power, no armament, okish maneuverability and overall ratty.
