Board Thread:General Discussion/@comment-66.195.110.224-20140923025748/@comment-26257239-20150725060316

It depends on the situation.

If you want to clear air targets quickly, a 6AAM platform (X-02, Su-35, Rafale M Vent, Typhoon, etc.) would work well.

If you want to go pure air to air, the ADF-01 FALKEN is by far one of the best dogfighting aircraft, and is excellent with the right parts.

If you like to take out large clusters of targets and maintain great overall stats, things like the ADFX-01, Su-47 and Mig 1.44 are great choices.

If you want to go air to ground without a bomber, the FB-22 and Su-34 are some of the best choices.

If you are in TDM, you'll want a plane with high missile range and accuracy, damage, speed, and defense (all the 5th gens and the superplanes fit, but the best of them tend to be the F-22, T-50, ATD-0, ADF-01, and sometimes X-02).

If you are in TDM NF, and going air to ground, the FB-22 (not the Aeries variant) is one of the best choices.

There's also planes like the CFA-44 Strigon Leader that can theoretically be great if upgraded enough (it is all S ranks and up at level 15), though the CFA-44 Strigon Leader suffers from only having 1 or 2 useful special weapons, both of which are rather unorthodox.

Of course, planes similar to the ones described here generally fit the stated roles well unless I stated otherwise. (Example: R-101=ADF-01).

Despite all this, any plane can be absolutely lethal in the right hands with the right amount of upgrades (Such as an F-16 getting MVP in a room with FALKENs and other powerful planes...true story, I was one of the FALKEN pilots).