Can't wait till we get some serious air power in this game.

Air power has always been the top of the food chain in war. The only AV that should be effective are forge guns, and tank mounted SAMs (guided missiles). Make the tanks sacrifice an anti-infanty gun in favor of a guided missile launcher and pray if they want to be good against jets and gunships.

Guys on foot should not be taking jets out with swarms. Gunships and dropships? Maybe. Jets? Hell no.

Just make the combat aircraft much more expensive than tanks, so they can't be spammed.

Considering the price they should cost... I'm not comfortable with a jet being called down via RDV... I don't trust those bastards.
Let me fly myself in.

lol stingers don't shoot down jets noob. stingers are meant to take down slow, low altitude aircraft like helicopters. or facilitate air-to-air combat between gunships.

A jet would get out of an IR stinger range in a matter of seconds.
Someone clearly played too much Battlefield...

Don't like jets? Then get a proper means besides a hand weapon to shoot one down.

Really!!!! You think Stingers missile systems are meant for slow aircraft. Considering you have actual access to specs since you're posting ONLINE, you might want to look into the system. Maybe even get away from Wikipedia and look further afield It is very much an effective weapon against jets. It has a short range but nearly instantly hits Mach 2.5, more than enough to take out low, fast moving jets. It's ideal for infantry against a jet giving ground support, AND, it was used alot in short range air to air missile systems between fighter jets. Try to learn something about a subject before acting like a douche. Just because there have been improvements in short range SAMs and AAMs doesn't mean the old ones are crap either. They are still very much effective.

Gunships should possess a few key traits:

Nimble - Terrain hugging, intricate and tight maneuvers and weaving between obstacles are going to be necessary for gunships to be effective and survivable

2 man crew - Pilot should have an unguided forward firing weapon such as unguided rockets. Gunner would have control of the turret weapons. Either autocannons or pulse lasers or blasters, etc (Primary and secondary weapons for gunner, bringing vehicle grand total up to 3 including pilot "dumb" munitions)

Fast - The gunship will need to be able to dictate engagements for everything except dedicated air superiority fighters.

Fragile - To maintain game balance Dropships should be significantly toughened and Gunships should be quite thin skinned. They will need to rely on the EVE concept of "speed tanking" to essentially survive by not taking hits.

COCKPIT VIEW - This will be crucial, visibility needs to be excellent and the HUD needs to be effective. No way you can do close air support with a 3rd person view.

These are my two cents on the matter.

Haha. I have to take back what I said about it having being used on fighter aircraft for AAMs as I can't find the aircraft. Kitten brain. But yeh, it's a very nice short range SAM.