The "Help" I suck at flying!" thread

[Juryrig]

I want to be able to fly. I have a realistic level of ambition: I'm shooting for "doesn't totally suck". With a lot of practice, I might even be aiming for 'sometimes competent'.

atm, however, I am significantly worse than rubbish.

I specced into air to air, partly because I wanted to counter the hordes of AG rocket spammers that've killed me repeatedly, partly because the AG gun was in one of the bundles I bought in the store.

I'm spawning Reavers pretty much as often as I can (well, I'm not being obsessive about it, I'm enjoying all aspects of the game. But frequently enough, given that I'm not enjoying flying, to feel like I'm 'practicing' rather than just playing) and my experience generally goes like this:

- take off
- wobble away from the warpgate, getting myself pointing roughly in the direction I want to go
- spot a likely looking air target, get myself behind it. See the AA missiles start to acquire.
- notice that someone's already locked onto me
- start manouevering like mad, probably doing an aerial equivalent of a fish flopping about in the bottom of a boat
- get hit by missile no1
- get hit by gunfire, from the A/c behind, from the ground units below and from the AA batteries surrounding the enemy base I have inadvertently flown over
- die. Respawn at the nearest Sunderer and go play Engie for a while.

Rinse. Repeat. Try to stave off despair at ever getting any better.

So, issues.

1) controls. Flying with the mouse just feels wrong. Will I get used to it? Or should I just get a cheap joystick? (I've used a joystick in combat flight sims back in the day, although single player only rather than anything online)

2) situational awareness. I'm not seeing enemy aircraft on the minimap. Reading the description of the 'scout radar' cert, it isn't clear whether this makes enemies visible on my map, or only highlights them to squadmates. Anyone give me a definitive answer?

3) Hitting things. As an example of just how bad I am.....I surprised a Lib on the ground. Lined up, and hit it with some rounds from the gun. Reloaded, hit it some more. By this time it's taking off. Switched to AA missiles, by the time I'm locked on he's airborne and his tailgunner is hitting me. I fire the missile, it takes him right down in health...and his tailgunner has killed me. *sigh*fail*

So, other than "accept the inevitable and give up" any hints?