Do flares do anything on the F-4E?

[ProfessorParker]

If I keep the afterburner on, does deploying a flare do anything at all?

[Jaes]

Depends what's being fired at you. General rule of thumb, you should always cut Afterburner just in case.

It's also very important to consider that the F-4E's flares pop directly behind the aircraft, which can cause missiles to guide into you if you're flying in a straight line.

A little trick you can do is go inverted when you need to pop flares so that they pop up above your aircraft while you while tilting your nose towards the ground in a very shallow dive. This will defeat most IR missile shots against you.

Doesn't work as well if your'e hugging the ground, but it's still effective.

Always important to know how your countermeasures deploy from your aircraft so you know how to position yourself against the incoming missile and successfully distract it.

[French Cat]

Originally posted by ProfessorParker:

If I keep the afterburner on, does deploying a flare do anything at all?

The F-4E has giant monster engines. If you have your burner one, you have a literal sun propelling you, all IR missiles will ignore flares if you have burner on in an F-4. You need to cut burner pop flares, and once the flares lose track you can reengage your burner. Shouldn’t be much of an issue though, you only need to cut burner for a second or two. Bonus for the F-4E is that the flares shoot down below the plane, so you can turn while flaring.

[ProfessorParker]

Originally posted by French Cat:

Originally posted by ProfessorParker:

If I keep the afterburner on, does deploying a flare do anything at all?

The F-4E has giant monster engines. If you have your burner one, you have a literal sun propelling you, all IR missiles will ignore flares if you have burner on in an F-4. You need to cut burner pop flares, and once the flares lose track you can reengage your burner. Shouldn’t be much of an issue though, you only need to cut burner for a second or two. Bonus for the F-4E is that the flares shoot down below the plane, so you can turn while flaring.

Just played a game and i cut my afterburner, pulled hard to the right, and popped flares and the Swedish aim-9j wasn't effected.

[Big Mike]

The F-4E is my most used, most effective aircraft and in my experience the procedure I do is as follows...
Invert
Deploy airbrake, flaps
Pop flares/chaff
Drop engine throttle to 0
Cut left or right depending on where the missile is coming from
Roll to the opposite direction of where I cut initially (ex: I cut left, so I roll right)
Pop again
Engine on, regain speed

This manuever is risky, as it dumps a lot of energy and requires some degree of coordination and luck to pull off, but against the max br missiles I'm flying against I've found this is the most reliable way to shake anything worse than an AIM-9M, which I have yet to successfully shake off in an F4 of any kind

Or you can dump every flare you have, cut engines, and roll away to the airfields to rearm

[French Cat]

Originally posted by ProfessorParker:

Originally posted by French Cat:

The F-4E has giant monster engines. If you have your burner one, you have a literal sun propelling you, all IR missiles will ignore flares if you have burner on in an F-4. You need to cut burner pop flares, and once the flares lose track you can reengage your burner. Shouldn’t be much of an issue though, you only need to cut burner for a second or two. Bonus for the F-4E is that the flares shoot down below the plane, so you can turn while flaring.

Just played a game and i cut my afterburner, pulled hard to the right, and popped flares and the Swedish aim-9j wasn't effected.

Dude the F-4E is my most used and loved aircraft. Either the missile was already too close by the time you flared, or you didn’t pop enough flares in quick succession. You also need to place the flares in between you and the missile so bank hard right, then left. This should only be used when you are facing a missile that won’t listen.