I'll review my progress with the french air tree:

prem Yak-3 (9/10)

Grabbed it for 5 bucks during sale and it really was worth every cent
It's a yak-3 aka a literal UFO. It does everything you want it to do. The guns may not have much ammo but they hit very hard. It feels like playing arcade in realistic.
Just gotta be careful with not ripping your wings off while diving (would be 10 if not for that).
It carried me until rank V

AD-4 (5~6/10)

Can't keep using the Yak-3 to grind rank V so I had to switch things up
I wanted a change of pace so I tried it
Gets an airspawn, turns decently and has 4x 20mm, but you are very slow specially when carrying load.
I couldn't decide myself whether focusing on intercepting or base bombing. Headon kills are free
The moment you get a committed decent fighter on your 6, it's over. However, if they leave you alone, you can easily pick up a lot of ground units or even bases
Also, it can see early jets when uptiered so take that as you will
Could've done better with it if I gave it more time
Grinded half of the Vatour with it before getting bored of the strike aircraft gameplay though

Spitfire FR MK XIVe (2/10)

I feel for the shitfire meme and wanted to give it a try (first shitfire I've ever flown btw)
no, don't bother, it's literally DoA grimshit slop
you are slower than anything else, it turns okay but bleeds all its speed in the process
hispanos Mk II are TRASH
and the cherry on top? the radiator cowls add a lot of drag when open (basically anytime you run at 100% throttle) so they act like mini airbrakes
you either have to use MEC to manually control the opening or just run WEP as much as you can since the cowls close when running WEP (and basically you will lose A LOT of speed anytime you don't run WEP)
good luck with that though, since the engine loves to overheat
I am just giving it a 2 because despite it making me want to KMS, at least I did get enough RP with it to finish grinding the Vatour

Vautour (IIN) (8/10)

After the slop of shit that was the shitfire and to a much lesser extent the AD-4, this is like finally getting to eat a good dinner
You get nords, babby's first SARH and decent radar at 8.3. The flight model is of course not to par with fighters but it is more maneouverable than I thought.
The engines are powerful. Lets you easily climb to eat bombers and other afk climbers alive for breakfast.
The guns are amazing. High fire rate but anything you hit will most likely die, plus the FM is decent enough for you to line up gun kills. Headons are free kills (with guns or missiles)
Nords take a while to get used but once you get used to them, anything you hit will die since it has so much explosive mass (even near hits). Save them for bombers, slow strike aircraft, killstealing retards or headons.
Matras are very slow but they surprisingly can pull quite a bit, best used against bombers or afk climbers with low maneouverability (F-104s) in headons.
Takes a while getting used to the playstyle but overall it is pretty fun and good.