The Scythe, Mosquito and Reaver seem like vehicles that have had too many things crammed into them at the same time. The air to ground mainly consists of hit 'n run tactics, and the air to air is a little lackluster.
I personally think the skies in Planetside need more variety. Although I'm not a fan of the series, I think BF3 did air combat really well. Right now the ESFs are too powerful; a good pilot can dominate both the skies and the ground, because of the way their flight mechanics work. It basically means that they can go into hover-mode, gun down whatever, and then dart away with their boost, with hardly any transition-period between jet and hover-mode.
I think the ESFs ought to be split into two vehicles: hovercraft and jetfighter (with restricted VTOL functionality). Why? Because their respective pros and cons would help balance the gameplay.
Jet
Good for A2A
Good at avoiding anti-air
Good at Air to ground when co-ordinating with spotter
Unable to suppress ground with continuous fire (better suited for hit 'n run)
Has to remain moving to be effective
Hover-mode is relatively 'clunky' and the transition time between hover- and jet-mode is dangerously long. Hover-mode is primarily designed for landing and take-off
Hovercraft
Great for air-to-ground
Great at hovering (good at staying near a convoy of ground troops)
Vulnerable to ground anti-air (much slower than jet)
Vulnerable to jet anti-air
Flying a helicopter well in BF3 meant using your surroundings well to cut off lock-ons, and to use the terrain to get the drop on ground vehicles, in Planetside the way to avoid ground to air seems to be to simply hit the boost and get out of dodge. Flying a jet in BF3, admittedly, wasn't too exciting, but that was because it involved flying around in circles in large open skies, trying to get onto the tail of the other jet. The reason BF3's jet combat was boring was due to two things: small amount of pilots and small maps (flying a jet meant turning every 15 seconds).
It would be nice to have an aircraft that is designed to actually co-operate with the ground, but is very vulnerable on its own due to its speed, whilst having a second vehicle that is great for the skies, but is not as lone-wolfy, because for it to kill ground targets it has to co-ordinate with people calling out targets on the ground.
This is just my opinion, what do you guys think?