Best ways to recognize if friendly or enemy aircraft

[Woke Up Dead]

Behaviour combined with location on the map are often good indicators online, maybe offline too. Planes usually fly high and fast over enemy territory, lower and slower (taking off and landing) when they feel safe over their own land. If you see a plane arriving high from the direction of the enemy base, or running away low towards an enemy base, then it's almost certainly an enemy. Online, they usually won't let you chase them in a straight line deep into your turf, they will want to turn back towards help.

Specific plane types are often flown in a specific way too: 109's boom and zoom with a very steep climb at the end, 190s boom and zoom in more shallow angles, Spitfires and Zeros do impressively fast horizontal turns.

It's hardest to identify a plane if you're just chasing a lonely dot along the front-line.

[Treetop64]

It's always been difficult to ID planes from a distance, and this is correct; it's supposed to be that way.

The answer to the question is simple: get close enough so that subtle, distinguishable details start to appear, and then you can tell what it is.

[Fergal69]

First time I flew on line I got an easy kill, & I thought this isn't too difficult, should be able to rack up a few kills.

Trouble was it was one of my own team

You need to be able to recognose aircraft from a mutitiude of angles by the shape, which isn't always easy. Markings do help, but depending on angle & light, they aren't always readily identifiable.

I've not flown on line for a while, prefering single missions. This is because the person I shot down hunted me down & got me in return.

[MiloMorai]

Consider the 'dot' to be unfriendly and take appropriate action until you are sure of its ID.

[fruitbat]

Originally Posted by MiloMorai

Consider the 'dot' to be unfriendly and take appropriate action until you are sure of its ID.

This, but also tracer colour is an excellent give away when entering the combat area, also after many hours, you can begin to recognise the LOD stages of various plane types, some such as the 109 are instantly recognisable.

[Untamo]

S!

+1 to everything said before, and about the tracer colors:

Russian:
MGs: Bright green
Cannon: White

British:
MGs: Red
Cannon: Yellow

German:
MGs:
7,9mm: Red
13mm: Blue
Cannon:
20mm:Cyan
30mm: Yellow
(These come in combinations of 7,9mm+20mm / 13mm+20mm / 13mm+30mm, so no 7,9mm(red)+30mm(yellow) together).

US:
MGs (.50cal): Pink(ish)

Japan:
MGs: Red
Cannon: Yellow

So, looking at this, at least German, US and Russian tracers should always stand out from the rest. And since the brits and japanese rarely have fights online, it's pretty easy to know who is who, if they happen to fire that is

[Alien]

Just reminded myself of a situation related to recognition. I was flying a campaign (a German one, the Eastern Front, it was late at that time, perhaps eastern Poland) on a Bf 109, had a G-10 I believe. So we were in a dogfight which was spread and I noticed a dot. I approached it and recognized a Yak (probably, I don't remember precisely). I came close, very close (this is why I had 400+ kills in the end of the whole campaign) and fired an extremely short burst, maybe 5-10 rounds (2 MGs and an MK 108 ). The fighter's tail came off and its fuel tank went ablaze. I was maybe 30-20 meters away, looking closely. And then... 2 crosses... On the wings... I just shot down my number 6 (I was number 1). And now, after some 2 years, I still remember that event. The pilot was slightly wounded and bailed out on our side of the front and I made myself a 48 break.
Just wanted to share the tale.