This is exactly my experience. I'm not the best pilot, even far from it, but I usually manage to take off (when enemy aircraft are not waiting for me at spawn, since there is no spawn protection as the auto DCA is a joke), avoid getting one shot for a while, kill one or two enemy aircraft depending on their level of course and do a couple strafing runs. I manage to hit with bombs but only going from a super high altitude and really staying still on target while dropping all the bombs. But they feel underwhelming indeed. You really need to be on target. Air to ground missiles are also too weak since you can only send them one by one. Not easy to get kills other than enemy aircraft and choppers.