The nightbird should be a high risk high reward vehicle
For that reason I think that one fxaa or any other anti air missile should kill it in one hit at any health.
But the trade off is the nightbird mobility allows skilled pilots to dodge locked missles if they predict the direction of the missile correctly and learn to time their movements to make the missile miss..
This should be difficult and require practice and most will not be able to do it 100% of the time. It also will be easier to do the longer the missile has to travel to the bird. Close range locks will be nearly impossible to avoid without flares.
The nightbird will still have flares but they will regenerate slower.
In exchange the minigun will be swapped with the bf3 portal little bird minigun which is much more accurate but overheats faster.
Rocket pods will be removed and replaced with the EMP grenade from the gunner seat of the stealth heli.(alternatively giving it the TOW missile would be good) AGMs will be the other option.
This will make the nightbird the effective infantry killer it is designed to be and feature high skill and high mobility required to survive.
And for crying out loud increase the vehicle spawns so that there can be more vehicle vs vehicle and air vs air combat and not just infantry vs vehicles all the time!
