If I was protecting something for fighter rank I would be a fool you must have kill points for a good fighter rank. I choose to fly as attack, my few fighter sorties were merely a hiccup where I scored as fighter on accident. 3 sorties to pad something would be more harmful than good. A k/d of 2.00 with 300 kills will rank you higher than a k/d of 20.00 and 4 kills.
Tour 112 where I flew as fighter
Fighter K/d 2.41
499 kills K/S 1.60
85 assists K per hour 11.20
312 sorties K hit % 11.94
82 landed kill points 54,00
8 bailed
19 ditched
24 captured
170 deaths Overall rank of 39.....much better than this tour for my "padding my fighter rank tour"
Your all on drugs