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