The Valkyrie isn't that bad. It needs work, but here's my experience so far:

The tactics I've tried so far have been with a coordinated squad. There were three styles that we tried:

1.) Direct combat vehicle with HAs/Engineers in the rumble seats.

When this works it works pretty well. The problem is that even if you fly smoothly it is difficult for HAs to maintain a lock long enough. Additionally, even with full flak armor and a triage medic our crew was getting wiped out because of rockets and flak explosions. Those problems need fixing.

2.) Quick in/out precision drops like a mobile spawn beacon.

This works really well. You drop 3-4 people in the right places, they kill a bunch of guys, and when they die they just redeploy back into the Valkyrie and you do it again. The speed and flight model of the Valkyrie are perfect for this role. The only issue is how fragile a Valkyrie is when shot at by flak. You die way too fast currently.

3.) Using LAs/Engineers as living bombs to take down vehicles in addition to an A2A role.

This worked the best out of the three and is actually quite viable. You spot a specific target, fly over, drop the LAs (if tanks/MAXes) or Engineers (if a deployed Sunderer), they take it down and redeploy back in. It is pretty rewarding for the pilot and the crew. We also utilized the Hellion and small arms to fight ESFs, Galaxies, and other Valkyries.

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The Valkyries' flight model is a lot of fun and effective. You can literally fly circles around a Galaxy and you won't get outmaneuvered by an ESF. I see some people complaining about the speed, but it seems pretty good to me. I'm using the Evasive airframe.

I will say that it feels really wonky at first and takes a bit of getting used for. For example, with the other aircraft you try to stop moving forward by going into hover mode. With the Valkyrie this isn't the case. You need to pitch up and counter your forward momentum with your vertical thrust. Lots of nuances like that.

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The guns are a bit lackluster but the Hellion is really good. The Hellion is basically an air-mounted Vulcan that destroys pretty much anything at close range. This means getting in next to an ESF/Liberator/Galaxy lets you deal solid damage, and it means you can circle around ground vehicles to take them down.

All the weapons have the same problem though. They don't seem to aim independently from the Valkyrie itself unlike those you would see on the Galaxy/Liberator. This makes them fairly inaccurate as you constantly have to compensate.

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TLDR:

-Flight model is great.
-Weapons need work but Hellion is solid.
-Crew is extremely vulnerable to explosive damage no matter what you do.
-Valkyrie takes too much damage from flak.
-It is too difficult for HAs to reliably use lock-ons even if you fly smoothly.
-Extremely effective for precision drops and acting as a mobile spawn beacon.
-Gun independence needs some work.

Overall the Valkyrie is a lot of fun and can be very effective if you use it correctly, but the problems I mentioned prevent it from realizing its potential.

Thanks for posting this.
Like the scenarios you put forward.

Q? Any Maxes in your Valk yet to comment on?

Q? Sounds more like normal non PS2 style flying, if this is indeed the case a lot of us are interested. Perhaps a lower bar for want to try it out flyers who do well using conventional flying techniques?

So long as people treat it as a transport and not a gunship, it usually works out okay.

MAXes can't ride in a Valk

I think it should get 95%-100% small arms resistance, but aside from that I think it's amazing! That and a darklight spotlight would be pretty cool.

You mean intended purpose

It does need splash protection for rumble seats though from all reports.

I think an AMS shield might be just the ticket. Lower armor a lil to compensate but this would shield occupants for the first few hits and give pilot better chance to react and save passengers from flak damage.

Also, maybe just lower flak damage to infantry in general, and perhaps increase flak armors effectiveness against flak.

I'm hoping to use it as a quick tactical insertion vehicle for my squad with minor CAS support

From reading your post my first thought would be to increase it's resistances a touch first but leave the weapons as they are until that's been tried.

I know you are not trying to but I can see a lot of people trying to fly it and get SOE to buff it into a mini me Lib .. And it's not intended to be that type of vehicle Imo ..

I can see the over powerness but gotta ask SOE to reconsider for purely transportation use - perhaps disable MAX weapons while flying but allow them to use it for transport. Not a deal breaker, just think it might liven the game up a bit to have the ultimate Max crashes.

It's also MUCH cheaper which must be considered in balancing.

Like the Harasser now, this vehicle should be much more disposable than other air vehicle options.

I do think rumble seat vulnerability needs addressing. Harassers don't have to worry about constant flak, Valk's do.

If you're gonna MAX crash you'll prolly want Galaxy passenger capacity anyways, which is the MAX air transport.

you don't have to pitch up to slow down, you have to Balance out.
the only Problem is that the HUD is useless in balancing the Valk out because it's Offset.

I get the impression that people are mistaking "being really close" to a skyguard/burster max for "being extremely vulnerable" ... the valk is equal or greater in toughness on all fronts compared to an esf, and obviously efs know how to work it. Flak is your natural enemy, and you need to play accordingly.

While they're at it, fix this for the tanks too.

ESF's can go 100KPH faster to gtho of dodge though

My first impression with the Valk was getting 3 kills with the Striker
I was quite surprised with the fact that small arms can damage it (looks too bulky to have such thin armor) and passengers are completely exposed to flak.
Still wondering what is its role. Fast transport? I prefer to be a slow giant brick than a fast death body.

You really think the hellion is solid? It feels like the most worthless out of them all to me. The VLG is very spamable and does some nice armor damage, the CAS 14 does what it needs to do against infantry, the pelters are great to use against armored targets when your pilots is moving a lot and the wyvern is a basilisk on steroids. Then there's the hellion... It seems like a downgrade from the wyvern to me because it has less velocity, a lot more spread and lower damage. I'm sure that if you're 10m away it can kill a tank faster, but you start missing bullets fast if you fly at a reasonable distance away from what you're shooting at.

Also, I really don't understand why so many believe that the speed is in a good place right now. You have to fully cert out the speed frame just to surpass speeds that a racer frame galaxy can get. Hover stability isn't even an option right now for general use, you're just far too slow without evasiveness. A liberator with racer frame can get up to 250kph, how is that fair when a light troop transport vehicle with its equivalent of racer frame can only get to 190kph? It makes absolutely no sense right now. If they want to give it a cruising speed between that of a liberator and an ESF, it needs an absolutely massive speed boost from the piss poor 165kph that it now gets to without evasiveness.

The Valkyrie feels clunky. It won't replace my plane of choice for my play style... the Scythe is smooooooooth. I can glide into any spot no matter how tight. And I can set it down like I set my head down on my pillow at night.

Granted, I have hours of practice in the Scythe and I tried a Valkyrie for all of 5 minutes today. LOL But even with the 100 cert discount between the two... I'm paying extra for the Scythe every time unless it's a definitive "air transpot" situation.

Oh, and let me add this... I sat in a turret at Sungrey Amp Station just now, and the Valkyries were spawing nonstop just to the west of my location. They were such sitting ducks it was laughable. They'd spawn, I'd lock in with the Turret and start smashing em hard... they'd turn and try to fly away but they were slow as a turtle and exploded before getting too far. Those things should be - NEED to be - quick and fast. They should be able to scoot, but therefore should have very weak weapons. IMO obv.

If I could manually adjust me speed and fly it at 50% speed on demand, Id be alot less frustrated with this aircraft.

Check out my post to see some suggestions and yes its good to drop people theoretically but YOU GET INSTA wrekt by flak or by anything really. And its too slow to be a in and out. Plus its suppose to be a SUPPORT vehicle, it needs to be able to stay over its children and provide support(of which i mention some types of support in my post). How can you do that when you get insta gibbed. Thats some of my problems with it.

If you try to go from full forward speed to zero it takes at least twice as long as any other vehicle if you just cut off all your thrust.