Heh, that mission sucked balls. Can't remember what I flew it in though, it was either the Strike Eagle or Tomcat (all I know is even with a multi-role plane it was a bitch due to the game's constant need to auto-correct you every time you pull moves it doesn't like (it took me 5 tries to finally beat it due to that)).
See I've never liked the F-35 (both in game and in real life), such a waste of the F-22's tech but since I do plan on unlocking all planes (yea I'll probably play this like 10-15 times completely through) I'll give it a shot since it's also got some of the better equipment unlocks down that tree. Sadly though that will have to wait since I just found out the X-02S unlocks after you beat the game and since it's 2 million points I'll have a lot of grinding ahead of me (the X-02 is my favorite plane in the Ace series, such a beast of a plane). I have a thing for the F-15 so that's why I went that tree (and the upgrades weren't all to bad, especially the Vulcan upgrades (that tracking assist is so nice when you have lock-on)). Kinda sucks to hear that mission 20 is lackluster, was hoping for one hell of a finale (like AC4, 5 and 0).