While speed in completing missions, extent of damage to your jet, and 'First Blood' bonuses help, they will never allow you to gain the points and medals to open new jets. The key to points is ammunition choice. Try to use only guns for everything, saving all the missiles and bombs possible. If you must use missiles, use the self aimed, not the guided. The more bombs and missiles you return with, the higher the scores. By doing this it is possible to advance from the normal 300,000 to 400,000 red star success to consistent scores of over 2 million per mission.