For me, the greatest thing about these games is that you can experiment with a lot of different types of planes and pick the one, that fits your style.

Raiden Fighters:

I absolutely adore The Chaser. It's the fastest of the bunch and have great laser weapon. The main gun is nothing special, but both charged attacks are super effective. Missle Curtain is just crazy!

Endeavor is very weak and slow. It's most effective at close range beacause of weapon design, but it's too damn slow to dodge enemy bullets. I'm not a big fan of the mines in general and I REALLY hate the laser weapon on this one.

Raiden Fighters 2 and Raiden Fighters Jet, have much more planes to offer, so I'm gonna post my picks from those games later.

What are your choises?

On Raiden Fighters, I was using the Chaser for a while (agreed about the missile curtain), but I switched over to the Beast Arrow, and I've been loving it -- the powered up laser is awesome, and does a good job of carving up mid- to large-sized ships before they can start spraying the screen with bullets.

Also agreeing on the awesomeness of the Chaser. I also like the Flying Ray for it's coverage and the Judge Spear for it's insane speed and ridiculous firepower. I also like the Raiden MKII for nostalgia value and it's awesome Toothpaste Laser but I wish it was a tad bit faster.