How do I maneuver the jet?

I sometimes get to fly the jet on BF3 near the end of the round, and I almost always fly it out of range of the battlefield and die.

How do I turn the bird? It seems to have a mind of its own.

I have been trying the maneuver with the keys  A ,  D  and the arrow keys ←  , →  in combination with ↑   and ↓  .

Solution 1:

 A  and  D  are used to to control your yaw (horizontal turning), while ↑   and ↓   control your pitch (vertical turning) and ←   and →   control your roll (rolling counter-clockwise and clockwise, respectively).

To make sharp turns, you need to roll in the direction you want to turn, while pitching upwards and at the same time (if you're not completely vertical, if you are then just keep pitching up) yawing in the same direction.

For example, to turn right, do the following: →   until you're almost vertical, then hold  D  at the same time as ↑   (for regular flight control, for inverted flight control, just hold ↓   instead).