How the hell do you do it? I move my mouse forward and the jet moves up in the air, but how to I make the jet move forward?backward? or anywhere other than crashing back down?

dont use your mouse. I played Battlefield 1942, Vietnam, BC2 and now BC3 and I can tell you: the trick has always been to use your WASD keys as well as your arrow keys, not the mouse. Its actually really convenient.

W is accelerate and S is to Decelerate.

at most times your ass better be pressing W and in some cases Shift to have the after burners going as well to keep forward momentum.

a and d make your tail fin turn which kinda moves you in the direction your pressing but you really turn by the mouse...for sharper turns press the decelerate and move the mouse sometimes dealing on your sensitivity moving it in on direction , lifting it up putting it back in the center of your mouse pad and moving it to the direction again. when you're in the right direction slam on w.

This is a brief and messy explanation on jet flying in my eyes.

Or you could do Omega method, I just find it easier to use the mouse as I find it quicker to shoot.

I tried pressing "w" and it did nothing...... the only control I can use to move the plane is up in the air with my mouse, no other controls seem to work.

tried the wsad buttons and they dont do anything while trying to fly

Wtf omega, in 1942 and BF2 it was WAY better to use the mouse to aim, can't move quickly with the keyboard only in a plane... don't know about bf3 though

Dont listen to any of htese kids, real jet pilots use a joystick. that shit is boss. I did it in BF2 and there is no comparison.

It's easy... Use W to increase the throttle, S to decrease. Moving the mouse right/left will roll you, and then pull down on the mouse to do a quick turn. You can press A - D to control the YAW of the plane as well...

If these aren't working for you you might not have them set in your options.

Yeah, definitely hopped into a helicopter and could only go up and down. Pushed every button I could find lol. Need to look in the settings or break out my joystick...

Helicopters are different. You have to tilt the nose down to go forward.

I knew that's what needed to happen but I couldn't make that happen. Lol

Yep. You want to feather it though, or else you will do a barrel roll :O
Rolling left/right strafes the heli and a/d should control the yaw.

I've gotta say flying in this game approaches the fun of flying in BF1942. They knocked it out of the park IMO. Great balance.

Well flying in BC2 is horrible, so easy to control helicopters that it gets annoying how easy it is to not crash if no one shoots you