I am trying to draw a flame (coming from the rear of a jet). I currently have a red cone in its place, but would like a more “real” effect. Can someone help me? 
1.You can use different textures representing different states of the flame and draw a different one for each frame (on a quad for instance).
2.The best effect will be achieved using particles, but this is quite a big subject to be discussed in this forum, so try some tutorial like Nehe’s: http://nehe.gamedev.net/tutorials/lesson19.asp
An animated and BLENDED textured flame would look cool and in the case of a jet engine would probably work better and be faster. Particles are good for fires and things but a huge amount of physics is needed and haveing thousands of particles to make a good effect will be slow.
Agreed, the animated texture should be enough.
Sill, you don’t need that much physics for particles in this particular case. For instance there is no need to take gravity into account!
I remember one of my flight sims, JSF, the smoke trails behinds the missiles are done using quite a few particles and that looks great. Moreover, this game runs pretty well on my old voodoo1 which I must say is really crap compared to today’s gfx boards.
Okay, textured polys sound good and all, but does anyone have any tips on how to orient these in such a situation?
i have noticied in many games that they are using at least 2 polys like these :
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play quake 3 level q3dm17 in spectator mode and go close to a flame to see by yourself
good luck,
Marsu