Climbing isn't all that important, you just need to hit 2000m and you'll be alone on that height usually. Maybe 1-2 bombers.
This is true for starter tiers especially, you can survive entire games there
This doesn't mean that climbing and then diving on people isn't effective in arcade, it's just that people want instant action. If your aim is good then you can get kills with every swoop you do though, and they can't do anything to fight back, which is hilarious