Best Bets
According to the official Prima game guide (Engaging Vehicles, p. 16), your best option is the M320 grenade launcher, which you'll unlock very early. And that's not at all an ideal option since you won't be doing nearly as much damage as a rocket, mine, or tank would do. My feeling is that it's like throwing rocks at a rhino. Sure, eventually you'll do damage, but long before you do enough damage it'll figure out where you are. Bad scene. And as for helicopters, good luck getting them to stay still long enough for a grenade launcher takedown.
Note that if a chopper or heavily armored vehicle is very badly damaged (spewing smoke), it might be worth a grenade launcher or even a grenade attack in the hope of shaving off those last few hit points. But don't expect miracles.
Small Arms Fire
Small arms fire won't damage heavily armored vehicles. You can damage some light vehicles with small arms fire, but don't count on fast results.
As a better strategy you can damage people in the least-armored vehicles, buggies and jeeps. If you pull it off, as a bonus you get an intact vehicle to jack.
M320 Example
As an example of probably the best case scenario, grenade launcher vs. lightly armored vehicle: Earlier tonight I disabled a couple of APCs with four grenade launcher rounds each.
Though I can't complain about the result, in one case the APC had no gunner and the driver didn't jump out, drive away, or hop in the gunner's seat. In the other case the gunner... uh... had suboptimal situational awareness. And that's just disabling, not outright destroying; an engineer could have repaired them.
Against slightly more skilled opponents, or on a fully populated server, I doubt I would have have survived either attempt. To pump out four grenades takes a good 10-15 seconds including reload time.
What you can do
So as a rule, leave it to engineers with their rockets and mines, support with their C4, and people in vehicles.
Perhaps the most useful thing you can do as light infantry is to spot enemy vehicles. Just because you're not blowing it up yourself doesn't mean you're "completely useless". Spotting is actually very valuable, and it's disappointing how infrequently most players do that.
Best Answer
The best weapon period for taking out enemy jets is the default machine gun.
Heat-Seekers can be evaded or they can use flares to get rid of them. The only thing that an enemy can do to avoid being shot by a machine gun is be a better pilot than you, and even then, if you get the drop on them, it's pretty hard to avoid being killed.
The machine gun also kills the most quickly of any of the jets weapons. The only downside to it is that you have to learn how far to lead the enemy jet to hit them. This comes from practice, and soon you'll be able to take down an enemy jet no problem.
In regards to spotting and keeping track of the enemy, the first thing you want to do is look at the enemy jet and press Q. Then once you've engaged the enemy, stay in cockpit view whenever you can to help you aim, but the moment that the enemy moves out of your view, switch to chase camera (C) and attempt to keep them in your sights. Switch back and forth between cockpit cam and chase cam whenever you get a chance to fire at them.
If you follow these tips pretty soon you'll be taking out enemy jets like a pro.