  Inelastic QED processes, the cross sections of which do not drop with
increasing energy, play an important role at high-energy colliders. Such
reactions have the form of two-jet processes with the exchange of a virtual
photon in the t-channel. We consider them in the region of small scattering
angles $m/E \lesssim \theta \ll 1$, which yields the dominant contribution to
their total cross sections. A new effective method is presented and applied to
QED processes with emission of real photons to calculate the helicity
amplitudes of these processes. Its basic idea is similar to the well-known
equivalent-lepton method. Compact analytical expressions for those amplitudes
up to $e^8$ are derived omitting only terms of the order of $m^2/E^2,
\theta^2$, $\theta m/E$ and higher order. The helicity amplitudes are presented
in a compact form in which large compensating terms are already cancelled. Some
common properties for all jet-like processes are found and we discuss their
origin.
