F-35 Makes Paris Airshow Debut and Is Talk of the Airshow

F-35's would be untouchable in a close in swirling dogfight.

Except in todays aerial combat there are no dogfights.

Just jet fighters locking onto enemy planes well beyond visual range, and firing missiles to destroy them many miles away.. .... :cool:
 
The experts prior to Vietnam also said the age of the dogfight was over. The F-4 was delivered without a gun because "missiles made dogfighting obsolete".

There have always been times and there may always be times when you can't get clearance to take a BVR shot. You'll have to close for visual ID before being cleared to shoot. And if you can see the bad guy, he can see you. And there's your fur ball.
 
All that aerial acrobatics looks extremely impressive at air shows, and really wows the crowd.

But is totally useless in todays aerial engagements. ..... :cool:
. Could come down to the dog fight after all counter messures are exhasted or expended. Would be a fluke these days though.
 
The price of the F-35 is over $600 million per aircraft. The total cost for the entire fleet of F-35's plus maintenance costs during its operational life span, is expected to be 1.5 trillion dollars. ..... :cool:
 
Last edited:
All that aerial acrobatics looks extremely impressive at air shows, and really wows the crowd.

But is totally useless in todays aerial engagements. ..... :cool:
Actually it is even more useful. When either an IR or radar air to air missile is coming at you at Mach 3-5, rapid movements and use of decoys would make hits virtually impossible.
 
The price of the F-35 is over $600 million per aircraft. The total cost for the entire fleet of F-35's plus maintenance costs during its operational life span, is expected to be 1.5 trillion dollars. ..... :cool:
What's the cost if Russia or China decide they want to go to war with us because they feel we are weak?
 
The experts prior to Vietnam also said the age of the dogfight was over. The F-4 was delivered without a gun because "missiles made dogfighting obsolete".

There have always been times and there may always be times when you can't get clearance to take a BVR shot. You'll have to close for visual ID before being cleared to shoot. And if you can see the bad guy, he can see you. And there's your fur ball.
You misquote them. They felt close air engagements were a thing of the past because missiles had just come out. What I am referring to is the small number of air engagements the past 40 years and who keeps coming out on top.
 
The experts prior to Vietnam also said the age of the dogfight was over. The F-4 was delivered without a gun because "missiles made dogfighting obsolete".

There have always been times and there may always be times when you can't get clearance to take a BVR shot. You'll have to close for visual ID before being cleared to shoot. And if you can see the bad guy, he can see you. And there's your fur ball.
This Vietnam era F-4 thing comes up every once in awhile, but it is a terrible comparison. That was in an age when most kills were still by the gun, and AIM-7 was a relatively new missile that had poor performance against fighters since designed to take out Soviet bombers and required the aircraft to maintain nose to target.

In the ensuing five decades things have changed considerably. AMRAAM is a far more capable missile, sensors have much longer reach, and the numbers from air combat don't lie... the percentage of air-to-air kills that are from AMRAAM (as opposed to Sidewinder or gun) have increased steadily to the point where the medium range missile dominates statistically. Can you name the last time a US plane used a gun in a dog fight? I think the last time in any situation was an A-10 shooting up an Iraqi helicopter, and that doesn't even qualify as a dog fight.

I'm not saying there will never be a dog fight again, but the comparison to F-4 days with AIM-7 aren't really applicable because actual experience in modern air combat supports the position that if a US aircraft is going to shoot something down it'll likely be with AIM-120 and it won't be a dogfight.

Also = the game is changing in regards to visual ID as well. An F-35 or F-22 can usually identify an aircraft passively wby RF data at much farther range than visual, and F-35 takes this farther by being able to do so using IR and electro-optical sensors. They have databases that the plane's computer can compare against, everything from RF signature to digital image.
 
Last edited:
Sorry. You are so smart and I'm so stupid. I know nothing about this subject. Thanks for talking down to me and explaining this in such simple terms that even a simpleton like me can understand it.

I lived it. Thanks for telling me what I lived through.

How much F-4 time do you have? How much F-4 instructor time do you have?
What other fighter time have you logged? What squadrons did you serve in?
 
Last edited:
Wow you lived through both F-4s without guns and modern air combat shooting AIM-120s? Quite the career span.

Care to address any of the points made instead of feeling butthurt and throwing out appeal to authority fallacy?
 
Last edited:
Wow you lived through both F-4s without guns and modern air combat shooting AIM-120s? Quite the career span.

Now you're making stuff up and asking me to back it up. Add fiction to your condescending no-it-all attitude. You're not worth the time.

Dismissed.
 

New Topics

Forum List

Back
Top