Future of dogfighting

[Gripen]

Their fighters, F-4 was more bomber then fighter.

[Cobra2]

But it is still a good aircraft and served very well. And great pilots were much help too. 

[Webmaster]

If anything from them, then speed.

Ace of aces, Adolf Galland once said that in the future fighters will only chase bombers at super sonic speed. He added that the planes are controlled from some sort of a bunker far away. So speed.

In WWII speed was great because it gave you an edge in dogfighting, and if not, you could always run off. But nowadays with missiles going Mach 3-4 and being highly lethal, I agree with Viggen and the USAF that stealth is most important now, remaining undetected, although that's avoiding a dogfight! Hmm, we are talking about dogfighting here, right? For dogfighting, super agility is now. But with with radar technology and weapon technology advancing, I don't believe that it would be the future... if you would call radar/sensors/weapons fire power...then I'd say firepower is the future.

Or maybe better.... there is no future for dogfighting! Future of dogfighting will be re-enactment at airshows. 

[Gripen]

Well, you could make a missile that does Mach 10, can outmanouver anything and can find stealth planes, that would be the future, the ultimate missile

[Flanker.94]

Yeah Grip. That will be awesome. I added counter-measures.

[Viggen]

The days of dogfighting is over. I still stand  to my vote about stealth being the most important. But as our webmaster said, once your involved in a dogfight then aguility is more important.

But does not all pilots want to avoid dogfighting? Todays missions are mostly about taking out groundtargets, so you need to stay undetected. If you are detected and have succesfully dropped your load on your target, you need to get out of there. You dont stay and take up a fight, you would probably not have the sufficent fuel to make it back to base or the refuling aircraft.

The point im trying to make here is, that today dogfighting is the last resort you take if everything else fails. Just look at the development of the aircraft, most are multirole today. There is no need anylonger for jets like Viggen, F-104, MIG25/31, Tornado and so on.  Yes, there are a couple of pourpuse built aircraft  in service today, like the A-10. But these are not built for dogfighting in the first case. They have a supporting role on the battlefield for the goundunits. They are more stable at low altitude or slow speed. A prime example is of course the F-117, it never had to dogfight, thanks to its stealth capabilities.

Im sorry to say but this is what the future holds in it hands for airwarfare. Next step will be unmanned stealth aircraft (which i really dislike). 

If you feel im way wrong, please feel free to educate me. 

[Gripen]

UCAV's will never be as good as manned fighters, humans have instincts, where as computers only do what you tell them

[alyster]

Human brain is also a computer with programming errors. Lets take a simple example: put your 2 finger across each other and try to feel the tip of your nose with these 2 fingers, in most of the cases people feel that they have 2 noses. It's a simple error in human brain while working on the information it gets.

Or if you fly into artic snow storm you could be flying 90 degrees nose down and still think you are doing a good job.

[Globetrotter]

Human brain is also a computer with programming errors. Lets take a simple example: put your 2 finger across each other and try to feel the tip of your nose with these 2 fingers, in most of the cases people feel that they have 2 noses. It's a simple error in human brain while working on the information it gets.

Or if you fly into artic snow storm you could be flying 90 degrees nose down and still think you are doing a good job.

I passed the fingers exam at least

[Viggen]

UCAV's will never be as good as manned fighters, humans have instincts, where as computers only do what you tell them

Unmanned fighters does not mean totally computer controlled. They are in fact controlled by a human pilot on the ground.

[Flanker.94]

Yeah Viggen, you're right.

[Gripen]

mm, so whats the difference? they are still manned in way or another, theres just no direct risk to the peson controlling it.