Stealth goes away in a dogfight? Well, duh! At least until you get a cloaking device. Isn’t the whole point to clear the skies BEFORE going bare knuckle in visible contact? The good news is that there’s still a need for the United States Air Force Weapons School.
That’s right. YEARS ago, during my senior year cadet summer at the Air Force Academy, I got sent to an F-4 squadron at Seymour-Johnson AFB, NC, for three weeks. While there, the Aggressor squadron from Nellis showed up to teach some DACM to the F-4 jocks. They were flying painted-up T-38’s (yep....not even F-5’s for F-20’s; plain ol’ ‘38’s that we all later flew in UPT).
These guys were unreal. They took me with ‘em for a fair number of sorties out past the NC coastline. They positively kicked the living s**t out of the F-4 drivers.
I learned first-hand, then and there, that the quality of the pilot is as important or MORE important than the aircraft. True, speed, acceleration, avionics, etc. ALL count in a big way.....but a far superior pilot in a lesser aircraft can still kick yer ass.
I loved your reply. As they said - they were specifically scripted dog-fights, i.e. they were forced to close to visual distances to see what would happen.
My understanding is that the F-22 flights use a tactic of flying in pairs, with one well behind the second. The tail-end guy is a radar emitter, i.e. he can be found if they can track the F22 radar. The plane in front gets a telemetry feed of the radar image from the back-end plane and shoots his missiles. The aggressor never knows where the missiles came from!
Then there is the bit where you don’t know you are in trouble until you ARE in visual range - with the F22 on your six because you didn’t see the F22 move to sun-ward and come at you because it’s invisible to radar. Whoops!
It sounds very much like any engagement really - you use your platforms best features effectively and stay out of the profile that gives the other guy an advantage over you.