4 ms·
Non-stealth fighters seem kind of pointless in this era. In any real mission won't a beyond-visual-range missile just shoot you out of the sky?
by xvector 5y ago
Non-stealth fighters seem kind of pointless in this era. In any real mission won't a beyond-visual-range missile just shoot you out of the sky?
- croes 5y agoFighters with on board pilots seem pointless. Mass beats intelligence
- albertopv 5y agoNot at all. Radars are advancing too and what today is a stealth fighter might not be in 10 years. If the fighter has poor handling characteristics it could be useless in much less time than predicted.
- blitzar 5y agoNot at all. Almost all of the bombs being dropped are against people armed with whatever rocks are laying around on the ground. Until a beyond-visual-range rock throwning champion emerges there is little risk to conventional, non-stealth, airframes.
- msh 5y agoDepends a lot on who you are fighting.
- throwawaybutwhy 5y agoAn agile, uncrewed, cheap (kinda sorta), mass-produced fighter that can penetrate Chinese and Russian airspace? What's not to like?
- ju-st 5y agoCruise missiles already exist.
- Stranger43 5y agoYes but modern beyond visual range missile might do the same to current stealth platforms so one could argue that fighter jets as a whole is becoming obsolete for a lot of the missions that defines the air force as a separate branch. Where you still want a pilot in the loop is in A-10 territory where the role is to fly low and slow and work directly with local infantry commanders, and this means sustaining some level of damage mostly from "primitive" optically tracked weapons rather then last-gen long range radar tracked missiles. I.E. what you want is an cheap to operate, replace and train for plane that can be deployed in large numbers from forward bases. a role currently filled by army operated drones who is extremely vulnerable to "electronic warfare" in a way that a piloted plane wont be.