> I wonder if America has fought its last human controlled air-to-air dog fight, or it will be extremely rare.
Yes. Drones and long-range weapons delivery (either high energy or SCRAM-driven missiles). Fighter jets? Might as well call out the buggy whips and horse drawn carriages.
Obligatory A-10 shoutout: We still need something that can provide air-to-ground support to ground troops with a long dwell time, but high-speed cruise to fast deployment (shamelessly stolen from The Avengers: http://www.impdb.org/images/a/ae/Avengers2012CGI_2.jpg).
There is a F-35 variant that's designed to provide close air support, but it's the USMC variant and it's designed to replace the Harrier, which is little consolation to the Army.
Of course, designing the same airframe to replace both the Harrier and the F-16 is a ridiculous notion and the F-35 suffers for it.
Yes. Drones and long-range weapons delivery (either high energy or SCRAM-driven missiles). Fighter jets? Might as well call out the buggy whips and horse drawn carriages.
Obligatory A-10 shoutout: We still need something that can provide air-to-ground support to ground troops with a long dwell time, but high-speed cruise to fast deployment (shamelessly stolen from The Avengers: http://www.impdb.org/images/a/ae/Avengers2012CGI_2.jpg).