Analysis of air combat

Mr. Sprey has some good points in this 2006 presentation on historical air combat. He doesn't cover all air combat since the end of WWII.

Much of the presentation is about where we have been and where we should go. A few points that he thinks are important.

You must build a dedicated air-to-air aircraft in high quantity. For his thoughts, 3 points to help support that are: numbers matter; numbers matter, and, numbers matter.

From a more in-depth (absolute must-read no-rush, sit down and dedicate time, jot down notes if needed, but take your time) consultation paper (PDF) he did in 1982 that gauges where the then F-18A was:

-Pilots need 30 or more sorties per month for air-to-air training.
-In order for the high quantity of fighters needed and to support operational training, the fighter must be simple and affordable to construct.
-The F-86 defeated many aircraft types in the mid-60's Operation:Feather Duster which involved flying multiple sorties of the F-86 against the F-4,F-100,F-104 and F-105. The F-86 was later put against the F-5 and beat it.

Some years later, the F-5 would beat the F-15A badly in within-visual range combat (WVR) testing. USAF rigged F-15A results giving insane levels of kill probability to the Sparrow which even after improvements, never had a high probability of kill (PK).

As an aside, I have a print from helping my friends in the 527th Aggressor squadron in the 1980s that shows a great F-5 gun-camera shot of an F-15 being "killed". Note: also F-5 pilots in this effort fought to a Soviet script and not always all-out the way they wanted. These pilots were experienced and got to fly alot.

Back in the early test and early operational days of the F-15A there were various eras when its problematic engines smoked, and had to be "de-tuned" giving it less power. Also early F-15A air-to-air tests showed a lack of combat sustainment in WVR due to poor fuel burn.

The F-15 has turned into a great (because of high amounts of pilot training) fighter but it has always been pitted against low capability threats. And, how many F-16s could you buy for that same money?

-Experienced pilots count.
-Neither the paper or this the above mentioned 2006 brief discuss new generation imaging/IR dogfight missiles which have different fusing and countermeasure problems. AMRAAM, which has around a 50 percent PK against low end non-jamming targets is also not addressed.
-Defensive jamming is useful against radar guided missiles and missile radio fusing used in any missile. Not mentioned is alternate fusing.
-The AIM-9L was flare-happy. Note, this was also known later in Desert Storm and allegedly improved upon with the likes of the AIM-9M.
-The F-104 wasn't perfect, but some would disagree with Sprey's assessment. Against the F-86 (high-end pilots vs. high-end pilots) it was formidable.

Well, to give you the short version, if the (1 v. 1) Zip started on the defensive (420 kts)at low altitude, they'd go negative-G into ground clutter until reaching about 1.1M, making rapid banking reversals to prevent gun/missile shots (rare, as the F-86 pilots found it almost impossible to reverse and get into a gun/missile envelope owing to their low speed after the defensive break and the negative closure on the accelerating 104s). Once out of AIM-9B/Atoll range, they'd begin a climbing turn at about M1.0 and 2g; typically, by the time they'd reached 180 deg. of turn the F-86s would have lost sight, and the F-104s would go offensive. When offensive, they'd start their pass at a minimum of 500-600Kts, which would allow them to pull up to 5g sustained (more got into buffet) and track the 86s for a gun shot, allowing speed to bleed down to no lower than 400 knots (Note that they'd only turn with the F-86s when the latter were fast, >.7M; otherwise, they just made slashing attacks) before quarter rolling away, and proceed as for the defensive separation above. Same basic procedures for 2 v. 2 and 4 v. 4, except that double attack was used and the offensive passes were usually started at 1.1M and speed wasn't allowed to go below 500 kts.

For the high altitude combats (35kft. start), the same basic technique was used, except that the initial dive and separation was steeper (ca. 40 deg.) until reaching M1.4 or so @ 10kft, then proceed as before. At both high and low altitude, once the 104s got their energy up after the initial defensive start they were never defensive again. As far as Tom knew, there was only a single, iffy kill called on the 104s by the 86s. One pilot started his climbing spiral a bit early, and the 86 pilot was able to get a tone at about 2,000 ft. range with negative closure. The range officer agreed that the shot was edge of the envelope, but the Zipper pilot admitted that he'd made a mistake and would have had to break if a missile had been fired.

Another little F-104 fact. Some people wanted to show how great the F-106 was. Some experienced F-104 people came in for some air-to-air tests. The F-106 was dominated and low on energy after its first turn with the F-104 doing extreme, and repeat, high-altitude slashing attacks. (Why someone set this up I don't know as the F-106 was designed originally to intercept bombers, but it happened).

Finally? The F-22 has not been mentioned. For Sprey, we will never be able to build them in a high enough quantity nor it seems, give pilots those 30 sorties per month in air-to-air training.

I think we need an F-22 capability. But if not that, we need something fast and high with a p-suit, to address threats like the PAK-FA coming down the pike.

I hope I am wrong, but I fear that U.S. air power could go the way of the analogy of those stacked up old jets that are the banner of this blog. One may disagree with people like Sprey, but if we continue on our current course, we could lose air power capability which in-turn, can mean lost battles and lost wars.