The recently struggle between India and Pakistan has evidence provided by the decreasing role of the combat pilot in the modern war. A large air battle was fought between the two nations on May 6 and 7. India lost at least five planes, some of them advanced fighters from the French rafale. Most of the losses were inflicted by Air-Aire BVR missiles (beyond the visual range). In the following clip video, an officer of the Pakistani Air Force describes how his side of the battle was made.
🇵🇰 The Pakistan Air Force describes the air battle with the 🇮🇳india Air Force:
1ware⃣ sizeax air packages
2 PASS⃣ AEW, BMC3 Critical for the Air Situation Pix
3 MINT REDIRIGATED CIVIL AIR TRAFFIC
4️⃣ No plan survives the first contact
5minte⃣ while the truth is the first victim, ✅ PAF proactive information pic.twitter.com/L7P0NHD2TC– David Boey (@senangdiri) May 11, 2025
Althegh, this commitment was called a “dog fight” in some press reports, it was nothing of the child. The missiles that knocked down the Indian combat plane were launched from 20 to 100 miles away, with Neinder’s side crossing the airspace of the other. No elegant maneuvers or daring acrobatics were needed. The role of the Pakistani pilots was reduced to the navigation addresses and the missile launch against designated objectives. The absence of successful ejections and the recovery of fallen pilots on the side of India indicates that the objective plane had an insufficient warning, which makes evasive maneuvers impossible.
The days of glory of the combat pilots
The state of the star of the combat pilots was in World War I, when flight skills and courage were the keys to victory in Air-Aire combat. Manfred von Richthofen, the “Red Baron”, had 80 murders confirmed in his credit. The fixed air combat scale in World War II resulted in more than 5,000 pilots to reach the status of ACE with more than five murders. A few German pilots achieved around 200 murders in the Eastern Front. The vast majority of these air murders were achieved by rapid firearms with short ranges. The targeting depended on the view and pointed the skill of the pilots. Althegh’s popular culture represents aerial battles as extended maneuvering competitions, most murders in air combat after World War I resulted from surprise attacks, and the most successful pilots avoded the dog fight, preferred ambush and first pass murders. Whatever the tactics were the human eyes, brains and muscles that resulted in the victories that made heroes of the combat pilots.
In the Korean war, both parties used combatants with Jet, and the mystique of the combat pilot continued to grow. Steve Canyon, the comics aviator created by Milton Caniff, became the symbol of a warrior hero who pilots a high -tech jet in air combat. The weapons of the airplanes still did the damage, so all the fighting were in the visual range.
Enter the missiles
Duration The Vietnam War, Air-Aire missiles are widely begged in air combat. The missiles represented approximately two thirds of the murders made by the combat aircraft of the United States and approximately a quarter of the murders made by the Norvietnamese combatants. These first missiles had relatively short ranges and still required a visual sighting of the target and the maneuver for a good shot position. After the Vietnam War, the missiles became the dominant air combat weapon, with weapons of airplanes relegated to a secondary role.
As the Air-Aire missiles became more capable, with a greater range and better orientation systems, the balance between WVR (within the visual range) and the participation of BVR (beyond the visual range) also changed, and the murders were incessantly achieved, the accumulation of accumulation, accumulation, accumulation, accumulation, accumulation, accumulation, accumulation, accumulation, accumulation, accumulation, accumulation, accumulation, accumulation, accumulation, accumulation, accumulation, accumulation, accumulation, accumulation, accumulation, accumulation, accumulation, accumulation, accumulation, accumulation, accumulation, accumulation, accumulation, accumulation, accumulation, accumulation, accumulation, accumulation, accumulation, accumulation accumulation, accumulation, accumulation, accumulation, accumulation, which contains. Pilates, contending accumulation, contending accumulation. Municipal fight maneuver.
Returning to the last fighting between India and Pakistan, decisive actions were not tasks of the combat pilots. They were the radar operators of the airplanes in the air and the commanders who evaluated the tactical disposition of the plans on both sides that controlled the battle. The pilots only transported the missiles and threw them under the BMC3 direction (battle management, control, control and communication) against objectives too far to see. This is not a heroic role, and theoretically could be made by unmanned planes.
Cultural inertia
The history of war is marked by the persistence of ineffective practices. This has resulted in Debacles as assaults of suicidal infantry in World War I, unprotected battleships sunk by airplanes in World War II and the failure of US forces against insurgent in Vietnam and Afghanistan. The meme of the combat pilot as a heroic champion is deeply among the American popular culture and in the ranks of the United States army. As a consequence, manned aviation remains a high priority in the United States defense establishment. Despite the abundant indications of the imminent domain of drones and AI systems in the future war, the United States continues to make mass commitments with the crew (F-35 and F-46) and the bomber (B-2 and B-21).
O Privileged concern is a proposal to develop drone combat planes aimed at operating the joint with handcurns. The United States Air Force has undertaken the Collolast Combat Aircraft (CCA) program to build a fleet of drones that would operate in formations led by manned airplanes. An obvious problem with this concept is the overload of pilots that would have to administer multiple accompanying drones. The notion of aircraft of “men of the wing” of the drones of ia who expect instructions from a stressed and fallible human formation raises a serious feasibility question. It could be argued that, in many circumstances, the instructions should pass from the drones of AI to the human pilot. Fortunately, simulations can easily reveal the deficiencies of the CCA concept. Unfortunately, the pentagon and defense contractors have a history of ignoring or distorting the results of the tests to favor the continuation of the defective programs. The most likely result that the CCA program will deliver very little, too late and a Hogous cost.
Representation of collaborative combat aircraft concept: What could be wrong with this image?
Conclusion
The era of the heroic combat pilot is coming to an end, since technology aware so much the character of the air war. Drones combat aircraft, without obstacles due to the biological limitations of human pilots, will be possible to dominate the heavens of armed conflicts. Cultural memes are difficult to erase, and the glorification of the entertainment media of combat pilots, such as the best weapons films (total gross: $ 1.86 billion) will help maintain political support for manned airplane programs for many years. Military institutional inertia and perverse suppliers will continue working to keep human pilots in combat aircraft. We can only expect costs to be limited to excessive pentagon expenses. The worst result could be a military disaster if we discover that it is enemy combat drones that have the right things.
