You think it is easy today? Hardly there is a lot of task saturation in a modern fighter.The cut off point was the 2nd generation jet fighters(F-86,F-80) many guys that had even flown combat in WWII just could not do the same tasks at higher speeds.


Old time combat seems romantic but it was very hard.Modern air combat (not drone) is extremely demanding trust me I have seen pilots step out of the cockpit after missions they usually look like they just went 12 rounds with Ali in his prime.

You need to speak with some Hog pilots they do things up close and personal I have a buddy that did fabrication and once saw an A-10 that had over 200 holes it many of them from AK47 rounds you don't get AK rounds from miles away.They even found a few 7.62x39mm slugs in the air frame.

It will take a while before drones take over fully they are a very long way from having the payload of a manned aircraft.


What do you mean you are not in the Air Force yet and it drives you crazy? You'll never even make it past basic training then get ready to fold your underwear and socks and follow a ton of rules.You are in for rude awakening good thing your not about to join the Marine Corps.

Fly DCS: A10C, just getting the damn thing off the runway requires a degree in computer literacy. Then you've got to wrestle with the TCP to line your shot up, all the time being warbled at by the RWR because some sod in a Buk is trying to find you on his radar screen. Then, when you do fire, you have to make sure that you don't screw your laser up by holding it on too long, or that you've painted the right point otherwise your nice big laser guided bomb is going to make a hole NEXT to the T-72 you were pointing it at.
By this time the Buk operator has woken up and you have two SAMs making pretty smoke trails in the sky by your cockpit, so you have to get out of dodge, whilst avoiding every Tom, Ivan, and Mohammad with a weapon throwing lead at you, and God help you if they vector in a fast mover, you have two AIM-9s to throw but after that, well you'd better hope they are stupid enough to wander in front of your GAU-8, failing that, fly no higher than the height of the grass so they lose you in the ground clutter.

So, what about the fast movers overhead? They have it easy, right?

Errr...no... Since they're flying high, the Buk operator gets a nice picture of them once he's burnt through the ECM, then there's MiGs waiting with BVR missiles to ruin your day, you've got to constantly keep an eye on your fuel gauge because everytime you turn on the burners it just eats fuel. You've got to figure out which one of those dots on your forward radar is the swine that just shot at you, and try to return the favour.
Fortunately AWACs is around the clarify the picture a bit, and your RWR can tell you roughly what is where, but unless you're laying the beat down on the sand people that prefer to bury their MiGs rather than risk flying them, it's a tough job, and even on an easy day, try pulling a few gees in a tight turn, and having to do all of the above whilst feeling like an elephant has sat on your chest.

They make it look easy because they've been bloody well trained, but a quick mess around in a competant simulator will tell you how tricky it is, and that's without the whole motion, gee force, and dead is REALLY dead things to worry about.

I must admit, there are elements of WWII aircraft that are much harder than todays aircraft, navigation, lack of zero/zero ejector seats, a lack of knowledge about the effects of very high speed on an aircrafts controls and airframe (particularly towards the end of the war as jets became to come in), however those difficulties have been replaced by new difficulties in the modern jet age.

Try air to air refueling some time... :shifty:

War is becoming a virtual thing, won't be too many decades before flying drone gunships fight drone tanks while drone jets fight each other overhead.

It reminds me of an old Star Trek episode where they fought wars on a computer, calculated where the damage was and who was killed and then had the affected people euthanised.

And that's not even getting into cyber-warfare...

Makes me glad to be too old to see it.

Whoa whoa whoa guys. I never said that modern air combat was easy and undemanding.

I understand the complexity of it. I obviously don't have as much experience as you. I'm saying that the World War 2 prop plane dogfighting is much more interesting and would be much more fun than flying around an F-15. My goal is to become a Hog pilot. That is what I want to do. If that doesn't work out, I will fly something, somewhere for somebody. I love aviation and flying.

I just think that flying was more interesting and a lot cooler in a F6F over the Pacific, or a Spitfire over England, or a Bf-109 over France, and even a B-17 over Germany. I love WW2 stuff and would give almost anything to have a good ol' warbird...Maybe a P-40 or an Avenger Torpedo Bomber...

I always remember my last three days before the sent me to Vietnam. Last day at NTC San Diego, I was up at 0600 and assigned to spend eight hours "policeing" the yards; picking up trash and cigarette butts all day long. The next day we were flown to Travis AFB. After a night in the barracks there we were awoken around 0900 by an airman who said "Your flight isn't until late this afternoon. Want to see the base?" We spent a hard day looking at airplanes and hangers, and mostly just lounging around.

Still havent finished the pacific...... *ducks*

But I do have my copy of BoB right here.....

Looking forward to this already....

Well just understand that anyone who flew in a WWII aircraft in combat that their life was on line and many of them did not make out alive.Just ask Chuck Yeager he said that what made him a good fighter pilot was that he did not fear death but understand that he actually faced death before he came up with that attitude.

If you join the Air Force you cant guarantee that you will forever fly one type of aircraft many pilots get moved around and they have to fly what ever is flown by the unit they get moved to and you also do not get to say "I don't want to move there or fly X plane its what they tell you to fly.Also the military is the master of taking what you would most like to do and assign you the exact opposite and they can tell when you are trying to use reverse psychology on them. An older cousin of mine was a Marine aviator he started in A-4s the went to Harriers then to F/A-18s then a desk.

If you really want to fly for the US military the first step is to become an officer unless you want to fly choppers for the US Army.Then you have to complete officer training Academy or ROTC the you have to pass the tests to get into flight school then you have to pass basic flight school and hope that you did well enough to go to the fighter program at the same time if you did well in both they might need a heavy pilot more and you'll go there anyway.You have a lot of goals to meet before you get to an A-10 cockpit or flight deck as they now called in the military.I am not saying that your goal is impossible it is just going to be very difficult.

That is right that - sorry - stupid attitude on war that made the French and oh so noble knights beeing massacred by English archers at the battle of Azincourt, 1415.

War is not about noblesse, romanticism and honour, but killing the enemy and destroying everything that is between you and the goal you want to achieve.

If you want romanticism, do a private duel in your spare time. But save the soldiers and pilots in real wars from your dangerous sentimentality. You could cost them their lives.

Can you please explain to me how I am costing lives in a war by posting on Subsim? :hmmm:

I have the deepest respect for anyone who puts on a uniform to defend me or my country. I even respect those who do it for other countries. They fight so that we have the right to free speech. They fight so we can sleep safely in our homes at night without worrying about getting deported. I don't want romanticism. I want to serve my country. I will try to get in to fly the Hogs, but like I said, I will fly for somebody, somewhere, and at sometime. Even if that means choppers for the Army or AWACS or Cargo Planes for the Air National Guard or something.

I always have a backup plan too. I have a family with a military history. There are tons of other things I could do. If the military is out of the question, i shall be law enforcement.

Romanticism aside, the "old days" had the definite advantage of having a human element more strongly included. I say it's an advantage, because as long as there is the human somewhere in there, there is the risk of someone dying. And as long as there is the risk of someone dying, someone somewhere has to weigh that risk against the possible benefits gained by winning the war. Hopefully before they start it.

Imagine a situation where the human element is removed and the war is fought by droids or something similar. Replacing them is perhaps not cheap, but which is easier to sell to the public: the possibility of a financial loss on national level or the potential of losing a family member on personal level? Even if we suppose that such high tech army had somehow been acquired by a crazy dictator who doesn't have to care about the public opinion, it's still easier with the human element removed. When you run out of people, have fun waiting for about two decades for them to reproduce before you can even start training them. Whereas if you can just make more soldiers as long as you have the industrial capacity.

I for one am happy this is still just a sci-fi scenario.

Somebody's been playing Black Ops 2 lately... :D

Somebody hasn't ever touched anything even remotely related to the Call of Duty series.

Because except for the first few episodes it sucked.

I honestly couldn't tell. Reading my post again now it seems I was dissing the series, when in fact I meant literally what I said: I haven't ever played any of the CoD games. Heck, I got my hands on Medal of Honor only around last Christmas too when the Allied Assault was added to GOG. Their kind of games just are not my cup of tea, I guess.