“It’s tons of fun to watch the reaction (in online sims) when you fly in with an aircraft that can be seen with the eye but none of your opponents have any missiles that can get and hold lock. “
I sat on top of the HQ building at Kunsan AB, ROK watching 32 f-16s take off in groups of 4. Then they spent the 45 minutes doing a mock airbase attack dropping flares instead of bombs. The absolute best show I have ever seen. Seeing two F-16s go vertical and corkscrew side by side was incredible.
In real life you can’t see the planes from the ground until they are overhead. In an air to air action visibility is even worse.
Yup - but fighter-mounted radar and IR can see the 15/16/18 series fighters with pretty decent clarity. The pilots don’t have to put eyes on the planes to lock them up and launch on them.
With the various stealth designs, fighter-borne radars and IR can’t see them well enough to get a consistent track let alone a lock. So the enemy fighters have to close to visual range to do any damage.