drone could have higher max speeds, higher max acceleration. fighter was designed ... what 20 years ago?
Cost of drone? Cost of loss of either? total cost of ownership is vastly different.
There is real cause to be very afraid.
Not at all. Missiles are far faster and more maneuverable than aircraft. The only chance a fighter plane has against them is with countermeasures such as chaff and flares as well as electronic countermeasures (ECM). All of these are designed to fill the missile’s tracking and guidance systems. Without them, the plane is helpless against the faster and more maneuverable missile.
Missiles are also far cheaper than aircraft. There’s no need to sustain the life and health of a pilot and no need to carry fuel for return trips. This makes missiles very small and light (and thus cheap) compared to a plane.
It can carry half the fuel (or fly twice as long), doesn't need landing mechanisms, can be made with less focus on durability (just needs to survive one flight). It can be very small and fly low (and subsonic) to avoid detection. It could even land and wait near military airports on top of trees etc.
Basically it would work like movable minefields in air. Denying territory to the enemy planes.
Airborne platforms for both the big launch sensors and the missile launch point have some inherent advantages is all.
Also, it's really hard to set up a SAM a hundred miles into enemy territory - SAM is fundamentally a defensive technology with extremely limited use for air superiority missions.
It turns out that the faster, higher aircraft has the advantage. If you have speed, you can deny your better-turning adversary an opportunity to engage you, and you thus dictate the terms of the engagement. If you find yourself on equal footing as a bandit, you can simply climb away at the enemy's maximum level speed and he will be unable to catch you.
Additionally, BVR missiles in particular benefit from a high initial launch velocity so they can use their finite delta-V budget to maximize range and closure with the target.
G Force tolerance only matters if you're in the air combat equivalent of a knife fight in a phone booth.
Methinks these trials coming up will not be fair: a human can continue making good decisions in a non permissive electromagnetic/cyber battle space whereas a drone cannot. Air combat tactics will have to evolve but I don't think we will see drones defeating piloted fighters (in actual combat) in my lifetime. Perhaps if there's a watershed moment in AI but we aren't there yet.
Why isn’t auto-aim game over here for both sides?
Approach and simply fire missiles at all the spots the plane could be in the next few seconds. Done.
For context, the volume of that sphere is about 164 million cubic metres.
Even if you assume it can't maneuver with complete authority anywhere in that sphere (valid assumption), you could reduce that volume by 75% and still be looking at 40 million cubic metres.
I mean, you're not trying to blanket the entire space, just put things in its way.
EDIT: Or the missiles themselves can just guide themselves based on tracking how their target moves. Then you won't even need many missiles.
That's what many types do nowadays.
A thousand years for now, it may be up to Brion Brandd to save this planet... https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/2559973349