Particularly sticky, even after a 2 kill result, because you must
leave the hostile arena (perhaps 50-100 NM from feet wet) starting with
150
knots and a wee bit less fuel than you'd probably like.

How long would it take a (now-lightly loaded) -14 or -18 to accelerate
from 150 to 500 knots? 800 knots? Is there likely to be an undetected bad
guy loitering close enough to be able to pounce on you before you reach that
speed? I mean, it's possible that your jet will be knocked out of the sky
by a recreational sky diver, but is it worth worrying about (a smart-ass way
of asking will there likely ever be big, unAWACSed or datalinked dogfights)?

The art is: When do you trade energy for nose position? You wait for a
moment in the fight (if ever) when you're willing to trade your airspeed
for
angles, pull, and shoot. Then gain it back by locking both arms. This is
not cosmic. No pilot goes to the merge thinking that he should
immediately
slow down.

As Frijoles mentioned, how does the new generation of IR missiles and
HMCS change this? Is it worth maintaining energy if the "newest" missile
can pull more g's than your plane and has enough energy to just that even if
it's launched from a bad angle? Are the newest IR missiles at this level of
capability (does anyone know if the now 20-yr old R-73 is being updated)?
Can you tell us any of this without violating national security?
Thanks for the interesting and informative discussion!

Tony

p.s.- about the Python 4 from:
http://www.israeli-weapons.com/weapo...n/Python4.html

"A passing target on a reciprocal heading can be engaged in most of the
forward hemisphere, if the Python fails its first opportunity to hit, it
will maintain track on the target and continue a tail chase geometry pursuit
on a reciprocal heading to the launch aircraft, running down the target for
a tail-aspect hit. The missile is claimed to have sufficient turning
performance to defeat high G evasive manoeuvre by any existing fighter
aircraft"
- I recognize it's probably optimistic manufacturer PR, but the capability
looks pretty impressive any how