From Dogfights To Drone Strikes and the two-speed air war rewriting combat aviation

Modern air warfare is diverging into two radically different lanes: ultra-sophisticated stealth platforms costing tens of millions of dollars per airframe, and expendable drones costing under $500 each. Both are proving effective in combat, and the tension between them represents the most significant shift in air power since the introduction of jet engines in the late 1940s.

What Does the Two-Speed Air War Actually Look Like?

On the high end, the force structure centers on aircraft like the Lockheed Martin F-35 Lightning II, the Northrop Grumman B-21 Raider, and the classified Next Generation Air Dominance (NGAD) platform. These are low-observable airframes with sensor fusion capable of processing more data per second than an entire squadron could handle a generation ago. Price tags start around $80 million per copy and climb from there.

On the other end, modified quadcopters and fixed-wing hobby drones — some costing as little as $20 — are being used with improvised munitions to destroy tanks, artillery positions, and supply vehicles. The air war over Ukraine has become the largest laboratory for combat aviation since the skies over Korea in the early 1950s.

How Are Autonomous Wingmen Changing the Math?

The U.S. Air Force is building its future force around collaborative combat aircraft (CCAs) — autonomous drone wingmen designed to fly alongside manned fighters. The concept pairs a human pilot in an F-35 with two to four unmanned platforms that can carry weapons, jam radars, act as decoys, or push into contested airspace too dangerous for crewed aircraft.

Originally developed under the Loyal Wingman program, multiple defense contractors — Anduril, General Atomics, and Boeing — are competing for production contracts. The goal is fielding these systems within years, not decades.

The strategic logic is simple. For fifty years, the equation has been to build fewer, better, more expensive jets. The F-22 Raptor was so costly that only 187 were produced. The F-35 program remains the most expensive weapons system in human history. But when an adversary can field a thousand drones for the cost of one fighter, numbers matter again in a way they haven’t since World War II.

What Has Ukraine Revealed About Cheap Drone Warfare?

Both sides in the Ukraine conflict are deploying small unmanned aerial systems (sUAS) — modified consumer drones flown as first-person-view (FPV) weapons — by the tens of thousands every month. Operators wearing goggles guide these drones directly into targets: tanks, artillery, supply trucks, and individual fighting positions.

The countermeasures are equally improvised. Electronic warfare systems jam drone control links. Shotguns, nets, and other low-tech solutions fill gaps in air defense. The cost-countermeasure cycle keeps accelerating, with cheap threats generating cheap responses in a continuous feedback loop.

Is the Era of the Dogfight Over?

Not entirely, but it is becoming a shrinking slice of the overall picture. The last confirmed air-to-air gun kill by a U.S. military pilot occurred in 1991 during the Gulf War, when an A-10 Warthog pilot downed an Iraqi helicopter with the GAU-8 Avenger cannon. Every American air-to-air kill since has been achieved with missiles, mostly fired beyond visual range.

Fighter pilots still train extensively for within-visual-range combat, and that training remains relevant. But the next major air war will likely hinge on which side can better integrate manned and unmanned platforms, dominate the electromagnetic spectrum, and sustain massive attrition of expendable systems while protecting irreplaceable ones.

Which Countries Are Investing Heavily in Combat Drones?

China, Iran, and Turkey are watching the Ukraine conflict closely, each having invested significantly in combat drone programs.

Turkey’s Bayraktar TB2 gained fame during the 2020 Nagorno-Karabakh conflict and has since been exported to more than two dozen countries.
Iran has built an ecosystem of one-way attack drones — the Shahed series — used extensively in Ukraine and the Middle East.
China’s drone industry is developing autonomous swarm concepts designed to overwhelm traditional air defenses through sheer numbers.

Why This Matters for Pilots

The same sensor and autonomy technology entering military drones is filtering into general aviation. Detect-and-avoid systems, increasingly automated cockpits, and advanced traffic awareness tools all trace their lineage to military development. GPS, data link communication, and heads-up displays now available in GA aircraft all descended directly from fighter jet technology.

Whatever emerges from this revolution in military aviation will eventually reach civilian cockpits. The technology pipeline between military and general aviation has been consistent for decades, and the current pace of innovation is accelerating it.

What Does Air Superiority Mean Now?

Air superiority — which the United States has enjoyed essentially unchallenged since 1991 — is no longer guaranteed in the traditional sense. Not because a competitor has built a better fighter than the F-22, but because the definition itself is changing. It now encompasses controlling the electromagnetic spectrum, managing autonomous systems at scale, and absorbing losses of expendable platforms without degrading overall capability.

The airplane is not going away. The pilot is not going away — at least not yet. But how they fit into the larger operational picture is being rewritten in real time over Eastern Europe and across American testing ranges.

Reporting draws from Simple Flying’s coverage of the evolving military aviation landscape. Content current as of May 2023.

Key Takeaways

Modern air warfare is splitting into high-cost stealth platforms and low-cost expendable drones, and both are proving combat-effective.
Collaborative combat aircraft (CCAs) — autonomous drone wingmen — are the U.S. Air Force’s answer to the cost-versus-numbers dilemma, with fielding expected within years.
Ukraine’s drone war has demonstrated that tens of thousands of sub-$500 FPV drones can shape a battlefield as decisively as advanced fighter jets.
Air superiority now means controlling the electromagnetic spectrum and managing autonomous systems, not just dominating with manned aircraft.
Military aviation technology consistently migrates to general aviation — GPS, data links, and HUDs all followed this path, and current drone and autonomy advances will too.