[stouset]

You have lost your mind if you think any fight that’s 2v1 or worse odds is going to go well for the underdog. I mean, it’s not like 2v1 ACM doctrine isn’t a thing. It’s practiced regularly by fighter pilots. The side with 2 wins an overwhelming amount of time once practiced. It turns out we’ve learned new lessons and adopted new techniques in the 70 years since the Korean War.

First, once you have VID you do everything you can to keep the bandit in sight until you have a shot opportunity. This idea that “jets are so fast you lose the opportunity by the time you can tell what it is” is completely unfounded.

Second, those other 20 planes aren’t all wildly trying to shoot you. If you’re chasing one of them, that one is flying defensive and describing the fight to their wingmen (“one circle, bandit co-alt, nose high…”) as their supporting wingmen take turns with who’s engaged aggressive and getting clear missile shots at you (since you’re really focused on only one of them).

Third, even if none of this were true, doing this kind of thing in an N-vs-1 fight for N >= 2 invalidates your entire premise. The guy who’s hanging still in midair doing fancy air-show tricks is just generating free shots for all those other aircraft.