Editing Air combat manoeuvring (section)

== Historical overview ==
Military aviation originated in [[World War I]] when aircraft were initially used to spot enemy troop concentrations, field gun positions, and movements. Early aerial combat consisted of aviators shooting at one another with hand-held weapons.<ref name="RedBaron">[https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/transcripts/3011_redbaron.html Who Killed the Red Baron?] October 7, 2003. [[Public Broadcasting Service|PBS]].</ref> The first recorded aircraft to be shot down by another aircraft, which occurred on October 5, 1914, was a German [[Aviatik B.I]]. The pilot, Feldwebel Wilhelm Schlichting, was shot with a carbine wielded by observer Louis Quenault, who was riding in a French [[Voisin III]] piloted by Sergeant Joseph Frantz.<ref name="BBC">{{Cite web |last=Ltd |first=Not Panicking |date=2003-01-27 |title=h2g2 - Early Air-to-Air Combat - Edited Entry |url=https://h2g2.com/edited_entry/A898761 |access-date=2023-06-18 |website=h2g2.com}}</ref> The need to stop [[reconnaissance]] that was being conducted by enemy aircraft rapidly led to the development of fighter planes, a class of aircraft designed specifically to destroy other aircraft.<ref name="RedBaron" />

Fixed, forward-firing guns were found to be the most effective armament for a majority of World War I era fighter planes, but it was nearly impossible to fire them through the spinning propeller of one's own aircraft without destroying one's own plane. [[Roland Garros (aviator)|Roland Garros]], working with [[Morane Saulnier|Morane Saulnier Aéroplanes]], was the first to solve this problem by attaching steel deflector wedges to the propeller. He achieved three kills but was shot down by ground fire and landed behind German lines. [[Anthony Fokker]] inspected the plane's wreckage and learned to improve the design by connecting the firing mechanism of the gun to the timing of the engine, thus allowing the gun to fire through the propeller without making contact with the propeller.<ref name="RedBaron" /><ref name="BBC" /> As technology rapidly advanced, new and young aviators began defining the realm of air-to-air combat, such as [[Max Immelmann]], [[Oswald Boelcke]], and [[Lanoe Hawker]]. One of the greatest of these "ace pilots" of World War I, [[Manfred von Richthofen]] (the Red Baron), wrote in his book ''The Red Fighter Pilot'', "The great thing in air fighting is that the decisive factor does not lie in trick flying but solely in the personal ability and energy of the aviator. A flying man may be able to loop and do all the stunts imaginable and yet he may not succeed in shooting down a single enemy."<ref>[http://www.richthofen.com/09.htm The Red Fighter Pilot]. Richthofen.com. Retrieved on 2010-11-16.</ref>

Pilots soon learned to achieve a firing position (while avoiding the threat of enemy guns) by manoeuvring themselves behind an enemy aircraft; this is known as getting onto an aircraft's "six o'clock" or onto their "tail", plus a wide variety of other terms, usually coined by air crew. This type of combat became known as [[dogfight]]ing. [[Oswald Boelcke]], a [[German Empire|German]] [[fighter ace]] during World War I, was the first to publish the basic rules for aerial combat manoeuvring in 1916, known as the ''[[Dicta Boelcke]]''.<ref>{{cite web|title=Dicta Boelcke – Organization of Jagdstaffeln and the demise of Boelcke |url=http://www.geocities.com/TimesSquare/Zone/4914/dicta.htm |archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20091023201505/http://geocities.com/TimesSquare/Zone/4914/dicta.htm |archivedate=2009-10-23 |url-status=dead }}</ref><ref>[http://www.history.com/minisite.do?content_type=Minisite_Generic&content_type_id=52089&display_order=10&mini_id=51833] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090304063936/http://www.history.com/minisite.do?content_type=Minisite_Generic&content_type_id=52089&display_order=10&mini_id=51833|date=March 4, 2009}}</ref> He advised pilots to attack from the direction of the sun (toward which the defending pilot could not see), or to fly at a higher altitude than the opponent. Most of these rules are still as valuable today as they were a century ago.<ref name="popularmechanics">Joe Pappalardo, 23 June 2014, "[https://www.popularmechanics.com/military/a10741/the-texas-air-base-where-nato-fighter-pilots-are-forged-16920796/ The Texas Air Base Where NATO Fighter Pilots Are Forged]", ''Popular Mechanics'' Retrieved 24 August 2018.</ref>

Today's air combat is much more complicated than that of older times, as [[air-to-air missiles]], [[radar]], and automatic cannons capable of high rates of fire are used on nearly all modern fighter aircraft.<ref name="BasicPrinciples">"[http://www.tpub.com/content/aviation2/P-821/P-8210193.htm Basic Principles of BFM] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110805075929/http://www.tpub.com/content/aviation2/P-821/P-8210193.htm |date=2011-08-05 }}".</ref> New and additional types of manoeuvres have emerged, intending to break [[radar lock]] by minimizing the Doppler signature of one's own aircraft ("keeping the enemy at 3 or 9 o'clock"), or to exhaust the kinetic energy of an incoming missile (by changing the aircraft's course from side to side, the missile, not flying directly at target but trying to forestall it, will make sharper turns and will eventually have to fly a longer path). However, close-range fighting with infrared guided missiles and aircraft cannons still obeys the same general rules laid down in the skies over [[Europe]] in the early 20th century.{{Citation needed|date=May 2020}} The master rule is still the same: get on the opponent's rear without allowing them to do the same.

Close-range combat tactics vary considerably according to the type of aircraft being used and the number of aircraft involved.