A US Navy F/A-18 Super Hornet flies at the Cleveland International Airshow in Cleveland, Ohio, in September 2015. A similar aircraft shot down a Soviet-era Su-22 attack aircraft over Syria in 2017, the world’s most recent air-to-air piloted aircraft kill. (Shutterstock/BlueBarronPhoto)

The World’s Last ‘Dogfight’ Wasn’t Much of a Dogfight

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On paper, the F/A-18 Super Hornet easily destroys the Su-22 Fitter—but in June 2017, sensitive rules of engagement over Syria negated its major range advantage.

It has been almost 10 years since any fighter jet shot down another fighter jet in the air. The “air-to-air kill” was for many decades the bread and butter of a fighter jet’s role in the skies, and the absence of such kills is revealing about the ways in which modern air wars are fought. And even when air-to-air kills take place, they bear very little resemblance to the way they are depicted in the movies—notably in Top Gun: Maverick, whose climactic dogfight between a US F-14 Tomcat and enemy Su-57s is thrilling, if wildly unrealistic.

In reality, the last air-to-air kill took place on June 18, 2017, when a US Navy F/A-18E Super........

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