The Official F-19 Stealth Fighter Handbook

by Richard Sheffield

5 Air-to-Air Tactics

One look at the F-19 and it's pretty obvious it wasn't designed with the air-to-air role in mind. It's heavy, slow, and underpowered. But its stealth characteristics do offer it the unique advantage of almost always being able to get off the first shot. This advantage shouldn't be overlooked, as from World War I all the way through Vietnam and the Falkland Islands, most successful air attacks came as a total surprise to the victims. They never knew what hit them.

This is the attitude you need to take when getting involved in air combat with F-19. You must make the first shot count. Your strongest weapon is stealth; use it wisely. You can go one of two ways with this strategy. Either engage your enemy at long range, firing a missile and then disappearing, or sneak up so close that you can't miss. Either way is okay; it's the situations in between that will get you in trouble. The F-19 isn't very maneuverable, so you'll have a hard time out-turning a clever opponent. It's also not very fast, so you won't be able to outrun anyone.

Once engaged, you have only two options: Either destroy, the enemy aircraft or use your stealth capability to disappear until the situation improves. In a one-on-one encounter, either is fairly simple. But many encounters in F-19 are against multiple aircraft, sometimes four or more. Here's where knowing how to use all of your weapons and superior tactics really pays dividends.

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