History Main / OldSchoolDogfight

* In ''VideoGame/CriticalMass1995'', your squad does indeed have guided missiles, but the ships often turn faster than the missiles do. Add this to the fact that a lot of ships are equipped with the powerful but unguided Plectron rocket, and you get old school dogfighting.

* ''VideoGame/StarFox'' is built on this trope, which shouldn't be surprising since the ships used are basically just the X-wings from Franchise/StarWars. Levels take place in open space, near the ground, or even near the surface of a sun, but the handling is always exactly the same.

* Although SpaceIsAnOcean in the ''Franchise/StarTrek'' franchise, there are occasional space battles that resemble dogfights more than naval battles, particularly as the budgets and special effects technology has increased. Later episodes and films show starships and starfighters alike banking, rolling, and [[ChasingYourTail chasing one another's tails]] -- and not only that, but they fight at [[SciFiWritersHaveNoSenseOfScale ranges comparable to WWII-era dogfights]]. Certain ships appear to be specifically designed for dogfighting; Klingon Birds-of-Prey and Jem'Hadar fighters, for example, only have {{Fixed Forward Facing Weapon}}s, and while Federation capital ships can fire their phaser strips in nearly any direction the ''Defiant''-class also has fixed phaser cannons that are more
powerful than its strips.
** Averted in the sense that there are no real fighter-style craft in the Trek 'verse; capital ships are just too powerful (in terms of both shields and weapons), and having near-perfect computer-guided targeting systems means they pretty much always hit what they aim at (the trick is actually wearing down your opponent's shields), making fighters, which usually protect themselves through speed and maneuverability, largely pointless.

* Although SpaceIsAnOcean in the ''Franchise/StarTrek'' franchise, there are occasional space battles that resemble dogfights more than naval battles, particularly as the budgets and special effects technology has increased. Later episodes and films show starships and starfighters alike banking, rolling, and [[ChasingYourTail chasing one another's tails]] -- and not only that, but they fight at [[SciFiWritersHaveNoSenseOfScale ranges comparable to WWII-era dogfights]]. Certain ships appear to be specifically designed for dogfighting; Klingon Birds-of-Prey and Jem'Hadar fighters, for example, only have {{Fixed Forward Facing Weapon}}s, and while Federation capital ships can fire their phaser strips in nearly any direction the ''Defiant''-class also has fixed phaser cannons that are more powerful than its strips.

* The battle between Berserker and Gilgamesh in LightNovel/FateZero has many shades of this, with Berserker taking control of a jet fighter against Gil's flying throne. And it is easily one of the most epic dogfights in recent anime, with Berserker turning the jet's weapons into Noble Phantasms, which Gilgamesh counters with his infamous Gate of Babylon. [[spoiler:And Berserker ultimately DESTROYS Gil's throne by means of using NP-ized flares.]]

* Naturally, pretty much any movie about fighter pilots in World War I or World War II is probably going to have some of this. ''Film/HellsAngels'' and ''Film/TheDawnPatrol'' are two films both made in 1930 about World War I aces; ''Hell's Angels'' is still famous for the exceptional aerial dogfight sequences directed by Creator/HowardHughes himself. ''Film/{{Wings}}'', winner of the first Oscar for Best Picture, is a silent film also known for stunning aerial combat scenes. ''Film/OnlyOldMenAreGoingToBattle'' is a Russian film about Soviet fighters engaging the Germans on the Eastern Front that also has beautiful scenes of combat.

* In every major air war since Vietnam, there's been the expectation that beyond-visual-range (BVR) air-to-air missiles, which can engage targets while they're still too far away for the Mk. 1 eyeball to make out, will finally render dogfighting obsolete by allowing pilots to take out their opponents before they ever come into visual range. This has ''never'' panned out, since it turns out that the ability to engage the enemy at beyond visual range is useless if you can't be sure that you're engaging ''the enemy''; with modern Identification Friend-or-Foe (IFF) equipment,[[note]]which uses a radio transmitter to "ping" a transponder on friendly planes, with planes that respond to this ping by sending the right coded reply being deemed friendly; this is the direct ancestor of the [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secondary_surveillance_radar secondary surveillance radar]] systems used in modern air traffic control[[/note]] it's possible to be sure (to a fairly-high degree of certainty) that a particular plane is ''friendly'', but there's no way to differentiate between a hostile aircraft and a friendly one with a nonfunctional IFF transponder (for instance, due to battle damage...) until you get within visual range and can check out the lines and markings of the suspicious plane. Since RealLife averts FriendlyFireproof, and modern combat aircraft and their pilots are too valuable (and modern missiles too likely to destroy their targets) to make TrialByFriendlyFire with air-to-air missiles a good idea outside of very specific circumstances,[[note]]a possible example could be defending very-high-value targets such as major nuclear facilities, where the cost of failing to shoot down an enemy aircraft would be so potentially-catastrophic as to justify the risk of possibly shooting down a friendly aircraft with nonfunctional IFF[[/note]] modern air-to-air combat has remained within visual range to the present day.

The reason it's called an "old school" dogfight is because it doesn't actually happen very often in real life anymore. While it was the standard form of air-to-air combat for decades, the introduction of reliable, long range [[HomingProjectile guided missiles]] means that most modern air combat is now fought well beyond visual range.[[note]]Which is why RadarIsUseless is normally also in effect in settings where the old-school dogfight is the norm. [[/note]]Old school dogfights can still involve the use of missiles, though — they'll just be [[ShortRangeLongRangeWeapon much shorter ranged]] than their real life equivalent, and have to be fired from behind in order to have a chance of hitting.[[note]]This ''was'' TruthInTelevision for certain types of missiles, but [[TechnologyMarchesOn isn't anymore]].[[/note]]

* Old school dogfighting was one of the primary forms of air-to-air combat[[note]]The other was using HitAndRunTactics to ambush an enemy plane, riddle it with bullets as you flew past it at high speed, then be out of range before your target could respond[[/note]] up until the development of BVR (beyond visual range) and all-aspect (capable of hitting a target at any angle, not just one that's in front of you) missiles. Despite advances in technology, however, old school dogfighting never ''entirely'' disappeared. There was a period in the early 1960s where dogfighting was briefly considered obsolete, and planes (notably the American F-4 Phantom) were designed with missiles as their ''only'' weapon. The Vietnam war demonstrated the problems with this approach, and pretty much every plane designed for air-to-air combat since then has planned for dogfighting to some extent.

* News reports from the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine describe Ukranian Air Force pilots engaging in dogfights because Russian jets have superior radar and weapons and they need to get close to even the odds.

* ''Film/TopGunMaverick'': During the climax of the film, Maverick [[InvokedTrope deliberately forces]] a close-range ChasingYourTail scenario with a trio of Su-57s, since the stolen F-14A he and Rooster are flying couldn't have won a missile duel with them when it was new. He bushwhacks one with cannon before they can figure out he's not a friendly, then lures the second into a CanyonChase so the ground clutter will keep it from locking on. His luck [[spoiler:nearly]] runs out over open water against the third nearly gets him over open water, [[spoiler:only for Hangman to come out of nowhere in his F/A-18 and shoot it down]].

* The interceptors in ''Series/{{UFO}}'' use stand-off missiles, though they appear to be unguided. The combat in general draws very much from popular [[UsefulNotes/WorldWarII Battle of Britain]] images: Moonbase is the beleaguered sector airfield and SID (Space Intruder Detector) the RDF radar. Calmly-speaking young women (the WAAF's) vector in Interceptors (Spitfires) against the anonymous alien invaders (German bombers). But given that the Moon takes 27.322 days to orbit the Earth, [[FridgeLogic one wonders why]] the aliens don't just attack when Moonbase is on the opposite side of their target.

* ''Film/TopGun'': Done with a significant amount of [[JustPlaneWrong artistic license]] in : every action scene in the film involves second- and third-generation jet fighters chasing each others' tails and trying to maneuver for advantage at close range like World War II-era prop planes (so much so that the hero, Maverick, gets caught in other planes' jetwash twice, [[spoiler:leading to Goose's death when they have to {{eject|EjectEject}} from a powerless flat spin the first time]]). This was {{enforced}} by the filmmakers: at one point, at the insistence of the Navy pilots flying the actual planes, they tried filming period-accurate missile combat with the F-14s, A-4s and F-5s (the latter of which also stood in for the fictional [=MiG-28s=]), but that meant fighting at such long ranges that the other planes were practically invisible.

* Done with a significant amount of [[JustPlaneWrong artistic license]] in ''Film/TopGun'': every action scene in the film involves jet fighters chasing each others' tails and trying to maneuver for advantage at close range like World War II-era prop planes (so much so that the hero, Maverick, gets caught in other planes' jetwash twice, [[spoiler:leading to Goose's death when they have to {{eject|EjectEject}} from a powerless flat spin the first time]]). This was {{enforced}} by the filmmakers: at one point, at the insistence of the Navy pilots flying the actual planes, they tried filming period-accurate missile combat with the F-14s, A-4s and F-5s (the latter of which also stood in for the fictional [=MiG-28s=]), but that meant fighting at such long ranges that the other planes were practically invisible.

The reason it's called an "old school" dogfight is because it doesn't actually happen very often in real life anymore. While it was the standard form of air-to-air combat for decades, the introduction of reliable, long range [[HomingProjectile guided missiles]] means that most modern air combat is now fought well beyond visual range.[[note]]Which is why RadarIsUseless is normally in effect in settings where the old-school dogfight is the norm. [[/note]]Old school dogfights can still involve the use of missiles, though — they'll just be [[ShortRangeLongRangeWeapon much shorter ranged]] than their real life equivalent, and have to be fired from behind in order to have a chance of hitting.[[note]]This ''was'' TruthInTelevision for certain types of missiles, but [[TechnologyMarchesOn isn't anymore]].[[/note]]

The reason it's called an "old school" dogfight is because it doesn't actually happen very often in real life anymore. While it was the standard form of air-to-air combat for decades, the introduction of reliable, long range [[HomingProjectile guided missiles]] means that most modern air combat is now fought well beyond visual range.[[note]]Which is why RadarIsUseless is normally in effect in settings where the old-school dogfight is the norm[[/note]]Old school dogfights can still involve the use of missiles, though — they'll just be [[ShortRangeLongRangeWeapon much shorter ranged]] than their real life equivalent, and have to be fired from behind in order to have a chance of hitting.[[note]]This ''was'' TruthInTelevision for certain types of missiles, but [[TechnologyMarchesOn isn't anymore]].[[/note]]

The reason it's called an "old school" dogfight is because it doesn't actually happen very often in real life anymore. While it was the standard form of air-to-air combat for decades, the introduction of reliable, long range [[HomingProjectile guided missiles]] means that most modern air combat is now fought well beyond visual range. Old school dogfights can still involve the use of missiles, though — they'll just be [[ShortRangeLongRangeWeapon much shorter ranged]] than their real life equivalent, and have to be fired from behind in order to have a chance of hitting.[[note]]This ''was'' TruthInTelevision for certain types of missiles, but [[TechnologyMarchesOn isn't anymore]].[[/note]]

* Happens frequently in Franchise/RatchetAndClank games, such as [[VideoGame/RatchetAndClankGoingCommando Going Commando]], [[VideoGame/RatchetAndClankFutureToolsOfDestruction Tools of Destruction]], and [[VideoGame/RatchetAndClankFutureACrackInTime A Crack in Time]], which all featured space combat.

* ''Franchise/StarWars'' is the TropeCodifier for {{space fighter}}s [[SpaceIsAir behaving this way]], to the point where Luke's experience flying a skyhopper (a mostly atmospheric ship, though capable of suborbital travel) helps him fly an X-Wing. Lucas even used old movies to choreograph the space battles. The Death Star assault scene in ''Film/ANewHope'' was modeled after the film ''Film/TheDamBusters'' (1955). In addition, the sequence was partially inspired by the climax of the film ''633 Squadron'' (1964) in which RAF Mosquitos attack a German heavy water plant. Clips from both films were included in Lucas's temporary dogfight footage version of the sequence.

* ''Manga/{{Evangelion 303}}'': This story featured several dog fights -in chapter 2, 5 and 15- betweeen [[AcePilot Asuka]] and other pilots flying advanced war planes. They were training duels, though.

* ''{{Franchise/StarTrek}}'':

* Justified in ''SidMeiersAcePatrol'', which takes place during UsefulNotes/WorldWarI. The unique part comes from the fact that the game is turn-based. During missions, you have 1-4 fighters under your control, and you give them orders in the form of various arrows on a hex-grid. Pilots level up with kills and can learn new maneuvers (e.g. loops, slides). Some fighters also have rear-mounted turrets.