Word of the Month — Dogfight

December 2020 – I found this definition online and was intrigued.

Dogfight – A close range aerial battle between two aircraft. These occurred in every war involving airplanes until 1992.

So here's the thing. If you read the Wikipedia article about dogfights you'll see references to a dogfight in 2019, between jet aircraft and another in the Balkans conflict of 1999.

One can assume that dogfights as a primary method of doing battle have indeed become rare with increased use of technology, so maybe the reference to 1992 was regarding the Persian Gulf war when there was indeed a series of dogfights resulting in the loss of 39 Iraqi aircraft and one American F/A 18 and a drone.

You might be interested to know that the first record of an aerial dogfight was between two Americans fighting for opposite sides in the Mexican Revolution of 1913. Both pilots had orders to kill but intentionally exhausted their supply of ammunition before doing any harm to the other.