I was always wondering about this as well. How much more manoeuvrable can an unmanned drone be given that it doesn't need to lug around life support systems and avoid any G forces that would kill the expensive squishy mammal inside? To your point, it can be indistinguishable from a missile.

Or maybe have a slower but still very nimble carrier drone platform with loitering capabilities that launches very fast and nimble drones/missiles?

Going even further, do these even need to be as nimble and fast as fighter jets? Once you completely remove humans from the equation and replace super expensive and nimble fighter jets with swarms of cheap drones, the loss of a drone or even a carrier becomes much less costly and they won't need to overemphasize survival to the degree that expensive human piloted jets do.

>Ukraine’s F-16s have shot down 2,200 of roughly 3,000 Russian drones and missiles it has intercepted, https://www.defensenews.com/global/europe/2026/07/23/incredi...

So chalk one up for the F-16s in the F-16 vs drone battle. It'd be hard to catch one when your drone does 200 kmh and the F-16 2000 kmh.

That said this AI thing sounds more like a research platform than finished product.

Ok, but those drones were one way ground attack drones and had no self defence capability. An AI piloted f16 has immediate cost and maneuverability disadvantages against a built for purpose dogfighting drone

1 drone: 10-20k

1h of flight time for an F-16: 25k, not counting the missiles used and ammo.

Doesn’t scale. Ergo, useless.