There has been a “flattening of the Earth” due to radars and missiles. And that makes fighters an easy target

The technological transformation in aerial combat has reached a point where legacy tactics of the 20th century have ceased to offer minimum guarantees of survival. For decades, pilots could rely on low-flying flight to penetrate hostile defenses: the curvature of the planet, terrain shadows, and background noise hid planes speeding below the radar horizon.

That world has disappeared.

The end of the old certainties. They remembered in a wide report in Insider that the modernization of sensors and missiles, the proliferation of electronic scanning radars advanced technology, the expansion of beyond-line-of-sight systems and permanent aerial surveillance have created an environment where safe altitudes no longer exist.

The idea that terrain protects is, for contemporary air forces, a relic. Detection distances have gone from being a tactical inconvenience to becoming a a strategic condition that can span entire regions, redefining the way a country plans its defense and offense.

The British example. counted Air Vice Marshal James Beck, RAF Director of Capabilities and Programmes, who when flying the fighter jet Tornado multipurpose In the early 2000s, it was still assumed that flying at very low altitude would allow a formation to penetrate enemy territory without being detected by their integrated missile defense systems.

The military delved into the same theory, that new radar and missile technologies have caused a kind of “flattening of the earth” that puts even aircraft that fly at much greater risk. very low height.

The growth of prohibited areas. At this point, the strategies of anti-access and area denialpreviously limited to defensive belts around critical points, have expanded to configure operational spaces covering entire countries and that, in a few years, could extend over entire continents.

For example, the rise of OTH radars capable of “seeing” behind the Earth’s curvature, the increase in the range of surface-to-air missiles or the multiplication of air platforms that continuously patrol have created defensive bubbles which entering becomes a high risk exercise even for advanced fleets.

The aerial danger. This phenomenon not only changes the way deep strikes are planned, but also the priority structure in which air powers operate. Controlling the air stops being another objective and becomes the indispensable condition so that any other operation (hitting command nodes, degrading enemy logistics or destroying missile silos) is even conceivable.

In recent conflicts, especially in the ukrainian warthe inability of either side to dominate the air It has generated a battlefield frozen by dense defenses, where planes fly low to the ground only to deliver ranged weaponry, and where deep penetration has disappeared from the equation.

Sensors and vulnerability. The evolution of AESA radarscapable of detecting multiple targets at high speed and adjusting their beam with electronic precision, combined with sensor expansion land, naval, air and space, has created a network that reduces the margin of error practically to zero. Surveillance systems no longer depend on a single layer or a single type of platform: they function as an eoverlapping weavereplicates and expands, maintaining continuous surveillance with immediate response capacity.

In this context, even missiles have expanded its radius of action with a speed which exceeds the modernization capacity of many air forces. The consequence is an environment in which aircraft without reduced signature, expanded connectivity, and platform-level sensor fusion simply will not survive crossing the enemy threshold.

New air capabilities. In it Insider report The British military delved into an idea: the acceleration of innovation forces to reconfigure both existing systems and the future architecture of the air forces. Modernizing command and control, integrating distributed sensors across multiple domains, and expanding the reach of active and passive defenses becomes as crucial as developing new generations of aircraft.

The current fifth generation platforms, like the F-35represent the minimum necessary to operate in a saturated airspace, although they are no longer sufficient on their own to guarantee that depth penetration. The fighters sixth generation should incorporate comprehensive invisibilityintelligent signal management, accompanying drone swarms (already is being tested) and autonomous capabilities selection and attack of targets located behind increasingly complex defensive networks. That is, where a pilot of the past relied on his expertise and the terrain, the pilot of the future will depend of complete ecosystems of manned and unmanned platforms, permanent connectivity and tactical analysis in real time.

A basic truth. The recent experience It shows that modern war punishes those who renounce air dominance. Without going too far, in Ukraineboth sides have lost the ability to operate freely over enemy territory due to dense, mobile and highly sophisticated defenses. This aerial stalemate has prolonged the conflict, increased reliance on drones and missiles, and reduced operational mobility on the ground.

The warnings from Western commanders underscore the urgency of learn from this scenariobecause the speed of change only increases. The next decade points to challenges driven by both states and non-state actors, with advanced systems becoming cheaper, more accessible and more difficult to neutralize.

Image | Ministry of Defense/CPL Mike Jones, naraILA_Berlin

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