For so long UCAVs (Unmanned Combat Air Vehicles—stealthy and advanced fighter sized drones) have been seen as strictly deep strike and surveillance platforms, but when networked together, they could offer an incredible counter-air capability.

Even the subsonic and less than highly maneuverable but very stealthy flying-wing UCAV configurations that we know of today could be absolutely devastating when it comes to sanitizing enemy airspace. The same swarm technology applies to the air-to-air realm as it does to attacking pop-up SAM sites. In fact, under certain circumstances enemy fighters may be an easier threat for UCAVs to deal with than those emanating from the ground.

Enemy aircraft would have a very hard time remaining undetected in airspace that an operational swarm of UCAVs is operating in. Its cloud-like mind will leverage feeds from the multitude of sensors carried by its individual UCAVs, all spread over a wide area. In essence, the swarm acts as is its own virtual AWACS, although in some cases it is far superior as it is forward deployed, can carry a diverse set of sensors spread over a wide area, and the data it collects can be enacted upon instantaneously.

If a potential enemy aircraft is detected, even just for a brief moment, multiple sensors aboard multiple UCAVs can instantly and seamlessly steer their sensors (radar, infrared etc) from multiple angles onto the single piece of sky where the aircraft was. Anti-stealth detection tactics can then be employed, aimed at collectively detecting an aircraft well enough to build a weapons-grade engagement track of it. Working as a team, the swarm can then engage the target in question.

Once a track is established, the best UCAV or UCAVs positioned to deal with it can be assigned the task of doing so, making long-range coordinated missile shots at the bad guy. Instead of using their own radars alone to guide their missile shots, they can use the swarm’s common “picture” to do so.

In other words, the UCAV firing on the enemy aircraft does not even have to use its own sensors to do so as it sees all the other UCAV’s sensor pictures fused together and can use that data instead. This means certain UCAVs, such as those closest to the threat aircraft, can operate “silent,” not emanating any electromagnetic energy. Combined with the UCAV’s wide-band stealthy shape, low infrared signature and radar-absorbent coatings, it is unlikely the target will detect the attacking UCAVs at all. Well at least until their missiles go “pitbull” and lock onto the aircraft during the terminal phase of their attacks, which is likely far too late.

Possessing an extreme level of stealth, both in the radio and infrared spectrum, and having near perfect situational awareness, the UCAV swarm is really a flying pack of telepathic robotic wolves that are all working together to kill the bad guy in a coordinated manner. Having a UCAV even sacrifice itself for the greater good can be programmed as a viable tactical choice.

When it comes to the within-visual-range air combat environment, the current types of UCAVs could never turn successfully with a modern fighter jet. Yet with the latest block of AIM-9X Sidewinder missiles, which are capable of making greater than 180 degree snap turns and locking onto an enemy aircraft after being launched from an internal weapons bay, the UCAV may not have to maneuver aggressively at all.

Then again, avoiding marauding fighters or attacking them with so called "non-kinetic" weaponry would also leverage the UCAV’s unique capabilities. Instead of launching missiles, parts of the swarm could jam and change course to keep themselves outside of the detection range of enemy aircraft. Or they could send pinpoint electronic attacks and pencil-sized high-power beams of electromagnetic energy chirped off by their onboard AESA radars directly at the enemy fighters' radars and radar-guided missile seekers, blinding, disabling, or destroying them in the process. Even the ability to swat incoming missiles out of the sky with directed energy weapons is clearly on the horizon.

Finally, a fully air-to-air optimized UCAV design may be the most awe-inspiring of all UCAVs as such an aircraft’s maneuverability would not be limited by the crushing gravitational forces a human pilot can endure. As such, a UCAV designed to absolutely rule the air-to-air realm could be able to sustain unheard of G forces, making shooting it down with missiles, or trying to parry it in the within-visual-range air combat realm, nearly useless.