An Israeli F-35 fighter jet shoots down a missile fired by Houthi rebels from Yemen. In the absence of any denial, this is the first success of the American aircraft against a target in flight, because so far this very unstable aircraft, with its long flight duration, has only recorded completed missions against targets on the ground. As always, wars, in this case the tenth conflict between Israel and the Palestinians, allow us to verify the effectiveness of what the designers and builders promised.

And in the Middle East specifically, the baptism of fire of the American F35 Lighting II took place as of 2019: certainly, at least officially, no Lockheed Martin fighters of this type have been shot down by anti-aircraft guns or other aircraft. A fifth-generation aircraft that has strong stealth characteristics, that is, “disappearing” from radar. At the same time, no downing of F-35 aircraft supplied to several other air forces including Italian forces has been recorded. In-flight dueling between fighters (air conflict) is becoming more and more rare because the technological development of both aircraft and air-to-air missiles and radar systems makes such close encounters extremely unlikely, and they are destined to occur at great distances between aircraft. Duelists: The duel ends with missiles being fired beyond the vision of the pilots who, furthermore, once an air-to-air missile is launched, reverse course to get away from any countermeasures.