Aerial ramming or air ramming is the ramming of one aircraft with another. It is a last-ditch tactic in air combat, sometimes used when all else has failed. Long before the invention of aircraft, ramming tactics in naval warfare and ground warfare were common. The first aerial ramming was performed by Pyotr Nesterov in 1914 during the First World War. In the early stages of World War II the tactic was employed by Soviet pilots, who called it taran, the Russian word for "battering ram".
Ramming attack performed by Pyotr Nesterov
In Jules Verne's novel Robur the Conqueror, Robur almost rams his propeller-powered flying vessel Albatross into the slower blimp Goahead
Lt Wilbert Wallace White
Albatros aircraft brought down by Nesterov
A dogfight, or dog fight, is an aerial battle between fighter aircraft conducted at close range. Modern terminology for air-to-air combat is air combat manoeuvring (ACM), which refers to tactical situations requiring the use of individual basic fighter maneuvers (BFM) to attack or evade one or more opponents. This differs from aerial warfare, which deals with the strategy involved in planning and executing various missions.
An F-16 Fighting Falcon and an F-14 Tomcat engaged in a mock dogfight as part of U.S. Navy TOPGUN training
Head-up display of an F/A-18 Hornet during dogfight simulations
An Incident on the Western Front, view of a dogfight involving five aircraft. In the upper foreground a biplane of the Royal Flying Corps flies towards a stricken German biplane, which is falling towards the ground leaving a trail of smoke in its wake (Imperial War Museum).
Memorial erected by German airmen in Palestine, in memory of British and Australian airmen killed in their lines during 1917