Sensors and longer range weapons means speed and dogfighting don't matter and the future could be a Thunderbird 2 like modular battleplane

A 76 page report by the Center for Budgetary and Strategic Assessments Trends in Air-to-air combat: Implications for future air superiority by John Stillion indicates that dogfighting jet capability no longer matters.

Trends from the database of air combat since 1965 show the rise of long range missiles and a steep decline in dog-fighting. Of the 33 U.S. kills in the 1991 Persian Gulf war, only four involved any maneuvering at all.

25 years on, the power of long range sensors and missiles is only greater, meaning that traditional fighter attributes such as speed, thrust-to-weight ratios, and turn radius are even less important to success today and in the future.

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