Blue Thunder vrs. F-16

The ridiculousness doesn't come from the helicopter being able to dodge the missiles and survive their attacks.

The ridiculousness comes from sending airplane fighters to destroy a helicopter - in desert warfare, such a scenario might be somewhat plausible because of heat-seeking missiles and such.

In a city scenario, it's a ridiculous choice. An airplane has to keep moving at a very fast speed to stay in the air (except Harrier and such, maybe), whereas a helicopter is way slower, but also way more maneuverable due to lack of this limitation.

It's like sending a Ferrari to kill a mountain biker in a mountainy area or a Parkourist in a city area - they're just such different things, it's ridiculous to pit them against each other.

So the -decision- to do that is far-fetched, not the helicopter's abilities. The fast speed of an airplane is not an advantage in that scenario, it's a clear disadvantage.

I've tried to fly slowly in a flight simulator in a hornet, to admire a cityscape. Even with my best efforts, the skyscrapers went by too fast, and I couldn't easily try again - I had to go far away, then turn slowly, and only then was I able to come back.

When I switched to a helicopter, I could admire the city effectively and any way I wanted. The ability of a helicopter is superior in a big city scenario, and it's definitely far-fetched to send F-16s to attack a helicopter that way.

BTW, a minigun wouldn't be effective against a F-16 anyway - you'd have to be able to aim and hit basically an invisible target (it's too far to be visible), or a target that moves so quickly, by the time you've 'locked' into it, it's already gone. Play some 'Wings of Prey' to see how difficult it is to hit a moving target with even four machine guns firing rapidly simultaneously - and those are very slow-moving targets by comparison.

F-16s have missiles that are fired from -very- far away. Minigun can't reach that far.