The American Top Gun fighter pilot academy was inspired by the Royal Navy and trained by Brits
on 03/23/2009 at 09:18 AM
Right. Without the Brits and their vast wealth of decades old air-to-air experience, their poor country cousins would have been completely overwhelmed by those fiendishly clever litle asian devils.
And, this guy, of course,:
http://www.aviation-history.com/airmen/boyd.htm
http://pajamasmedia.com/ejectejecteject/2008/01/01/forty-second-boyd-and-the-big-picture-part-1/...had absolutely no impact on fighter aviation or air combat tactics during that period.
In other news, the Brits claim to teach their Grandma how to suck eggs.
Posted by P. Beck
03/23/2009 at 10:12 AM
Hi P. and MUCH THANKS.
I had forgotten about Boyd, I am damn well ashamed to admit. I did read about him years and years ago.
I was totally unaware of the reputation of the Phantom as described in your link, and I think I should do a post on the subject using those links provided by you.
They are more then a little interesting, at least to me.I think the main focus of the comments made by the Brits in the newspaper article I posted, was that they (Brits) had a hand in the training and setting up of the Top Gun program.
I doubt they intended any disrespect to our people. As I noted, I couldn’t understand how our guys would not have experience flying that plane and so that threw me.
The answer is to be found of course in that second link provided by you.I really don’t believe they intended to convey a poor country cousin attitude.
But if ya think about it, it had to be frustrating if they are spot on with the facts re. training, to have received no public credit at all. Till now in the book mentioned.Only because I’m living here (since 04)I’ve been exposed to things I never knew about.
Some many years before coming here however, I became acquainted with the OBIT page of The Telegraph. They do obits like none I’ve ever seen and they include Americans btw.
Well, as the generation of WW2 fades of course there’s more and more stories given a huge amount of space on the background of the deceased. And these are not famous people, the public most often have never heard of them. They came home from the war and became butchers,bakers and candle stick makers, or whatever profession they left in ‘39 and ‘40. But the reasons for an obit in a national paper are due to exploits experienced and medals won in WW2. And please believe me, some the things these folks did were truly heroic and especially in those dark days at the beginning.Again though, thank you very much for those links.
Cheers
jdpThe problem was not the Brits understood how to fly Phantoms better than U. S. pilots, they better understood how to fly in a dogfight.
With all respect to Colonel John “Forty Second” Boyd, it seems the U. S. military aviation community did not make the appropriate notes and learn the appropriate lessons. It would not be the first time the U. S. Government at large and military in particular would not listen to their own, but treat an outsider - with the same message - as a prophet with Divine Inspiration.
According to the statements shown here, U. S. pilots were losing dogfights in Vietnam with MIG 21 fighters. Is that true or not? If true, it indicates a lack of proper training - probably in spite of Brother Boyd. If false, why did the Navy even bother with putting the Top Gun school together?
There are two phases to making a gunfighter, or dogfighting fighter pilot it seems. One is technical ability to operate the machinery. The second is learning how to apply that ability with someone trying to kill you. Part of it is training and practise, and part is attitude, determination, will to survive, sand or just plain cussedness.
An old gunfighter made the comment, “If it’s going to him or me, it’s going to be him.”
Something doesn’t add up here.
This bit“Although the British did their best to fit in their humour prevailed. Rather than call signs of Viper and Maverick they came up with Dogbreath, Alien and Cholmondley”
I have read this elsewhere in a different article. Cholmondley I suspect refers to a Harry Enfield comedy character circa 1995? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SjxY9rZwNGU which doesn’t fit with the story being circa 1965 or so.
The UK Fleet Air Arm did have Phantoms but as they were never used in actual combat I doubt there was much the Brits could teach the Americans. The early US models of Phantom did not come equipped with a cannon though as US fighter doctrine at the time emphasised the use of air to air missiles. Maybe the Brit version did and they still conducted air to air dogfight training at Lossiemouth?
F4 v. MiG ACM can be characterized as a fight between an “energy” fighter and a “turn” fighter. The MiG had a superior rate of turn. The F4 had those gawdawful huge engines. This meant that the F4 pilots had to keep their energy up and fight more aggressively in the vertical.
If you get the opportunity, watch the History Channel’s excellent series on dogfighting, particularly the episode concerning the epic fight between LT. Randy “Duke” Cunningham and his RIO, LT(JG) Willie Driscoll, flying a Phantom F-4J, callsign: “ShowTime 100” and the NV pilot Col. Toomb (yes, I am aware that there are some who say the existence of a “feared ‘Col. Toomb’ may be sketchy. Bear with me). The 3d graphics used to show the fight are a text-book example of a pilot who has be indoctrinated in Boyd’s Energy-Maneuverability Theory, or E-M Theory, as it came to be known, and the use of the vertical rolling scissor to negate an adversary’s turn advantage.
I have no doubt that the Brits lent some valuable input. But considering that not a few of the men flying US fighters in RVN at the time had combat experience in both WWII and, more recently Korea, I think that saying that they “invented” Top Gun is a bit of an over-statement of the case.
Posted by P. Beck
03/23/2009 at 03:13 PM
If you believe the British came to Miramar to teach American Naval Aviators how to fly F-4s in the “early 1960s” I have some ocean front property in Arizona I’d like to discuss selling to you. The Brits may have been in Miramar in the early 60s but if so they were their to learn and not teach. Besides it wasn’t in the “early 1960s” that the intense dogfights over North Vietnam were occuring but in the late 1960s. Revisionist history to say the least.
Posted by NavyGunner
03/23/2009 at 05:14 PM
Hi Gunner. Thanks for input and others as well.
Ocean front property in Az. Damn. And I spent last dime on a bridge in NY.
Does anyone know offhand the size or effectiveness if any, of the NV Air Force?
I had been under the impression that it never really amounted to much. ??Gee, when I posted that article of course I took it at face value thinking ok. Maybe. Even though I wasn’t 100% certain. But then I put that down to hurt national pride. You know, I didn’t want to believe our guys (USA) needed hand holding. But I could understand a mutual exchange among fliers.
But the article certainly goes well beyond that.Damn interesting topic tho and much appreciate the feedback as I’m learning new things as well.
One of the finest books on air warfare over North Vietnam is titled “Clashes: Air Combat over North Vietnam 1965-1972” by Col. Marshall L. Michel, III, USAF (Ret.). Marshall documents both Air Force and Navy engagement with North Vietnamese MiGs in air combat while also discussing the SAM threat and US countermeasures. Marshall also discusses the different techniques used in air combat maneuvering (ACM) between the Air Force and the Navy.
A second excellent book by Michel is titled “The Eleven Days of Christmas: America’s Last Vietnam Battle” covers the Christmas bombing campaign of 1972. Eleven Days doesn’t deal with air combat but it is nevertheless a fine discussion of air warfare over North Vietnam.
Both are really excellent books but Clashes is the book to read if the focus is air combat. I believe both are available through Amazon.com.
Posted by NavyGunner
03/24/2009 at 06:36 AM
03/23/2009 at 02:09 PM
