Forum: Air Power

vinnie wrote:

In the late 80s a guy named Pastorius got into a fight with the Navy at the Navy club in Puerto Rico. From what I heard it was 1v480, Chris took a chair about midway of his fuselage and broke some longerons. Declared an IFE and landed on the floor. He is still around and sometimes posts here.

Oh Chris, Chris, Chris... Well, at least it was a fair fight, they were Navy afterall (ducking as I type...)

Back on topic, 'when was the time the USAF/USN got into a real fight?' My answer might be a surprise, but I'd say almost every day of the week. You train not as you fight, but you train to make an actual fight look easy. There was some air-to-air during the Gulf War and a couple of instances since then, but I think that if you talk to most of the flightcrews involved, they'd tell you that the most competitive fights that they've had have been at home.

What do you think would be more of a 'real fight' for a Viper Driver, shooting Galebs over Serbia, or fighting F-22's over the Atlantic?

Mike

F-16.net Sponsor

Patriot wrote:

during Operation Desert Shield in January 1991 F-16 shuted down iraqi MiG-25 Foxbat - do you have meaby any knowledge about that ?

On Dec. 27, 1992, an F-16C Capt Gary North was the first to use a Slammer to kill a MiG.-25 "Foxbat E". Call sign "Benji 41"
URL - http://www.sci.fi/~fta/amraamsrc.htm

MKopack wrote:

What do you think would be more of a 'real fight' for a Viper Driver, shooting Galebs over Serbia, or fighting F-22's over the Atlantic?
Mike

The Viper killing a Galeb is not a real challenge. As far as the Viper against the Raptor, see a posting made back in April 17, 2005 By "Vprwzl" (a Viper pilot), and his experience with a F-22. The posting is around a third of the way down page nine. The URL is;
http://www.f-16.net/index.php?name=PNph ... bc383fa95f

Adrian

idesof wrote:

Quote:

Kosovo/Serbia/Herzegovina. Kill ratio of >100-to-zero for the last 30 or so years.

Last time the USAF and USN lost an aircraft in AA combat was Vietnam.

That's highly exagerated.
Let's bring out the History and Maths books

2 Libyan Su-22s in 1981
2 Libyan MiG-23s in 1989
43 Iraqi planes/helos in Desert Storm, including helos bombed while taking off and those who flew into the ground during dogfights
1 Iraqi MiG-25 in 1992
5 Galebs over Bosnia in 1994
5 Serbian MiG-29s in 1999

Speicher's Hornet was downed by a MiG-25 PDS & R-40RD. Many people on this site are asking why didn't the Iraqis exploit this victory with their propaganda machine. The answer is that most likely that pilot wasn't Iraqi, maybe a former Soviet PVO pilot - if the Iraqis would have been well trained like him they should have obtained more victories, right?

So the overall result is
58 to 1 over the past 33 years.

Not too happy with how much it took to down the Su-22s.
3 Aim-7's 2 Aim-9's, almost 1/2 the A2A missiles to down 2 A2G jets.
DS1 rate was not much higher. 2-4 missiles per kill.
Wonder if the Aim-120s have over 50%

Back to the topic.
The US has not had to face an AF that can field similar numbers of pilots and planes since the Korean war.
In Vietnam the NVAF never seems to have had more than a 2-4 dozen 12's and 17's at any one time.

guys,

Saddam ordered his aircraft buried. Why did he do it?

Saddam thought that because he opened up almost all of his weapons depots (and my oh my did he have a lot of them) that the Iraqi people would make the U.S. occupation so incredibly bloody that America would immediately withdraw. Saddam would then come back out of hiding and take back command, and would use his aircraft to help him in the military fights that might have ensued. He knew his aircraft couldn't beat the USAF, so he just buried them and waited.

idesof wrote:

The F/A-18 in question, as you say, was downed by a Mig-25 according to the "conventional wisdom," but as far as I know, that has not been decidedly confirmed. I may be wrong, of course.

You are correct, the USN and USAF acknowledge the 'Speicher' was shot down the first night of the Persian Gulf War. His widow has recieved the insurance money, etc.
Now, the Iraqi AF has never claimed this victory. AWACS ESM gear detected the MiG-25PD's radar lock-on signal behind the flight of F/A-18C's. The MiG-25 according to some Iraqi pilot fired the missile, turned and, ran.
Part of the IrAF's attitude is bad because they as a group felt so bad about their perform during Desert Storm.

Adrian

Forum: Air Power

So when was the time the USAF/USN got into a real fight?