This Date in Planelopnik History: 1969

"ttyymmnn" (ttyymmnn) 03/03/2015 at 10:07 • Filed to: planelopnik, planelopnik history

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March 3, 1969 marks the opening of the US Navy's Fighter Weapons School at Miramar Naval Air Station, which later became known as Topgun. Now called the Navy Strike Fighter Tactics Instructor program and based at NAS Fallon, Nevada, Topgun teaches dogfighting and strike tactics to select Naval Aviators, who then return to their own units to pass along what they have learned.

Top: A T-38 Talon of VFC-13 (photo by Tony Lovelock via !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! )

In 1968, practical combat experience in Vietnam led the Air Force and the Navy to come to very different conclusions on how to fix the problem of air-to-air fighter losses. While the Air Force saw it as a systems problem and upgraded their radars and missiles, the Navy saw it as a training issue, and sought to improve the air combat maneuvering skills of its pilots. As a result of the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , published in May of that year, the Navy created an "Advanced Fighter Weapons School" to spread knowledge and expertise in air combat throughout the fleet.

The Fighter Weapons School opened for business on March 3, 1969, and used many F-8 Crusader pilots as instructors (the Crusader was the last American fighter designed with guns as its primary weapon, and was nicknamed "The Last of the Gunfighters"). The goal was to teach aerial dogfighting tactics through the use of Dissimilar Air Combat Training. Rather than practice against other pilots in the same aircraft, DACT would pit the pilots against smaller, more maneuverable fighters, such as the A-4 Skyhawk or T-38 Talon to simulate the Russian MiG-17 or MiG-21 the pilots would most likely see in combat at that time.

All that training paid off. The Navy's kill ratio in Vietnam, which started at approximately 2:1, increased to 12:1 by 1972.

A TA-4 Skyhawk from the Redtails of Fleet Composite Squadron Eight (VC-8)

As the fleet transitioned from the F-4 Phantom II and A-4 Skyhawk to the F-14 Tomcat and then the F/A-18 Hornet, instructors kept their A-4s and F-5s, but also added the F-16 Fighting Falcon and the F/A-18 Hornet to their arsenal. As the Cold War ended, and Naval fighter pilots found themselves dropping more bombs and firing more missiles, the Navy amended the Topgun syllabus to reflect that changing role.

Two U.S. Navy/U.S. Marine Corps F-16N Vipers and two Douglas A-4F Skyhawks of the United States Navy Fighter Weapons School

Imirrelephant > ttyymmnn 03/03/2015 at 10:46

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LOVE T-38 agressor liveries!

You can tell a Finn but you can't tell him much > ttyymmnn 03/03/2015 at 12:21

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Any idea when this picture was taken? These appear to be early A-4's without the dorsal avionics hump. It is curious to me that they were still flying early A-4's with F-16's.

ttyymmnn > You can tell a Finn but you can't tell him much 03/03/2015 at 12:28

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I snagged that from Wikipedia and it gives the date as 1991. It's a bit of a puzzle, because the caption IDs it as an A-4F, but that's the first Skyhawk to receive the hump, at least according to Wiki. The Blue Angels also flew the A-4F, and also without the hump. My only guess is that 1) they didn't want to spend the money, 2) the aggressors wanted to fly the aircraft as clean as possible, and didn't need the extra avionics anyway, a la the Blues. But really, I have no idea.