F-86 Sabre vs MIG-15

[Gage]

To go along with an early jet theme that's running at the minute.
This is taken from The History Channel's 'Dog Fights'. Excellent show.

Sadly I know very little about the Korean War. But I did read the F-86 turned the war in the air.

F-86 Sabre vs MiG-15

[kfz]

Did you know that the F86 orignally had straight wings and that the Yanks realised the advantage of the 'German' technolagy and changed it, while the Briitsh who where too up the own backsides and stuck ridigidly to straight wings. If I remember rightly the Sabre has exactly the same sweepback as the me262 and if fact the wings look remarkably simaler. No Doubt about it the F86 was a damn good aircraft probobaly the best in the world, miles better than any British one.

Amazing that after inventing the damn thing we managed to mess it up so quick.

Kev

[warhawk]

offtopic somewhat: I like the show " Dogfights".

[Gage]

So were these the last of the true dogfighters?

[Warlord]

The F86´s kill to loss ratio in Korea was about 13 to 1, but given that the planes were almost an even match, each one with pros and cons against the other, which was the factor that made up for that kind of numbers?

I mean, that factor is just so important that, had it been, say, half of it, the whole affair would have been an outright massacre all the way to Pusan, given the massive numbers of Fagots, Russian and Chinese, the FEAF had to deal with.

[warhawk]

Originally Posted by Gage

So were these the last of the true dogfighters?

Well..... maybe, after that we started using heat-seeking missiles and all that stuff. EDIT. Actually they started using heat-seeking missiles then I think, but they still had some dogfights. Now we do not use cannons or machine guns, we use heat-seeking missiles. JMO. Feel free to correct me, for I seen a program on this 2 years ago.

[Warlord]

Originally Posted by Gage

So were these the last of the true dogfighters?

Missile minded brass in the West after the Korean "Police Action" almost took care of the aerial back-alley brawlers in favour of high altitude, high speed, no maneuverability interceptors, nearly handing over in a plate the Free World to Uncle Joe in the process, but the Israeli experience and the early setbacks over ´Nam proved the worth, once again, of the legacy of Immelmann, Bishop, Baracca and company. With it, came back the nimble and agile ones, like the Hawker Hunter and Dassault Mystére, and even in-betweeners like the Dassault Mirage III, with its big deltas, proved worthy dogfighters in the hands of a well trained jockey.

It is interesting to note, however, that the "push-button" mentality seemed to infect mainly the U.S. (I wrote "the West" because the USAF made up more than half the airborne resources of the Free World in those days), with most of the dogfighters of the decade between the mid-50´s and 60´s coming from nations other than Stars and Stripes country, including the USSR.

[Drew5233]

The Dogfight series covers a more modern era too in Vietnam with F4 Phantoms and Mig 21's. I believe a few Phantoms used their cannons then Gage.

[Smudger Jnr]

Wasn't the reason for the Americans opening the "Top Gun" Training programme, due to the loss of dog fighting skill from the Korean war to the Vietnam war.

I believe a lot of the US Pilots flying in Korea were were WW2 Veterans and so skilled in the art of handling a plane in combat situations.

This probably accounts for the high kill ratio mentioned earlier.

Jet planes these day rely on sofisticated computers and radar systems and sometimes the pilot will not have visual contact.

The Falklands conflict showed just how good a slow jet like the Harrier with its sophisticated thrust vectoring system could outmanoeuvre the faster Mirage.

The Harrier can also evade missiles by thrust vectoring which is something missiles of course cannot perform at the moment.

Regards
Tom

[Drew5233]

Tom,

The Falklands was a good and probably the last example to date of 'Dogfights'. The Harrier action was called 'Viffing' if I remember correctly.

I guess a fair amount of the FAA and RAF's success can be put down to the skill and training of the pilots but I take nothing away from the Argentinian pilots. I have never heard a bad word sad of them and the FAA and RAF had nothing but admiration for their bravery.

It's a shame the 'Dogfight' TV Series is made or financed in America because as you can obviously tell all the programmes are about American actions with no mention of the BoB or the Falklands which in themselves would make interesting programmes on the same theme.

Cheers
Andy