Fighter Combat - Tactics and Maneuvering

ONE-VERSUS-ONE MANEUVERING, DISSIMILAR AIRCRAFT 1 77
started giving him a constant advantage. When he raised his nose just a bit too
high, I pulled into him. Placing my aircraft nearly 180° to follow, Willie and I
were two miles ahead of him, out of his missile range, at 600 knots airspeed.
With our energy back, I made a 60° nose-up vertical turn back into the
pressing MiG. He climbed right after us, and, again, with the Phantom's
superior climbing ability, I outzoomed him as he squirted BBs in our direction.
It was a carbon copy of the first engagement seconds earlier as we went
into another rolling scissors.
Again we were forced to disengage as advantage and disadvantage traded
sides. As we blasted away to regain energy for the second time, Irish came up
on the [intercom], "Hey, Duke, how ya doin' up there? This guy really knows
what he's doin'. Maybe we ought to call it a day."
This almost put me into a blind rage. To think some [bogey] had not only
stood off my attacks but had gained an advantage on me twice!
"Hang on, Willie. We're gonna get this guy!"
"Go get him, Duke. I'm right behind you!"
Irish was all over the cockpit, straining to keep sight of the MiG as I
pitched back toward him for the third time. Man, it felt good to have that
second pair of eyes back there, especially with an adversary who knew what
air fighting was all about. Very seldom did U.S. fighter pilots find a MiG that
fought in the vertical. The enemy liked to fight in the horizontal for the most
part, or just to run, if he didn't have the advantage.
Once again I met the MiG-17 head-on, this time with an offset so he
couldn't use his guns. As I pulled up into the pure vertical I could again see
this determined pilot a few feet away. Winston Churchill once wrote, "In
war, if you are not able to beat your enemy at his own game, it is nearly
always better to adopt some striking variant." My mind simply came up with
a last-ditch idea. I pulled hard toward his aircraft and yanked the throttles
back to idle, popping the speed brakes at the same time.
The MiG shot out in front of me for the first time! The Phantom's nose
was 60° above the horizon with airspeed down to 150 knots in no time. I had
to go to full burner to hold my position. The surprised enemy pilot attempted
to roll up on his back above me. Using only rudder to avoid stalling the F-4
with the spoilers on the wings, I rolled to the MiG's blind side. He attempted
to reverse his roll, but as his wings banked sharply he must have stalled the
aircraft momentarily and his nose fell through, placing me at his six but still
too close for a shot. "This is no place to be with a MiG-17,"I thought, "at 150
knots . . . this slow, he can take it right away from you."
But he had stayed too long. We later found out that this superb fighter
pilot, later identified as "Colonel Tomb" of the North Vietnamese Air Force,
had refused to disengage when his GCI [ground-controlled intercept] controller
ordered him to return to base. After the war we found out that "Tomb,"
presumably with 13 American aircraft to his credit, had to run for it if he were
going to get down before flaming out.
He pitched over the top and started straight down. I pulled hard over and
followed. Though I didn't think a Sidewinder would guide straight down,
with the heat of the ground to look at, I called "Fox Two" and squeezed one
off. The missile came off the rail and went straight to the MiG. There was just
a little flash and I thought it had missed him. As I started to fire my last
Sidewinder, there was an abrupt burst of flame. Black smoke erupted from
the 17. He didn't seem to go out of control . . . the fighter simply kept
descending, crashing into the ground at about a 45° angle. 2