Usn F 4 Phantom Ii Vs Vpaf Mig 17 19

The Vietnam War placed unexpected demands upon American military forces and equipment.The principal US naval fighter, the McDonnell F-4 Phantom, had originally been designed to defend the Fleet from air attack at long range. However, its tremendous power and bomb-carrying capacity made it an obvious candidate for the attack mission in Vietnam from 1965 onwards. Its opponent was the MiG-17, a direct descendant of the MiG-15, which had given USAF Sabre jets a hard fight in the Korean War. This book brings to life their dangerous duels and includes detailed cockpit views and other specially commissioned artwork to highlight the benefits and shortcomings of each plane type. It was in the skies over Vietnam that many of the techniques of air combat evolved as pilots learned how to use and to defeat supersonic fighters for the first time.

The Vietnam War placed unexpected demands upon American military forces and equipment.The principal US naval fighter, the McDonnell F-4 Phantom, had originally been designed to defend the Fleet from air attack at long range. However, its tremendous power and bomb-carrying capacity made it an obvious candidate for the attack mission in Vietnam from 1965 onwards. Its opponent was the MiG-17, a direct descendant of the MiG-15, which had given USAF Sabre jets a hard fight in the Korean War. This book brings to life their dangerous duels and includes detailed cockpit views and other specially commissioned artwork to highlight the benefits and shortcomings of each plane type. It was in the skies over Vietnam that many of the techniques of air combat evolved as pilots learned how to use and to defeat supersonic fighters for the first time.

The Vietnam War placed unexpected demands upon American military forces and equipment, which had been focused on the probability of tactical nuclear warfare. The principal US naval fighter, the McDonnell F-4 Phantom, had originally been designed to defend the Fleet from air attack at long range. However, its tremendous power and bomb-carrying capacity made it an obvious candidate for the attack mission in Vietnam from 1965 onwards. Its opponent was the MiG-17, a direct descendant of the MiG-15, which had given USAF Sabre jets a hard fight in the Korean War. This book brings to life their dangerous duels and includes detailed cockpit views and other specially commissioned artwork to highlight the benefits and shortcomings of each plane type. It was in the skies over Vietnam that many of the techniques of air combat evolved as pilots learned how to use and to defeat supersonic fighters for the first time.

This book draws us into the dangerous world braved by American and North Vietnamese airmen in the skies over Vietnam. Influential leaders and tacticians are profiled to provide a comparative evaluation of their contrasting skills. This book also reveals the technical specifications of each jet with an analysis of the weaponry, avionics and survival devices of the F-4 Phantom II as flown by the USAF and the MiG-21. The fighters' strengths and weaknesses are also compared, including turn radius, performance at altitude, range and structural integrity. First-person extracts reflect on the dangers of these aerial duels, as USAF pilots and their counterparts struggled to overcome each plane's shortcomings.

The erstwhile enemy of the USAF and US Navy during the nine years of American involvement in the Vietnam War, the Vietnamese Peoples' Air Force (VPAF) quickly grew from an ill-organised rabble of poorly trained pilots flying antiquated communist aircraft into a highly effective fighting force that more than held its own over the skies of North Vietnam. Flying Soviet fighters like the MiG-17, and -19, the VPAF produced over a dozen aces, whilst the Americans managed just two pilots and three navigators in the same period.

At the beginning of the Vietnam War, the Vietnam People's Air Force (VPAF) were equipped with slow, old Korean War generation fighters – a combination of MiG-17s and MiG-19s – types that should have offered little opposition to the cutting-edge fighter-bombers such as the F-4 Phantom II, F-105 Thunderchief and the F-8 Crusader. Yet when the USAF and US Navy unleashed their aircraft on North Vietnam in 1965 the inexperienced pilots of the VPAF were able to shatter the illusion of US air superiority. Taking advantage of their jet's unequalled low-speed maneuverability, small size and powerful cannon armament they were able to take the fight to their missile-guided opponents, with a number of Vietnamese pilots racking up ace scores. Packed with information previously unavailable in the west and only recently released from archives in Vietnam, this is the first major analysis of the exploits of Vietnamese pilots in the David and Goliath contest with the US over the skies of Vietnam.

In many respects the most successful, versatile and widely-used combat aircraft of the post-war era the F-4 Phantom II was quickly adopted by the USAF after its spectacular US Navy introduction. Its introduction to USAF squadrons happened just in time for the Vietnam conflict where USAF F-4Cs took over MiG-fighting duties from the F-100 Super Sabre. Although the F-4 was never intended as a dog-fighter to tangle with light, nimble, gun-armed MiGs it was responsible for destroying 109 MiGs in aerial combat. At the end of their careers many of the survivors from the 3,380 'land-based' Phantoms were converted into target drones for training purposes. New aircraft were also built for West Germany, Iran and Israel. The USAF's experience with the Phantom showed clearly that the air-to-air fighter was still a necessity and its decision to fund its successor, the McDonnell-Douglas F-15 Eagle (as well as the F-16 Fighting Falcon and F-22A Raptor) was heavily influenced by the lessons of US and other Phantom pilots in combat.

Originally designed as a carrier-borne long-range interceptor armed with radar-guided missiles and tasked with defence against missile-launching bombers, the Phantom II went on to establish itself as one of the most important multi-role fighter, attack and reconnaissance aircraft of the 20th century. Arguably the United States' most important aircraft in the Vietnam War, where it played the role of workhorse as well as being a deadly MiG interceptor, the Phantom was also a mainstay of Atlantic Fleet operations ? intercepting Soviet bomber and reconnaissance aircraft and turning them away from the carrier groups at the height of the Cold War. This book reveals the design and development history of the naval Phantom, its variants and the exported designs adopted by other NATO countries. Packed with illustrations, photographs and first-hand accounts, it provides a technical history of one of the most famous aircraft ever built.