Haole please explaine something to me.

[baghdaddy]

I was watching a programm on Discovery about the carrier John c Stennis (Is that right?).

They were talking about the different kinds of aircraft in particular the F14 being the battle groups primary defnce and the F18 being the primary attack aircraft.

They spoke to an F14 pilot and he was saying that ideally they only want to see the contact on the radar and engage it BVR.

Next up they had the F18 and discussed what en excellent dogfighter the F18 is.

Why then would one bother making a aircraft a " good dog fighter" and develop the primary weapons to be "good BVR". Surely if you make such an effort to engage the enemy BVR and develop your weapons for that purpose the idea is to fire and get the hell out of there without engaging a bogey in a dog fight situation.

To add to my point above. Every two years we have an international airshow at Waterkloof airbase in Pretoria. I had this same discussion with one of the ground crew of an F15E. And all this guy could talk about is how good the radar on the 15 is and that the radar is the most important piece of equipment on the 15 and that the pilots never want to engage within VR.

[Spyder-F16]

The reason for this balance of BVR and Dogfight capability is to prevent what happened in Vietnam with the F-4 Phantoms, They were optimised for AIM-7's which were thought to be the 'holy grail' but they got shot down by MiG's at close range. You cannot fully rely on hitting everything BVR, or having enough weapons for BVR, or you may be ambushed. Rarely is a knife fight anymore, but still, you just never know.

[baghdaddy]

Thanks Spyder

O I realize this aswell but what perplexes me is that in all the programs that I have watched (and this includes an interview with a British Harrier pilot from the same program) nobody talks about pilot skills anymore.

In Falcon you see what you have said very clearly. On numerous occasions I escaped with grass on my belly after engaging bogeys and thats where i realized that pilot skills is a first and most important aspect of being a fighter pilot.
But not one of the pilots (on Discovery at least) really talk about this

[Spyder-F16]

You'd have to watch some of the programs about WWII and WWI Fighterpilots to get anything on Dogfight BFM's. Modern pilots follow the same 'laws' of dogfighting that were established in WWI.

[baghdaddy]

You'd have to watch some of the programs about WWII and WWI Fighterpilots to get anything on Dogfight BFM's. Modern pilots follow the same 'laws' of dogfighting that were established in WWI.

The best book I read on that was by a British airmarshal, I cannot remember what his name was but the book is called "Full Circle".

It explaines in detail how it all started. If you ever come across this book Spyder, buy or steal it. When I get back to South Africa I'll find it and send it to you as a birthday present. Assuming you will be interrested. If you are? let me know. :smile: