Friggin “Led sled Fishbed” Sundown gets more press than the Viking going away a couple weeks ago from our own formerly capable airwing of just a decade ago…

Figures. ; -)

No BAMS for another decade minimum, P-3′s in the crapper, P-8 wishful thinking, JSF looking like a bridge too far and an Obama admimnistration to boot..man on’man we are in a world o’hurt. The train is off the tracks and impact is pending.

b2

For those that don’t want to wade through the ACIG site (which is generally very good) data, here’s the condensed version (and my memory was slightly clouded):

For the period 1970-1973, USN air combat victories: 22. Losses: 5. Kill ratio: 4.5:1.

USAF ratio in the same period was actually lower than I remembered, it was 1.8:1.

During the period 1965-1968, the numbers were USN: 36 kills, 14 losses, ratio 2.6:1.

#17 XBrad – Cunningham was known to often embellish his résumé in his many interviews. Although he was obviously assigned as a FWS instructor following his kills, I tend to agree with Byron that he did not “officially” attend FWS earlier.

Wilcox in Sream of Eagles tells us that while he was stashed for a while in the RAG, he intently studied NFWS tactics and performance publications, and may have flown back-seat as an observer. Later in the turnaround between his cruises, I believe another pilot was selected by his squadron to attend FWS.

In fact it is my understanding that his requests to augment from Reserve to Regular Navy had been denied, and he was to be involuntarily separated from active duty at the end of that cruise, when his initial reserve commitment was up. Of course all that was later OBE and naturally changed.