The Brits have one on the birth of the (prestigious) Navy Fighter Weapons School:
Despite the all-American hero imagery of the film starring Tom Cruise, the US Navy’s expertise was in large part due to their instruction by aviators from the Fleet Air Arm.
When British pilots arrived at Miramar airbase in California in the early 1960s the Americans were losing a large number of dogfights in their multi-million Phantom fighters to the enemy’s relatively “cheap” MiG 21s.
The tuition from the British pilots, all graduates of the intense Air Warfare Instructors school in Lossiemouth, Scotland, led to the Americans dominating the skies, the military historian Rowland White has revealed in Phoenix Squadron.
It was then that the their Naval Warfare Academy became known as Top Gun.
If you say so, although the timing seems a little off. The air war didn’t really kick off until the mid-60s, the Ault Report came in 1968 and The School was established in 1969.
But, as the Canadian naval officer told me about the War of 1812, perhaps “we remember it differently.”
Checking out your link, Lex, I pondered on the miserable PC change my old–no, the new, PC IMPROVED USAF has made to the old patch so as to include ALL aircraft types in the program in a “diversity: everyone-must-have-prizes” cluster-F of a new program. To see what the “improved” USAF program has become, BEHOLD @
http://www.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Air_Force_Weapons_School
To view the old, original, USAF Fighter Wpns School patch see@
http://www.av8terstuff.com/miscwic.html (For some reason this link doesn’t work. Hit the entry just above the Wiki entry about the USAF WPNS SCHOOL on google entitled:” WEAPONS SCHOOL PATCHES-AV8R Stuff”
(Actually,the “new” USAF all-inclusive “Weapons School” is little more than what was done under the umbrella of the Red Flag exercises, but now ALL God’s USAF chilluns get to be “graduates” of a “prestigious” “school.” The only ac platform they left out was AF1, but I see with the latest bombing run by AF1 in Nev, the AF1 types are signalling their protest at being left out, lol)
Signed: Just a fossil who refuses to keep up with the PC times..
(And, yes, I’m a proud qualifier for the “non-graduate” Fighter Wpns patch–which came into existence precisely due to the fact of the increasingly PC political taint to the FWS selection process.)
Here’s another try.
http://www.av8rstuff.com/miscwic.html
Too Early in the am for me due to a back problem, (lack of sleep) but, didn’t Top Gun get established buy F-8 (Crusader
drivers) who noted that a set of 20mm’s come in handy?..
Looked at the newspaper article at the link. Note that the British pilot/instructors qouted are 72 years old.
I fly old time (1930′s designed) model airplanes in contests with the Society of Antique Modelers. Our common motto is “the older I get, the better I used to fly”.
Seems there just might be a little dollop of that in this story about events that took place 45 or 50 years ago.
But what the heck, the Canadians have a different version of what happened in the War of 1812.
Free Flight Forever! However, I bet you put radios in those, don’t you?
Don’t you?
On one forum there are a few Aussies and Brits who will argue up, down, and sideways that everyone was doing just fine in WWII, thank you very much, and that they almost had the Axis whipped before the US joined the party. Oh, and shame on us for taking so long to get equipment to them, and shame on us again for charging them for it.
My ancestors were at Sword and Juno plus Arromanches. They never spoke of getting ashore and inland without the Americans, Canadians, Poles, Free French et al. I am currently drafting my memoirs about my 30 year career in two large police forces, so if anypne can remember what I did, please contact me
You, single-handedly, stopped three assassination attempts by IRA and Basque terrorists on the royals. And twice took down raids on the Tower by thieves who were after some of the treasure there.
JNC, that was long after his charter membership in the Hitler Youth. That was basic training for all Brit Cops in those two large Police Forces.
Judas H!!! Those guys at RAF Menwith Hill really had me scoped all along. I’m just amazed that Joe and the QM got the lowdown. You Yanks and your “Freedom of information”. Pah.
It was all there on Youtube, Hogday.
Well, the report by Captain Ault was written in English. So, uh um, timeline notwithstanding, the Brits do have that going for them.
Interesting quote from a Navy F4 pilot who I respect and who was there at the time.
“This BS popped up a couple of years ago – note the 2009 date on the article. It is a bunch of crap! One of the TOPGUN instructors wrote a long and big-time smack down on this article at the time. I will see if I can find a copy. Meanwhile, here is what I remember:
TOPGUN started and had its 1st class in 1969, while it was still only a part of the F-4 RAG, VF-121. A year later I was a RAG student with a ringside seat watching NFWS develop. I remember they invited Israeli and British fighter pilots (and maybe other countries too) in 1970 to come visit and share thoughts on the new tactics that were being developed.
While the Israeli’s were impressive, the Brits were not. It was mostly a paid vacation for them. About the only thing we learned from them were beer drinking bar games, since they spent most of their time in the O’Club. Lord and one other guy had massive egos. About the only thing they gave us were a couple of their quotes in the new TacMan… quotes later removed soon after they left.
This BS article was to stir up interest in a book and nothing more.”
I found more from the same source. Sounds pretty coherent to me.
“Darrel (Condor) Gary is the real deal. He was there at the beginning of TOPGUN. He played a major part in developing the syllabus and new tactics for the F-4. He is about as good a source as any, and he makes for some good reading: “
Response to British false claims about Top Gun:
‘Rowland White’s interpretation of history is disingenuous, erroneous and certainly self promotional. All of the Royal Navy exchange pilots at that time (Dick Lord, Dick Moody and Peter Jago) were excellent pilots. What we learned from them was how to play mess Rugby in our whites, how to pass out in your plate at a Dining In and how to leave your breakfast on the ramp and still make your take-off time. They did make a positive contribution to the development of skill sets and tactical training within the training squadron to which we were all assigned. Many of them remain friends today. Peter lives near San Diego and flies eastern bloc aircraft long with us doing many of the same things we did in our youth. To assert that “they taught us how to fly the F-4 or that they wrote the NFWS syllabus is a complete fabrication.
It was widely understood by our pilots (USN and USAF) that we had trained for a different threat and were flying a very versatile and capable aircraft that was designed to establish air superiority in a different environment than the one we found ourselves engaged in. To further compound the problems, our command and control limitations negated our primary advantage, the ability to kill at long range. U.S. forces were routinely required to make a V.I.D. which put us in a turning fight with weapons not ideally suited for close in high “G” high T.C.A. combat. To make it even worse, the Rules of Engagement shifted the initiative to our adversaries. They exploited those R.O.E. Shame on the planners who don’t have to do the fighting. “Fight to Win” anything else is rubbish.
It was the Ault Report that gave voice to the operational forces (Fighter Pilots recently back from combat). The Ault Report cataloged all of the problems facing our forces. The easiest to fix in a short period of time was aircrew training and tactics. Missile performance was next in the line-up and we saw the results before the end of the conflict. Unlike the U.S.A.F. which was ruled by the bomber generals of S.A.C., the U.S. Navy command structure responded appropriately. They told those who experienced the problems and who complained about the situation to “go fix it”.
We studied prior conflicts and all of the prior F-4 vs MIG engagements. Adapting the two aircraft tactical unit, the Rotte/Section/Element established by Werner Molders (Luftwaffe) to the performance capabilities of our aircraft, we developed Loose Deuce maneuvering which emphasized mutual support. Taking advantage of the weapons system capability we developed offensive combat spread techniques and V.I.D tactics to maintain the offensive advantage at the terminal phase of an intercept.
We studied Maj John Boyd’s (U.S.A.F.) theory of energy maneuverability in order to understand relative aircraft performance envelopes and the comparative advantages/disadvantages of the F-4 vs our adversaries. We had the added advantage of being able to fly against captured assets. We were able to fly against the adversary aircraft in the western desert. The learning curve was very steep and resulted in dramatically revised tactics and training. We learned to use the vertical and the lag roll and other maneuvers to exploit our relative advantages. All of this was incorporated into the NFWS syllabus.
This took place against the backdrop of the bombing halt ordered by President Johnson in November of 1968. For the next three years any aerial confrontation was very limited. President Nixon lifted the ban north of the 20th parallel. By this time numerous NFWS trained pilots were assigned to Fighter Squadrons in the theater of operations. When aerial combat resumed, the results were dramatic. All of the U.S. Navy kills except for two were made by NFWS “TOPGUN” graduates. This is now a part of aviation history, legend and lore…..U.S. Naval Aviation history I might add. He who says otherwise was not there and diminishes himself by trying to assume the credit for the accomplishments of others.’
So the Brits *did* have an important role in the improvement of American fighter pilots. They introduced the concept of a full breakfast, since the typical breakfast before then was “a Coke, a smoke and a puke.”
For you glass cockpit flyers, TCA is track crossing angle.
During my short time at The School, instructors such as Huck, Manfred and Hawk spoke in awe about the visiting Israeli pilot who watered their eyes in the F-4J they borrowed from somewhere…probably VF-121. The only Brit mentioned during the course was Roy Brown.
Darrel Gary
This RN FAA online article may clear up some of the controversy & timelines:
‘TOP GUN AND THE BRITISH’ [some excerpts - currently this webpage is offline for amendment due to the recent death of Dick Lord]
http://www.fleetairarmoa.org/pages/images_pages/page79.htm
An exchange programme between the Royal Navy and US Navy had existed for many years. But from 1964 onwards, in advance of the Phantom’s introduction into Royal Navy service, small numbers of experienced FAA Pilots and Observers were sent to NAS Miramar… The presence of British instructors on VF-121 made available a handful more US Navy aircrews to the frontline fighting in Vietnam…
…Only the best were selected to go on the Royal Navy’s Air Warfare Instructors Course. And for most students it was the most demanding, most rewarding flying that they would ever enjoy. Ground theory at HMS Excellent, the Naval Gunnery School in Portsmouth, was followed by 3 months intensive flying with 764 NAS at Lossiemouth. Flying 3, 4 and sometimes 5 sorties a day in the squadron’s Hunters, students would learn about every aspect of modern tactics and weaponry, from ACM and developing spatial awareness leading divisional attacks of 4 aircraft, to delivering nuclear weapons. Sandwiched around the flying they were given lessons on how to brief and debrief a sortie, and taught about teaching. Because when they were posted to their next squadrons, it would be as that squadron’s AWI – the resident expert. 764 instructed its students to join their squadrons and share what they’d learned, spreading that expertise throughout the whole frontline. And they’d been doing it since 1959. Through the instructors on exchange at Miramar, the AWI’s methods made their way into perhaps the most well-known programme in the history of naval aviation: Top Gun….
…Dan McIntyre, boss of the air-to-air section of VF-121, noticed it too and asked him [RN FAA pilot Dick Lord] to write a revised ACM syllabus for the whole squadron and tour the west coast bases lecturing US Navy attack pilots on ACM.
Lord threw himself into it and, in early 1968, was slipped a dusty file marked ‘Top Secret: For US Eyes Only’ containing USAF Major John Boyd’s work on Energy Manoeuvrability….
…In the summer of 1968, Dick Lord left Miramar to become the Royal Navy’s pre-eminent weapons and tactics instructor, the Air Warfare Instructor of 764 NAS itself. But his legacy at Miramar was there for all to see in the standardisation, organisation and rigour of the new VF-121 tactics course….
…Dick Lord’s parting gift to Miramar was a typed fourteen-page document he called ‘Flying and Fighting the Phantom’….”
VX (+ others) may enjoy some RN Phantom (& Buccaneer) HMS Ark Royal CarQual nostalgia?
HMS Ark Royal aviation opération [sic]
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jv8prm4mGEQ
I remember the Ark Royal from a Norfolk, VA port call in 1975. Lovely ship and hated to see the announcement that she was headed back home and to the breaker’s yard. It was really a shame.
The Buccaneer was a rather badass attack airplane, once they put some reasonably powerful engines into it. Unfortunately, it was killed, along with the British aircraft industry, by the British government.
Can anyone say TSR-2,boys and girls?
I really really doubt this. The Brits were the ones, after all, who first poo-poo’d dogfighting in their 1957 defense white paper, stating that everything was down to supersonic interceptors and guided missiles. ACM was obsolete, according to our British cousins. The MOD basically destroyed their own aviation industry because of that paper.
Doesn’t mean the Pilots didn’t know better. When they watched us in Vietnam, they would have been able to see they were wrong back there in ’57.
I doubt the Pilots quit mixing it up.
Please see what I wrote, just above.
I too remember things differently. As an FMFPAC adversary pilot in A-4s at Yuma after returning from the war, I encountered quite a few Phantom crews who had Top Gun experience. While the newish tactics honed for the old Migs that NVN was flying were not revolutionary, they did depend heavily on Boyd’s energy maneuverability work. Those tactics bled over from the fighters to the light attack community as well.
I don’t recall ever encountering–or hearing about Brits in any significant capacity. In fact, it wasn’t until I had a Royal Navy classmate at TPS in 1971 that I realized that the Brit fighter pilots had any significant current knowledge of fighter tactics in the F-4.
Tom
The ‘old’ original article at the second URL below – currently offline to be amended due to the death of Dick Lord a few days ago [see: http://www.saairforce.co.za/news-and-events/1037/dick-lord-an-officer-and-a-gentleman is repeated below in full.
TOP GUN AND THE BRITISH
http://www.fleetairarmoa.org/pages/images_pages/page79.htm
"An exchange programme between the Royal Navy and US Navy had existed for many years. But from 1964 onwards, in advance of the Phantom’s introduction into Royal Navy service, small numbers of experienced FAA Pilots and Observers were sent to NAS Miramar in California where they flew as instructors on VF-121, the US Navy’s Fleet’s Replacement Air Group, or RAG. At ‘Fightertown, USA’ the Brits helped train rookie crews in the rudiments of flying and fighting the F-4 before these students were posted to frontline squadrons. At the end of their tours, the British exchange crews were able to bring home great experience of the Phantom and its systems, but the relationship was a reciprocal one. The presence of British instructors on VF-121 made available a handful more US Navy aircrews to the frontline fighting in Vietnam – a war that by the end of the decade had sucked in over half a million US troops. A war that was not going well.
US Navy pilots in Vietnam were struggling to gain the upper hand against the enemy. And, by the end of the sixties, concern about their poor performance had become so acute that addressing the situation became a priority for US Admirals. And in the effort to turn things round, the small British contingent at Miramar would play an important part.
Alongside its Phantom squadron, Miramar was home to VF-124, its equivalent Crusader RAG. And it was Vought F-8 Crusader jockeys who walked into the bar at Happy Hour with the biggest swagger. The single-seat F-8s were real pilot’s jets, known to their pilots as ‘The Last of the Gunfighters’. Relatively small and agile, armed with machine guns and short-range missiles they were out and out dogfighters. The Phantom, by contrast, was huge, carried a crew of two and wasn’t even equipped with a gun, relying instead on guided missiles alone. For all its record breaking, the Navy never expected their new interceptor to get tangled up in the messy business of dogfighting. It was supposed to be beyond all that. And Miramar F-8 pilots had become bored of ambushing them. Screaming into someone’s six o’clock only to provoke a gentle 2 ‘G’ turn in response – where was the fun in that? They’d almost started to ignore the Phantoms until one of them stumbled onto the tail of an F-4 being flown by a Royal Navy Air Warfare Instructor called Geoff Hunt. And he wasn’t having any of it.
In response to the indignity of discovering an F-8 on his tail, Hunt slammed the Phantoms engines through the gate to engage full afterburner and pulled into a screaming turn towards the attacking F-8. And then the two jets fought until their fuel was gone. The Crusader pilot landed with eyes like dinner plates.
Only the best were selected to go on the Royal Navy’s Air Warfare Instructors Course. And for most students it was the most demanding, most rewarding flying that they would ever enjoy. Ground theory at HMS Excellent, the Naval Gunnery School in Portsmouth, was followed by 3 months intensive flying with 764 NAS at Lossiemouth. Flying 3, 4 and sometimes 5 sorties a day in the squadron’s Hunters, students would learn about every aspect of modern tactics and weaponry, from ACM and developing spatial awareness leading divisional attacks of 4 aircraft, to delivering nuclear weapons. Sandwiched around the flying they were given lessons on how to brief and debrief a sortie, and taught about teaching. Because when they were posted to their next squadrons, it would be as that squadron’s AWI – the resident expert. 764 instructed its students to join their squadrons and share what they’d learned, spreading that expertise throughout the whole frontline. And they’d been doing it since 1959. Through the instructors on exchange at Miramar, the AWI’s methods made their way into perhaps the most well-known programme in the history of naval aviation: Top Gun.
The Brits at Miramar did their best to fit in. They gave themselves US-style callsigns. But rather than the Vipers and Mavericks that seemed to prevail, they came up with Alien, Dogbreath, Cholmondley and Spastic [LCDR Al Hickling SP then CO VC-724 in 1972-3]. When Lt Dick Lord arrived at Miramar in 1966 he called himself Brit One. Because he was South African and because he liked the idea of his American wingman having to call himself Brit 2. Lord was staggered by the size of the operation the US Navy had there.
Sitting on the hard-standing were more aircraft than made up the entire Fleet Air Arm. His own squadron, VF-121, had over 80. And it was in the unit’s sheer size –the volume of people involved – that Lord, a single minded and talented fighter pilot, quickly realised that a problem lay. As he passed around the debriefing cubicles that surrounded the main room he listened in. No-one teaching tactics was more revered than those pilots who’d killed MiGs in Vietnam.
‘Alright kid, you fly like this’ Lord heard them say ‘because this is how I flew in Vietnam. And if you don’t, they’re going to bust your ass!’ Then in the next cubicle he’d hear something completely different.
‘Alright kid, you fly like this, because that’s how I flew in Vietnam. And, if you don’t they’re going to bust your ass!’
There was no clear, consistent message. He could only imagine how it must scramble the brains of eager-to-impress young students.
For his debriefing following his first sortie as an instructor, Lord asked for coloured chalk. On the AWI course at Lossie after every engagement, he scribbled down headings, speeds, who did what, when, where errors were made. Then, in the debrief after the sortie, he could recreate the fight on the blackboard, pick it apart in detail and learn from it. It took the ego and subjectivity out of it – stopped a debrief just becoming a pissing contest. Using the same techniques he pointed out his students errors and explained how and where he’d gained an advantage. And soon he found that his debriefs were starting to get crowded. Dan McIntyre, boss of the air-to-air section of VF-121, noticed it too and asked him to write a revised ACM syllabus for the whole squadron and tour the west coast bases lecturing US Navy attack pilots on ACM.
Lord threw himself into it and, in early 1968, was slipped a dusty file marked ‘Top Secret: For US Eyes Only’ containing USAF Major John Boyd’s work on Energy Manoeuvrability. Shot through with mathematical formulae he could see why the report had been gathering dust. But Lord stuck with it and realised it was golddust. Boyd had used graphs to illustrate the performance envelopes of different fighters. By overlaying one graph with another, Boyd’s work could show you exactly where your own aircraft’s advantage lay. And exactly where your weaknesses were found. Lord added it to his teaching, amused that he was now lecturing on something he wasn’t even allowed to have read.
As the war in Vietnam deepened, sucking in men and material in ever greater quantities, alarm was growing amongst US Admirals about the performance of the Navy’s fighters – and especially about its new ‘hot ship’ the F-4 Phantom. By the end of the sixties, the F-4 had only accounted for thirteen MiGs. The older, simpler, gun-armed F-8 Crusader had eighteen. More worryingly, the overall American kill ratio against the MiGs was stubbornly refusing to rise much above 2:1. Just two small, cheap enemy jets for every multi-million dollar American fighter. Throughout World War Two and Korea the ratio had been closer to 10:1. Something had clearly gone wrong.
In the summer of 1968, Dick Lord left Miramar to become the Royal Navy’s pre-eminent weapons and tactics instructor, the Air Warfare Instructor of 764 NAS itself. But his legacy at Miramar was there for all to see in the standardisation, organisation and rigour of the new VF-121 tactics course. A couple of months after Lord returned to the UK, one of his fellow instructors, Lt Cdr Dan Pederson USN, the squadron’s operations officer, became the first CO of the Navy Fighter Weapons School. NFWS was soon dubbed ‘Topgun’, its role, like 764, was to take the best crews in the fleet and, for a month, give them intense and comprehensive tuition in aerial combat before sending them back to share that knowledge in squadron ready rooms throughout the Navy.
Topgun wasn’t consciously modelled on the Royal Navy’s Air Warfare Instructor’s Course, but the similarities were pronounced, and Pederson was quick to acknowledge Lord’s contribution – he’d attended some of the Fleet Air Arm pilot’s lectures himself. Dick Lord’s work at the VF-121 Tactics Group was the foundation on which Pederson and the original eight Topgun instructors built their course. One of the eight, John Nash, maintained that the month-long course was ‘nothing more than an extended course of the RAG tactics syllabus. And, of course, Lord had written that syllabus.
In 1970, a Phantom launched from the deck of the USS Constellation shot down a MiG-21 with an AIM-9 Sidewinder missile. It was the first MiG shot-down by the US Navy in nearly two years of war. The pilot’s name was Lt Jerry Beaulier. And he was a graduate of the first class ever to pass through Topgun.
Dick Lord’s parting gift to Miramar was a typed fourteen-page document he called ‘Flying and Fighting the Phantom’. It was a distillation of all he’d learnt about the jet in his time in the tactics group. Copies were handed to every single VF-121 student on their arrival at Miramar. It was also sent to McDonnell-Douglas, the Phantom’s manufacturer. They were sufficiently impressed to quote from it on the opening page of the F-4’s operating manual, known as NATOPS:
‘To be successful in the fighter business the aircrew must, first and foremost, have a thorough background in fighter tactics. They must acquire an excellent knowledge of all their equipment. Then they must approach the problem with a spirit of aggression, and with utter confidence.’
It sat alongside just one other quotation. And that was from Manfred Von Richtofen, the Red Baron; the most famous fighter pilot who’s ever lived.
Dougal Macdonald was Dick Lord’s last ever student at 764 NAS. Not everyone coped with either the physical or psychological stresses of the AWI course. Over three months students spent a lot of time pulling ‘G’ and flying straight at the ground – and that was never a game for the faint-hearted. And in being an Observer rather than a pilot going through the Air Warfare Instructor’s Course, Macdonald was a rarity. As a Looker, he had no direct control over the aircraft, but, in having responsibility for navigation and operating the weapons system, he controlled nearly everything else. Without him, the guy in the front seat could fly fast and make a lot of noise, but he couldn’t fight a war. It was a lesson that old-school fighter jocks were still getting to grips with. A fighter with a two-man crew was more capable than a single-seater. The workload was shared; you had an extra pair of eyes.
Dick Lord took the young Observer under his wing, flying as pilot on most of Macdonald’s sorties himself. He was determined that Macdonald was going to get through. His first impression of any young aircrew he met came from the look in their eyes. Macdonald, tough and eager, his eyes were alive with the spark he was looking for. Much more than the pilots, Lord knew, the ‘Lookers’ were completely outside of their comfort zone at 764. But Macdonald thrived during his time at Lossie. And not only did he qualify as an Air Warfare Instructor himself, but, like his mentor, he became an Instructor at Miramar and, after sitting the Top Gun course himself, joined an elite group of aviators.
(PS In the broadcast Doug let on that his callsign was “Haggis” – no comment).””
Brigadier General R S Lord SAAF. Date Posted – 27/10/2011
http://www.fleetairarmoa.org/asp/news.asp?NewsItem=1516
“The [(Royal Navy) Fleet Air Arm Officers'] Association records with sorrow the death on 26 October 2011, in Cape Town, of Brigadier General Dick Lord, South African Air Force. Further details will be published in the members’ area when known but many will remember him when he flew as a Lieutenant Commander in the Royal Navy as a Fleet Air Arm Pilot. He recorded his life in the book from “Tailhooker to Mudmover” details of which can be found on the website.”