Dissimilar air combat training

US pilots were finding themselves hard-pressed to prevail over the nimble Vietnam Peoples Air Force (VPAF) MiGs which by late 1966 had grown to be a real threat to US aircraft operating over the North.

Ever since the success of the American Volunteer Group Flying Tigers in World War II, aerial tacticians have advocated exploiting differences in aircraft to maximize one's own advantages while minimizing the disadvantages of one's own platform, thus neutralizing the superior maneuverability and climbing speed of, for example, a Mitsubishi Zero compared to the rugged, fast-diving and powerfully armed Curtiss P-40 Tomahawk.

Its Convair F-106 Delta Dart interceptor squadrons had been tasked with a worldwide mission to send expeditionary forces overseas to conduct air defense operations as necessary.

Convair F-102 Delta Daggers and Lockheed F-104 Starfighters functioned as adversary aircraft for the F-106s, and DACT competency became a required portion of an interceptor pilot's training.

After aerial combat resumed again in 1972 over North Vietnam the Navy had numerous TOPGUN graduates who were ready to take on the VPAF MiG-17, MiG-19 and MiG-21 pilots that had also been training and were prepared for the resumption of hostilities.

In 1970 the Marine Corps and the Navy found out about Air Defense Command's DACT training program, Operation College Dart, and began to fly practice air-to-air combat missions with F-106 squadrons in the summer of that year.