Dogfight

[5] On March 21, 1918, several British newspapers published an article by Frederic Cutlack in which the word was used in the modern sense: "A patrol of seven Australian machines on Saturday met about twenty of this [i.e., von Richthofen's] circus at 12,000 feet.

According to his own statements in an interview two decades later, both men had orders to kill, but neither pilot wanted to harm the other, so they exchanged multiple volleys of pistol fire, intentionally missing before exhausting their supply of ammunition.

French aviator Roland Garros solved this problem by mounting steel deflector wedges on the propeller of a Morane Saulnier monoplane.

Fokker decided that the wedges were much too risky, and improved the design by connecting the trigger of an MG 08 Maxim machine gun to the timing of the engine.

[12][14] On the evening of July 1, 1915, the very first aerial engagement by a fighter plane armed with a synchronized, forward-firing machine gun occurred just to the east of Luneville, France.

Brigadier General Hugh Trenchard ordered that all British reconnaissance aircraft be supported by at least three fighters, creating the first tactical formations in the air.

The Germans responded by forming Jagdstaffel or Jastas, large squadrons of fighters solely dedicated to destroying enemy aircraft, under the supervision of Boelcke.

He even used his Lewis gun in its top-wing adjustable Foster mounting to fire upwards into the underside of unsuspecting enemy aircraft.

[17] By the end of the war, the underpowered machines from just ten years prior had been transformed into fairly powerful, swift, and heavily armed fighter planes, and the basic tactics of dogfighting had been established.

Lieutenant Werner Mölders advised abandoning the standard "V" formation used in combat, and pairing fighters in twos, starting the practice of having a wingman at one's side.

He advised that pairs of aircraft approaching a fight should increase the distance between them instead of holding tight formations, a precursor to the combat spread maneuver.

In Japan and Italy especially,[citation needed] there continued to be a strong belief that lightly armed, highly maneuverable single seat fighters would still play a primary role in air-to-air combat.

Fighting every second to overcome this blackness about me, I pulled back on the stick, further and further, so that the enemy would just show at the bottom of my ring sight to allow for the correct deflection.

[25] Another successful maneuver was a "Sokolinnyi udar" (falcon punch) when a pilot obtained a speed advantage by swooping down on an opponent, characteristically from the direction of the sun in order to hide their fighter within the glare of the brilliant light before and during the attack.

This maneuver and many other tactical principles were introduced by Alexander Pokryshkin, one of the greatest tacticians of the Soviet Air Force who showed his worth during World War II.

Thach made a diagram of the idea and showed it to other pilots, but in trial-runs people like Butch O'Hare found it difficult to make the shot while, at the same time, evading the two friendly planes coming at him head on.

For example, in World War II, describing the Soviet tactics, the Luftwaffe claimed that, "The characteristic feature of the average Soviet fighter pilot were a tendency toward caution and reluctance instead of toughness and stamina, brute strength instead of genuine combat efficiency, abysmal hatred instead of fairness and chivalry...."[25] After World War II, the question began to rise about the future usefulness of fighter aircraft.

[47] By this time, dogfighting techniques had fallen out of favor in U.S. training doctrines, as missiles were considered to be all that was necessary to shoot down the big bombers expected to be deployed by the Soviet Union[citation needed].

As a result, air combat methods known by fighter pilots since World War I became all but lost as veterans from WWII and Korea retired and didn't pass them on to succeeding generations[citation needed].

American fighter pilots would meet in the skies in secret to engage in mock combat[citation needed] to try to maintain some level of proficiency.

It wasn't until TOPGUN was established for the Navy in 1969 and Red Flag was started for the Air Force in 1975 that pilots were formally trained in dogfighting again[citation needed].

As a consequence, U.S. RF-101 Voodoo aircraft conducting reconnaissance missions, or F-102 Delta Daggers, F-104 Starfighters performing MiGCAP duties, and the strike aircraft themselves, such as F-105 Thunderchiefs, A-4 Skyhawks, A-6 Intruders, F-4 Phantoms and B-52's flying over North Vietnam were met by MiG-17s (or Chicom J-5s), MiG-19s (Chicom J-6s), and MiG-21s being vectored directly to them by GCI operators who worked in conjunction with surface-to-air missile (SAM) crews.

[54][55] Approximately 612 radar-guided AIM-7 Sparrow missiles were fired during the war, scoring 56 MiG kills, while 454 heat-seeking AIM-9 Sidewinders were launched achieving 81 aerial victories.

[60]This passage from a USAF booklet explained a MiG day: If you know a MiG-21 is in your area or you lose sight of one and want to find it again: Roll out wings level for 15 seconds, then look in your 6 o'clock about 1.5 miles.

[67] On November 22, 1971, 10 days before the start of a full-scale war, four PAF F-86 Sabre jets attacked Indian and Mukti Bahini positions at Garibpur, near the international border.

[68] On December 3, India formally declared war against Pakistan following massive preemptive strikes by the PAF against Indian Air Force installations in Srinagar, Ambala, Sirsa, Halwara and Jodhpur.

[73] The IAF undertook strategic bombing of West Pakistan by carrying out raids on oil installations in Karachi, the Mangla Dam and a gas plant in Sindh.

The Americans supplied late model Sidewinder missiles to the British; this and the analysis of French Mirage combat tactics made the difference.

There were also engagements between Iranian AH-1Js and Iraqi fixed-wing aircraft: using their 20 mm cannon, the AH-1Js scored three confirmed kills against MiG-21s, claimed an Su-20, and shared in the destruction of a MiG-23.

By the end of January, 1991, the term "furball" became a popular word to describe the hectic situation of many dogfights, occurring at the same time within the same relatively small airspace.