Very early in the war, an F-100D pilot shot down a MiG-17 with his 20-mm cannons while on escort duty for a force of F-105’s.

That was the only time the Hun ever engaged any MiG’s in combat, and thus it’s only kill and air-to-air engagement in American service.

Generally speaking, as with the F-104, MiG’s tended to avoid engagements with American escorts (early in the war the F-100 & F-104). It was only later on that the MiG’s became more aggressive, and by this time the F-4 had largely taken over the escort role, thus the F-4 seeing much more air-to-air combat than the other two.

As the son of an F-105D Thunderchief pilot who flew two tours in Vietnam I have heard first hand from my father and his fellow airmen that the MiG encounters with the NVAF or their Soviet “advisors” (as it was well known) was one where the MiGs more often than not did a “shoot and scoot”, if the MiG had the advantage of sneeking up from 6 o’ clock and the altitude advantage that his GCI controller was trying to set up that was the preferred tactic. The MiGs were not really a threat to the USAF/USN until after the bombing halt in ’68 (if I recall correctly) when the NVAF increased in size and quantity with new MiG-21 delieveries. In my fathers’s first tour the Thuds routinely “self-scorted” (self escorted) themselves as MiGs were few and far between and up until 1967 most of the encounters the Thud had with the MiG resulted in 27 or 28 air to air kills for the Thud with its 20 mm gun, nothing the Thud aircrews could not handle. But after 1968 the NVAF increased in their numbers and the F-4 was being for frequently used to escort the Thud downtown into RP V or VI. Though the Thud was not intended for air to air combat my dad told me many times he was not scared of being in a dogfight with the MiG as he could easily out run him with the J75 engine behind him at sea level or higher if he was out of bullets or Sidewinder it was the AAA/SAM threat that made him lose sleep at night as the losses show that most of the Thuds lost in SEA were due to AAA/SAM. THUDS FOREVER!

Sad news, BTW, what tank is this? M48 ?

Actually,

It is a M48A5, my wife’s father was a tank commander on them and has shown them to me many times. Thailand has quite a few M48s and M41 in service. The M41 is a lighter tank intended to be air dropped.

Oh too much bug bashing here. By the way, anyone actually in the Navy here?

I am, and currently in a F/A-18A+ squadron that can make an AESA equipped F-15C look like fledging student soloing for the first time in a T-6. You can talk about all the bells and whistles on the F-35 and Super Hornet but when you take into account almost all 18 of the pilots in my squadron have over 3000 hours in the “orginal” Hornet those fancy bells whistles just become expensive cannon fodder in pipper of the Hornet, experience matters.

Super Etendard

I am preparing to build a 1/72 Iraqi Air Force Super Etendard, does anyone in this very well informed thread have any information they could kindly submit on the paint scheme (color) and if any national markings were carried on the Etendards. My search so far has been very vaque, thank you in advance.

Greece never had basic Do28s, but their Do28D should still be alive and kicking.

MirageIII: Pakistan, Argentina, Brasil.
DHC4: Australia, Malaysia, probably Kenya.
Canberra: Possibly Peru? India should have retired theirs by now.
Hunter: None. Libanon has retired theirs long ago, as have Chile, Oman and India.

I’m not so sure about North Korea’s rumoured MiG-15s. They should have plenty of JJ-5s, i don’t see the need for MiG-15UTI.

Brazil retired its last Mirage III or locally known as the F-103 last December.

A friend of mine heard, that Soviets were thinking about to rebuilt a container-ships to carry one or two Yak-38 fighters with necessary munition, fuel and maintenance devices. When needed, the deck should open and plane could be launched or landed. The goal was to cover, that this ships are in fact aircraft-carriers.

I want to prove, if is this only rumour, or if is it based on some real proposals. I know about a lot of real soviet bizare projects, so is it one of them?

First, there are no more people called “Soviets” the Russians have retired the Yak-38 “Forger” and plenty can be viewed in museums in and around Moskva. The aircraft had extremely short legs (short range) and could carry very limited amount of munitions. In fact the AV-MF sent the Forger on a disasterous deployment to Afghanistan during the war and the Forger had dismal performance primarily due to density altitude in the summer and the short range. Instead of having just one engine like the Harrier it had two engines that complicated the reliability of the aircraft. Don’t see the cash strapped Russian Navy or Air Force bringing back a failed relic from the past. In my opinion the money could be better spent on upgrading the Su-27S and P fleet to SU-27SM, Mig-29 fleet or procuring more SU-34s.

It has now arrived at the National Museum of the USAF at Wright Pat…

No plans to restore it…yet…

This is possibly the best look the USAF has had at a -25 since Belenko.

My guess is nothing can be gained technolgically speaking from the Iraqi MiG-25PDs that have been sent here to the states. It is an old design that our intel folks have not already learned from Belenko’s defection in ’76 and other oppurtunities to examine the Foxbat. Looking forward to seeing it in a museum at Wright-Pat or elsewhere here in the states.