Battle Masters in the sky: Meet the top five Vietnam War pilots
Orra about five prominent pilots of the Vietnam War. As I already noted in my recent story about the death of a 101-year-old US Air Force Colonel, Perry, American ASS of Fighter Aviation-that is, combat pilots who have destroyed five or more enemy aircraft in the aerial battle. In part, this is due to the fact that the US Armed Forces have not received air aces since the Vietnam War, since the end of which will be 50 years old in April.
Thus, during the Persian Gulf of 1991 (Storm Operation in the Desert ") US Allies achieved the ratio of 40: 1 air, but the coalition fighter pilots distributed achievements too much to allow some individual athlete to get a fighter. ACA. And the last war, in which US combat pilots carried out at least one air crash (at least against the enemy -manned planes), was the surgery of the Allied Force - a campaign in Kosovo in 1999. To become a pilot-ass, you need to make five whipped in the air.
There is something poetic in the fact that such high status was achieved by five American pilots who participated in the Vietnam War. Let's talk about this "last five" of the Vietnamese fighters.
Before we delve into the study of personal biographies of American air aces, we need to make remarks about the methods of calculating the number of killed during the Air War in Vietnam: all these American aces flew as a composition 'Air-Air-Air Class "instead of tools (machine guns or guns) as a major air combat weapon. Both crew members received one confusion for each aircraft of the Vietnamese People's Air Force (ie the Communist Air Force of North Vietnam).
Therefore, the number of American aces in Vietnam exceeds the real number of planes being whipped - a statistical wonder that may initially seem unclear to someone. For example, during the Second World War, two fighter pilots fired one enemy and eventually received a half-beaten plane.
To put it in more detail, the panthoms' crews consisted of a pilot and an officer in radar interception (RIO) in the US Navy or a weapons officer (Wizzo "or Gib [guy in Back) in the Air Force) in the Air Force) USA. Thus, the list of US ACs consists of one US Air Force, one US Navy pilot ("Marine Aviation Pilot" using their official term), two "people in black" and one RIO.
"So the latter will become the first and the first - the last," the quote from the Scripture testifies, so we will begin with the recognition of the merits of the latter of five American air soldiers who became ACAM during the Vietnam War. Today he is the last aviator to reach the ACA status in the US Armed Forces.
Finstein, born on January 29, 1945, one of the people on the black on this list, killed five MiG-21 fighters from April to October 1972; For his last confusion, he was awarded the Cross of the Air Force.
The only two Navy servicemen in this list, Duke "Kanningham" (born December 8, 1941-yes, the next day after Pearl Harbora) and "Willie Ayrish" Dissol ( The United States, since all five of their whipped aircraft-one MiG-21 and four MiG-17-was carried out in one tandem (unlike the US Air Force soldiers, who distributed their whipped planes between different pairs). Particularly noteworthy was their epic feat on May 10, 1972, when they destroyed three Miga-17 in one day.
Both Duke and Willy Ayrish were awarded the Cross of the Navy for this triumphant achievement. By paraphrasing the singer Vanessa Williams, we can say that we were best saved. The "best" this time refers to the most successful American AU of the Vietnam War: Chuck Debelu, born on August 15, 1945, went down in history as a "murdere of migs", having received a total of six air victories: four MiG-21 and two MiG-19 (by NATO classification-"farmer").
Two "farmers", both of which were shot on September 9, 1972 in Tandem with Captain John A. Medden Jr. (not to be confused with the late former former NFL coach) using AIM-9 Sidewinder infrared missiles, became a crown of his list. Chuck, like two other ASAs in this list, received the Trophy of McCay in 1972, award for foreign wars of the Armed Forces and the Juzhin M. Zerta.
Returning to the concept of "the latter will become the first and the first - the last", we complete this story about the story of the first ACA of the US Air Force in the war, not to mention the only ACA of the Air Force. Richie's "Richie" (born June 25, 1942) knocked down five MiG-21; It is noteworthy that two of them were shot in only two minutes - a feat, made on July 8, 1972, when the "thing" was flying with the aforementioned Charles D. Bell.
Richie is also the only American ACM Vietnam who received the title of General-General (equivalent of the Federal Office's title in the US Navy). Christian D. ORR is a former Air Force officer, a federal law enforcement officer and a private military contractor (he worked in Iraq, United Arab Emirates, Kosovo, Japan, Germany and Pentagon).