Juvat wrote:

--lead-in snipped--

The portions I've looked at list date, time of day, friendly formation
info, and nature of engagement or simply a sighting of a MiG.
Full-blown dogfights have diagrams (nothing too exotic).

A simple entry might read something like: 12 Jun 67, 1440L, 2 RF-101C
callsign Bubkus 11. Bupkus 11 flight of two RF-101Cs during egress at
20,000' sighted a flight of 4 MiG-21s at their low 7 o'clock heading
the opposite direction. There was no MiG warning broadcast.

Keep in mind that some of the report information may not be accurate.
An F-105 historian that I communicate with forwarded the Red Baron
report of the MiG engagement I describe in Chapter 14 of my book ("Of
MiGs and Moustaches") for my edification. It was flat wrong! Only one
member of the flight was interviewed, that was done eight months after
the engagement and after he had rotated out of SEA, and the
description of the events, while marginally accurate is totally wrong
on a number of key factors.

The core facts such as call-sign, target for the day, time, date, and
maybe weather can be captured after the fact, but the relationships,
actions and (in those days) lack of audio/video capture of the visuals
and radio calls makes it difficult to get the tactical situation.

As we old tuskers head off to the elephant graveyard, there will be
fewer and fewer recollections of what "really" happened and more and
more pointy-headed academics telling us what it was actually like.



Ed Rasimus
Fighter Pilot (ret)
***"When Thunder Rolled:
*** An F-105 Pilot Over N. Vietnam"
*** from Smithsonian Books
ISBN: 1588341038