Mike Marron wrote:

The link below shows just how dangerous flying
into a thunderboomer can be. I understand that more
aircraft were lost in Vietnam due to weather than
enemy fire. How accurate is that statement and
did weather also account for more losses than combat
in previous wars (e.g: WW2, Korea, etc?)

Certainly there were losses in Vietnam due to weather factors, but I
would say definitely not more than enemy fire. In the "in-country" war
in South Vietnam, the defenses were low threat--predominantly small
arms and automatic weapons with the very occasional SA-7 thrown in
during the later years. More folks lost airplanes due to heavy-weight
ops, pilot errors, maintenance malfunction, etc.

In the North, with SAMs, MiGs and an integrated air defense system of
guns from 12.7/14.5mm up to 120 mm both visual and radar directed, the
defenses claimed the airplanes, not the weather.

In two tours, always going to NVN, I can recall only one weather
related loss--an F-4E in '73 that ran off the runway in a rain storm
at night at Korat. Hydroplaning. Crew ejected safely.


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