1-v-16

Early during Ralph Parr's day fighter tour in Korea, his flight was
' bounced ' by a flight of MiGs. He called them out : " LEAD . .
BANDITS AT 9 O'CLOCK HIGH AND FIRING . . BREAK LEFT NOW ! "

Ralph and his element leader turned hard left into the MiGs; in error,
the Flight Leader turned in the opposite direction giving the MiGs an
attack advantage. Fortunately, the MiGs drove by in a straight line ..
cannons spouting yellow and red tracers .. but deciding not to press
their advantage.

After the violent turn, Ralph and his element leader lost sight of the
Lead, but they continued searching for MiGs. Minutes later .. eight
miles straight down . . he noticed a covey of fast moving specks and
also called them out. However, Ralph's leader, after staring hard at
the mottled terrain, said, " I don't see them .. you take 'em and I'll
cover for you ".

Eyes padlocked to the covey, Ralph rolled inverted . . pulled his
Sabre straight down . . and accelerated rapidly past the speed of
sound.

The dull brown Korean terrain literally flew up into his face. " I've
still got the ' bogies' in sight. They are MiGs and I'm chasing 'em
southwest. "

Ralph now considered, " Time to pull out . . NOW ! Eight G's might
do it ". " Uhhh ". . he breathed, as heart and lungs squeezed under
one ton of centrifugal force. I'd better pull enough G's to make it !
It's going to be close . . eight G's won't do it . . Need nine and a
half !

UHH - UHH ".

Close beneath, rice paddies slipped by in a blur of speed." That was
a close one", observed Ralph. " Now I'm coming up way too fast on the
MiGs. Speed brakes ! Power to idle! Rudder .. shove 'er sideways.
Whoa .. there's got to be more than four MiGs. There are EIGHT.
NO - O !

T - H - E - R - E A - R - E S - I -X - T - E - E - N ! "

Although now alone, Ralph decided to . . attack them all . . beginning
with the MiG leaders. Minutes later fourteen MiGs remained .. one
smoking badly. At that moment, Ralph's element leader dove in to the
melee. Observing from above, a MiG leader ordered the others to
head for home.

They fled .

[from the "FIGHTER PILOT" list]

Mike Marron wrote:
[...]
Whoa .. there's got to be more than four MiGs. There are EIGHT.
NO - O !

T - H - E - R - E A - R - E S - I -X - T - E - E - N ! "


At the Blackbird 40th Anniversary banquet, Mel Vojvodich told
a similar story about exiting China after a recon flight. A
gaggle of MiGs latched onto him. He commented that the only
good thing about having sixteen MiGs on your tail is that
only one can get in position to shoot at you at a time.

(Paul A. Suhler) wrote:
Mike Marron wrote:

Whoa .. there's got to be more than four MiGs. There are EIGHT.
NO - O !

T - H - E - R - E A - R - E S - I -X - T - E - E - N ! "

At the Blackbird 40th Anniversary banquet, Mel Vojvodich told
a similar story about exiting China after a recon flight. A
gaggle of MiGs latched onto him. He commented that the only
good thing about having sixteen MiGs on your tail is that
only one can get in position to shoot at you at a time.

Interesting. Going after a Blackbird one would think they'd resort to
drastic measures (perhaps spread out line abreast and fire their
missiles all at once -- or doe's air-to-air missilery not work that
way?)

In any event, while pulling alert in the Duece at some far flung
Alaskan outpost (Galena, King Salmon, Nome etc.) in the early 60's,
my ol' man said he and his wingman (or vice versa) once locked onto
a gaggle of *nine* Soviet bogies (MiGs, IIRC).

They (understandably!) breathed a hefty sigh of relief when the bogies
turned around.

-Mike Marron
email: pegasus912 at tampabay dot rr dot com

Note: Just to clarify, the excerpt above was forwarded from the
"FIGHTER PILOT" email list.