Hearted Youtube comments on Not A Pound For Air To Ground (@notapound) channel.
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There was another event in the late 1950s that exposed a gaping flaw in the US military's preferred fighter aircraft, when they were put to the test against surrogates of the Warsaw Pact's most numerous fighters. During Project Feather Duster, the F-100 Super Sabre, F-102 Delta Dagger, F-104 Starfighter, F-105 Thunderchief, and the newly-introduced F-4 Phantom II were pitted against what were judged to be the most similar aircraft in the US inventory to the Mig-17 Fresco and Mig-21 Fishbed; the F-86H Sabre and the F-5.
The F-86H and F-5 took all the other aircraft to the woodshed.
The outcome of Feather Duster was quickly and quietly walked-away from, systemically un-learned, and seldom mentioned again by the establishment --- despite the fact that it foresaged how poorly the US military's new fighters would fare against the Mig-17 and Mig-21 in the Vietnam War, which was only a few years away. In 1972, all US aircraft of all types achieved only 34 kills against VPAF fighters, while VPAF Mig-21s shot-down 54 US aircraft (not even including VPAF Mig-19s and Mig-17s, which also achieved another 4 victories between them, despite both the Mig-17 and Mig-19 being armed only with guns in VPAF service). By the time the competence of active VPAF pilots had overtaken the maximum possible competence of US pilots (VPAF pilots fought all tours of duty as pilots, while US pilots were forced to take a desk job every other tour, causing the skills of US pilots to atrophy from a lack of regular practice), US airpower operating within range of Migs was in big trouble.
(Gee, how could we POSSIBLY have seen it coming?)
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