At the beginning of the Vietnam War, the Vietnamese People's Air Force (VPAF) was equipped with slow, old Korean War-generation fighters--a combination of MiG-17s and MiG-19s, types that should have offered little opposition to the cutting-edge fighter-bombers such as the F-4 Phantom II, F-105 Thunderchief, and the F-8 Crusader. Yet when the USAF and US Navy unleashed their aircraft on North Vietnam in 1965, the inexperienced pilots of the VPAF were able to shatter the illusion of U.S. air superiority.

Taking advantage of its jet's unequaled low-speed maneuverability, small size,...

Formed shortly after the outbreak of World War 2, and equipped with Messerschmitt Bf 109Es, Jagdgeschwader 1 was initally tasked to defend the regional North Sea and Baltic coastal areas and the Germany's main port cities and naval bases. The greatest task for JG 1 though came after 1942 in its defence of the Reich against the US Eighth Air Force's B-17s and B-24s, bearing the brunt of defence against increasingly regular, larger and deep penetrating USAAF daylight bomber raids with fighter escort. Levels of attrition subsequently grew, but so did experience among the leading aces,...

Allied fighter pilots began encountering German jets--principally the outstanding Me 262 fighter--from the autumn of 1944. Stunned by the aircraft's speed and rate of climb, it took USAAF and RAF units time to work out how to combat this deadly threat as the Luftwaffe targeted the medium and heavy bombers attacking targets across the Reich.

A number of high-scoring aces from the Eighth Air Force (Drew, Glover, Meyer, Norley and Yeager, to name but a few) succeeded in claiming Me 262s, Me 163, and Ar 234s during the final months of the campaign, as did RAF aces like Tony Gaze and...

Having learned their trade on the subsonic MiG-17, pilots of the Vietnamese People's Air Force (VPAF) received their first examples of the legendary MiG-21 supersonic fighter in 1966. Soon thrown into combat over North Vietnam, the guided-missile equipped MiG-21 proved a deadly opponent for the US Air Force, US Navy and US Marine Corps crews striking at targets deep in communist territory.

Although the communist pilots initially struggled to come to terms with the fighter's air-search radar and weapons systems, the ceaseless cycle of combat operations quickly honed their skills....