Military Aviation Art
"When you're out of F-8s, you're out of
fighters," goes the old Navy saying, and one of the mainstay fighter
aircraft to shoot down Soviet MiGs during the Vietnam War was the Vought
F-8 Crusader. On July 9, 1968, VFP-63 pilot Cdr. John Nichols, with
his callsign "Pirate," engaged a North Vietnamese MiG 17 over
the town of Vinh and shot it down using a combination of Sidewinder
air-to-air missiles and finally the F-8's 20mm cannon, thus becoming the
last Navy pilot to ever shoot down an enemy airplane with guns.
After this historic engagement, the MiG could only be called
"Pirate's Bounty." |
