Originally Posted by grampi
I've been reading posts from you and others claiming how Navy pilots are the best in the world because their Blue Angels fly tighter formations than the Thunderbirds do, or because they land on carriers...the only reason the TBs don't fly as tight of a formation as the BAs is because someone up the chain of command won't allow them to. It certainly isn't because the pilots, or their planes don't have the ability to do it. And landing on a carriers only means that Naval pilots have more difficult landings. It doesn't mean they are better pilots. Aerial combat is what determines how good the aircraft and their pilots are, and in that realm, the U.S. Air Force is the best in the world, and that's a fact.
When the F-15 was brand new, it was the world's best fighter. Best thrust/weight, best performance, everything. So good, that the USAF was trying to sell it to other nations as the ultimate fighter. Better than the Navy's underpowered F-14.
So, to demonstrate their superiority, the USAF Test and Evaluation Squadron set up some mock dogfights between the F-14. Everyone agreed to guns only, to negate the long range AIM-54 advantage of the Tomcat, and focus purely on the maneuvering advantages of the F-15.
Someone forget to tell the Navy guys that they were supposed to lose.
Worse, this was at the time that the USAF was trying to sell the F-15 to Japan. When the footage of a Tomcat gun pipper squarely, perfectly, placed on the F-15 pilot's helmet (forget killing the airplane, this was humiliating, killing just the pilot himself, and at a lethal range) was "leaked" by unofficial sources, Japan nearly bought the Tomcat, seeing that it had the longer range missile and better maneuvering. The USAF Generals were furious, and threatened a court martial if they could find out who from the Navy leaked the photo of the Eagle's humiliating defeat in the demonstration. The pilot who so completely killed the F-15, not through cheating, but through superior skill, was one Joe "Hoser" Satrapa. Vietnam vet.
You can have the best fighter airplane, and the Eagle outperformed the Tomcat in every objective parameter, but it seems that on that particular day, the USAF pilots had forgotten the truism:
"Only in the spirit of attack, born in a brave heart, will bring success to any fighter aircraft, no matter how highly developed it may be."
LtGen Adolf Galland, Luftwaffe