Sounds very similar to a book I read called 'Clashes' by Marshal Michel, a F4 pilot who flew during 'Linebacker' (I think); I was shocked by several things Michel brought up: That US Missiles performed so poorly (heck, it even generated a joke: "That's why they're not called 'Hittles') That the USAF brass decided that every pilot in the USAF would 'get his turn' in a fighter cockpit, before experienced tac pilots could do another tour (that means, even if the pilots flew, tankers, transports or heavy bombers, they were expected to be able to perform in a Fighter in a combat situation) And lastly USAF brass decided around 1968 that 'air combat maneuvers' were "too dangerous" to teach, so they 'de=emphasized' learning dogfighting.

I flew F4E, I had bigger engines and a 20mm cannon. Gave me an advantage over F4C. I also got advanced training and was taught to be aggressive and think outside the box. I also grew up with Test Pilots. My father was an Aerospace Engineer.

Having been in the USAF and Air National Guard, I can definitely say Never underestimate a Guard pilot! Most are already former USAF, Navy or Marine pilots and already have experience in fighters. In the Guard they don’t PCS like active duty units, so these pilots are flying with each other for years at the same unit. There teamwork is very difficult to beat! The Guard is not just “Weekend Warriors!” At my unit 80% of the personnel were full time and 20% weekenders. These pilots fly and train a lot! The majority of the aircraft maintainers are also full timers and know their aircraft well!

Sounds very much like the lessons learned by P-40 and Wildcat fighters going against the Zero in WW2 Pacific theater. Don't try to maneuver with them, zoom and boom and fly to your aircrafts strengths. Excellent video, Feather Duster isn't something you read about often

Another crucial feature F-86 had was the cockpit design, it granted great visibility and great ergonomics, which aided better dogfighting capabilities.

This is an AWESOME video; a great discussion of the issues pilots struggled with. For me, this video ranks with the book 'Thud Ridge' as a balanced discussion of the combat over N. Vietnam. In the book (released during the war), Col. Jack Broughton was scathing in his criticism of the peacetime mentality that infected upper command during the first phase of the war. This video does much the same. THANK YOU! My expectations and hopes for your channel increase! One quibble; the F-86H had 20mm cannon. One way to confirm is to count the gun ports on the nose. The -H has four, compared to the six of the earlier, .50 cal armed models. EDIT: According to another comment, early F-86H Sabres apparently had .50s.

5:06 Whilst the first batch of 112 F-86H-1s had 6 x .50 cam machine guns, all the later F-86Hs starting with the -5 models were armed with 4 x20mm cannons. The cannon armament is apparent in many of the photos.

You need more subscribers you deserve them your content is unrivalled

I can’t believed how “dialed in” you are in all your videos, and this is no exception. You must put in an enormous amount of time doing research. I flew legacy F/A-18s in VMFA-323. It was cool to see our F-4s in your video. Even though the Hornet is arguably one of best 4th Generation slow-speed fighters, we trained not to turn at the merge; Speed is Life!

You forgot to mention that forcing a strike aircraft to jettison its bomb/missile load and run for safety is (and was) almost as good as a hard kill. It achieves the mission of protecting the target of the strike from that strike. It also helps to demoralise the attacking force, both the pilots who're forced to flee with their tails between their legs, and the people back at base who see their efforts go to waste as another aircraft returns without a positive result from its mission. As many F-105s, A-4, A-6s, and A-7s going in without or with minimal air support would simply flee when just seeing approaching MiGs, rather than trying to force their way through (especially nearer the end of the war when the ROEs were becoming insane for the Americans due to micro management out of Washington) this had a serious influence on both US and North Vietnamese morale.

I try to see this in context. The period 1945-1960 saw tremendous changes in aircraft capabilities, weapons, and strategic goals. There may have been a mindset that many of the principles of the WWII days were no longer relevant in the "jet age", and intercepting bombers carrying nukes was considered a higher priority than mixing it up with fighters. Vietnam will always be the avatar of what happens when you use weapons systems in roles for which they were not intended, and a lesson in the value of the ability of both aircraft and leadership to change directions.

It would have been interesting if they had included the Navy F-8 Crusader in this. I think it would have been very enlightening. It had a very good record against the MiG -17.

Amen. I began F-4 training in1975. Our instructors were somewhat bitter at having flown fighting wing & had their buddies blow up. It took the Navy to break through the doctrine. The Top Gun movie is a fantasy but the Naval Fighter Weapons School was a break through. Don't get me started about the SAC fiasco over Hanoi in '72.

The F-86H had 4 x 20mm, not Cal. 50

I'm glad that you really focus on sharing stuff about air to air combat in the Vietnam war and stuff in the cold war. one of the best channels for information about that.

The aircraft art is fantastic.

Very well done video. It shows clearly how the internal divisions in the Air Force of the 50's and 60's cost a lot of planes and pilots over N.Vietnam. The Air Force leadership was living in it's own little world, and pilots' ideas, comments and especially criticisms were not welcome. The Navy at least listened, and created Top Gun as solution. The Air Force only started teaching ACM after the Vietnam war.

You're rapidly become one of my favorite aviation video producers. Subscription earned, and looking forward to many more. Keep up the great analysis paired with interesting subjects and visuals!

The MiG pilots really did have balls of steel. They were always up for the fight, however much the odds were stacked against them. Not often recorded, but the Phantom II had woefully poor cockpit sightlines.

The Vietnam War truly was one of the most f-ed up wars ever in so many ways. Excellent video, thanks!

Interesting; so before the Navy had A-4s to simulate MIG-17s in “Top Gun” the Air Force had F-86s to challenge the F-4s and F-104s (provided the lessons from the Vietnam War got quickly passed on). Just goes to show that even when obsolete the Sabre was a deadly opponent not to take lightly.

It never made sense to me why the USAF didn't use the F-100 for air-to-air combat more often. It was an actually decent dogfighter, where as the Phantom and the Starfighter were essentially flying bricks with engines and wings strapped on.

*The F-86H had 4 20mm cannons and NOT 6 .50 MG.* Other than that, this video was excellent and I liked it a lot.

If the lesson learned from Feather Duster had been universally applied, the air war would have been much less costly.

Shows what an amazing aircraft the F-86 was. Imagine if we had followed the development path that MiG had used and increased the wing sweep and added a larger afterburning engine. That might have been the MiG killer in Vietnam.

An interesting analogue to this story is that a squadron of CAC Sabres was based at Ubon in Thailand in 1962 for the defence of that country under SEATO. In 1965 the USAF also based aircraft there and the RAAF engaged in exercises where they mimicked the MiG 17 tactics on USAF aircraft. There is a story, which may be apocryphal, that a newly arrived USAF colonel bragged to his pilots that he would demonstrate his abilities to dog fight against the RAAF aircraft. Within a turn or two the Sabre was on the American aircraft's tail and it was a much chagrined colonel who had to face his pilots on landing. Regarding the comments from the F4 community about ACM training it was very notable that the WW2 experience of Col. Robin Olds stood him in excellent form for his combat missions over North Vietnam and his 4 kills that he achieved there.

Love your content! So much to learn about an often neglected chaotic era of military aviation

Following the decommissioning of the Gloster Meteor MK IV (armed with four 20mm Hispano Suiza cannons) we flew the F86 F Sabre armed with Browning .50-cal. (12.7mm). It was a big step for the Argentine Air Force despite its lack of 20. mm cannons. The F-86 Sabre was considered by Argentine pilots a top-notch fighter jet which paved the way for the new generations of Mirage III C, Dagger M V, and Douglas Skyhawk A 4 B and C fighter pilots. Nice video !

I built all these planes as models. This was fascinating. Thank you.

"this is quite kind to the Mig" Classic.

Very well done, sir! Very comprehensive as well as very thought provoking.

good video. the video explains why the U.S lost so many planes. during the Vietnam war

I thoroughly enjoy your videos and just want to thank you for the time, effort and research you put in them. Keep them coming please!!

Fascinating as ever and such wonderful use of archive footage and photographs, you put professional documentary makers to shame.

The F-105 design Sacrificed everything for speed, range, and bomb load. You can't say, F-105 "fighter" without making me laugh. It was like an F-4 but without the radar

i attended Top Gun in 1978..afetr a tour in VN in 69’…I was stunned by how much i didnt know back then….i assumed because i was a college grad, naval aviation I cd engage and beat any mig i could find…luckily, I nvr had the chance…we learned to fight OUR fight and not their’s 19:32 …….there were things my F4 cd do btr than the Mig, and there were things they cd do btr than me…don’t fight their fight, fight your’s..if its adraw, leave and come back later

Sure would've been interesting to see how an upgraded J79 powered F11F-1F Super Tiger might do in a turning fight with a Mig 17.

Thank you for the work done on this channel. Your vids are outstanding.

Another EXCELLENT video!! Very informative!! Keep them coming!!

Great video and awesome information as always. Keep it up. 👍

I didn't know any of this. Excellent presentation!

Great video! Thank you for posting!

Excellent! Thank you very much for educating me on a programme that I have never heard of. And I must add that it is close to factually flawless, and a pleasure to watch. Cheers!🇨🇦🍺 SUBSCRIBED!

I’m happy to see that the F-100 was mentioned, people seem to forget it exists sometimes.

CAC Sabres of the RAAF were co-located at Ubon RTAF base during the Vietnam war. An investigation of this exdperience would add to the discussion of this exercise. The F-104 was designed by Kelly Johnson and Lockheed in response to feedback from USAF Sabre pilots in the Korean conflict and so addresses the threat of the Mig-15 which was apparently lighter and more powerful than the F-86.

An excellent video, thanks ! Feather Duster is certainly not well known by any means.

Excellent video. Thanks.

Facinating insight, very commendable

Hell Ya! I found it interesting and useful! Great Content. You should have a lot more than 7K with content like this one.

Thank you, that was very interesting.

This is the best video summary and analysis of Feather Duster I have seen. You included more interesting comments and context than I can mention here, such as some F-4 units in Vietnam not carrying the gun pod to discourage their pilots from getting close enough to the MiGs for it to be effective, and that the ANG F-86H pilots were almost certainly better / more aggressive than VPAF MiG pilots. But I wish you had spent a little bit of time previewing how the comparative test results predicted real combat results over North Vietnam - they didn't. Per Feather Duster, the F-104 had the most advantages and options against the subsonic fighter, while the F-105 had the least, by a wide margin. But after the 4 Apr 65 F-105 shoot downs you start with, VPAF MiG-17s brought down 3x more F-105s, the last of these on 5 Jan 68. USAF F-105 pilots are officially credited with 27.5 MiG-17 kills (almost all with the gun). So a 9:1 kill:loss ratio in the favor of big, easily seen, un-maneuverable F-105 and its pilots. Meanwhile, 9x F-104s were lost in combat in Vietnam - 8x to SAMs and AAA and 1x to a MiG-19 - with no (0x) air-to-air kills credited to USAF F-104 pilots. These are the official USAF numbers, and the VPAF (credibly) claim a few more F-105 kills than the USAF acknowledges, but the overall result is materially the same. The discussion of the combat results is in no way to suggest the F-105 was better for air-to-air than the F-104, or that the F-105 had greater or equal dogfight capability to the MiG-17. It absolutely was not and did not. The point is that actual combat is very complicated, and much more dependent on the situational-awareness of the participants than any simple summary performance statistics of their equipment. I think the difference between test results and combat results is worth exploring and discussing in more detail and I hope you will address it in future videos.

The part about the F-104 was interesting and mirrors somewhat my experiences in games.

The Royal Australian Air Force Deployed a squadron of CAC Sabres to Thailand during the Vietnam war specifically to provide "in theatre" dissimilar ACM training for US Forces. As strike packages returned from missions, they regularly had to dual with the Aussies to keep them up to speed. The CAC Sabre was an excellent Dogfighter so the Americans really had to be on their game.

Extremely interesting video about little known testing in the USAF

Very interesting. Great video. 👍

Good job!

Vietnam led to the Navy establishing Top Gun using A4's to simulate Mig17's & T38's later F5E's for Mig21's teaching those neglected ACM skills. After the success of the Navy's Top Gun program, the Air Force established the Red Flag exercises which simulate a tactical deployment. There are other Flag exercises that simulate different aspects or locations of combat ⚓ 🛩 🔱. BTW, Topgun was instituted based on the findings of the Ault Report.

Very well done.

The F-5 Tiger was the better solution not really tried in the add in escort role. It would have been quite effective if it tagged along with the boom & zoom heavier tactical fighters. Clearly tactics needed to change as well

It’s ironic that the USAF was suprised by the threat posed by the MiG-17 because they had wildly exaggerated the extent to which the MiG-15 was comprehensively defeated in Korea by the F-86.

There are a couple of errors in the chart of f-86 variants. The F-86A had the J47 engine, not the J48. The F-86H had the J73 engine, which was later developed into the famous J79.

I've always wondered why the USAF didn't deploy some F- 86H's to Vietnam, to deal with the MiG-17's.

Great video. Appreciate your scholastic approach. The visibility from the cockpit of the F86 gave it a huge advantage. The channel Showtime112 has interesting videos of Pakistani F104s fighting Indian Mig-19s and Mig-21s. In the late 1960s (when I was in jr high) I met a retired USAF F4 pilot. I asked him if they practiced air-air combat against different fighter types, He answered, Why?

@4:54 you have a chart with wing loading and thrust to weight ratio with F-4C mentioned twice; I believe the leftmost mention is actually the F100

Well done.

I've read/heard varying sources state both .50 cal machine guns and 20mm M39 revolver cannons as the F-86H's internal guns. Was it the early F-86Hs that had the Brownings, or did all have the M39s (meaning I ended up misreading something somewhere)?

Great video, thanks.

Thank you sir, this video was excellent from perspective as a person who is interested in history, with no combat experience of any kind. But I grew up next to an Air National Guard base where F84s and then F105s were flown and I loved to see military aircraft in general. Just one question: I wonder how the Navy's F8 Crusader would have fared in the analysis that you presented here? They had some success in knocking down Migs and also had the 20mm cannon on board in addition to facilities for missiles. Cheers.

Great job on this video.

As nobody else has mentioned it: the F86H had 4x 20mm cannon not 6x 50 cal 😇

The RF-4C Phantom ,FJ-201, shown at 5:20 is now on static display at the "Regional Military Museum" in Houma, La.

Featherduster was a great trial that demonstrated that small, cheap fighters like the F-86 were still superior in a fight to more modern fighters costing 5X the price. Basically, that "light fighters" (see Wikipedia article) were superior to "heavy fighters" plane for plane, and far superior budget to budget. This was well proven in WWII, but apparently the lesson had to be learned again that adding technology to the heavy fighters (radar and radar guided missiles that had very low probability of kill) did not overcome their heavy fighter faults of less surprise advantage (easy for the enemy to see), less maneuverability (easy to kill), and less fighter planes per budget (wars of attrition are numbers games). The great designers all knew this (Ed Schmued for P-51, F-86, and F-5, Jiro Horikoshi for the Zero, R.J. Mitchell for the Spitfire, and Willy Messerschmidt for the Bf-109). The "Fighter Mafia" knew it too, so what they said was not propaganda, but the simple truth.

Cool I had no idea this went on war games with the ANG. 👍🏻

The Ginter book on the F-86H has a section on the Feather Duster trials.

NICELY DONE!!

Remember the A4 skyhawk was used as a traineragainst the Fast ,modern fights .

Fascinating video. Subscribed

Ive also had the theory send in the Sabres as fighter escort for the thuds

Another fantastic video that went a long way in explaining the USAF TAC's nievety and overconfidence in their own percieved doctrine vs reality. It's also refreshing to see the North Vietnamese given due credit for their skills for what they had on hand. I feel somewhat vindicated by the demonstration of the F-86H's performance against the then state-of-the-art F-4D, F-104 and F-105's (as well as your highlighting the inherent flaw with the F-100 of yaw control, which cost a lot of pilots their lives.). For as an Australian, I've always wondered how Thai-based RAAF's CAC CA-27 Sabre Mk 32's with their Avon 26 engine, Aim-9B Sidewinder's and 30mm Aden cannons would have faired against the likes of North Vietnanese MiG-17's, MiG-19's & MiG-21's. For as much as the CA-27 Sabre was being deemed as obsolete by the RAAF, your program makes me seriously think again as to what is 'percieved obsolescence vs perception. On top of this again, one wonders how the likes of the North American proposed 'Sabre 45', itself an advancement on the legacy F-86, may have faired, what with it's 45-degree sweep-wing, it's unspecified 40.0kN (9,000 Ib) dry thrust/ 53.3kN (12,000-Ib) with afterburn engine, leading edge slats and trailing edge flaps and all-moving tail plane would go against North Vietnam's MiG-17, MiG-19 & MiG-21....

Interesting watch for sure, I remember doing some reading about some similar post vietnam tests in which 104's slapped down some f15's (before tactics had evolved of course). Was featherduster a pure airforce program? I notice a lack of navy planes in that lineup, I know crusaders performed pretty favorably when compared to the 17, even if their low speed handling characteristics weren't quite up on the same level.

Fascinating

There were about 11,846 U.S helicopters that served in the Vietnam War. The U.S records show 5,607 helicopter losses. In total, the United States military lost in Vietnam almost 10,000 aircraft, helicopters and UAVs (3,744 planes, 5,607 helicopters and 578 UAVs ).

Excellent presentation. I wonder if the same lessons are applicable today?

"we put all these long range missiles on our F-14s and F-15s , and it didn't make any difference"* *Pilot in the Aimval/Aceval exercise.

In that stage of the war the F-105 usually carried 750 lb. bombs rather than 500 lb. bombs. The double sidewinder rack was high drag and was avoided, but I don't think the single missile rack was high drag. However, it was often replaced by a bomb or an ECM pod anyway.

If F-86 had been upgraded with a mere 1'000 lbs more thrust and 4 20MM cannon it would have a serious killer.

The F105 was notable for its acceleration and speed on the deck. Some report out there showed there was not 1 plane that could exceed the Thunderchiefs maximum deck speed around 1969. The only reason those Thud pilots couldn't get away alot of the times is because of the poor ROEs and drag from the loadouts they were forced to carry for the missions. Makes me sad because it was a good plane that had to adapt to a situation and got a poor reputation for it.

Australian ' Avon ' Sabres ( a more powerful Sabre closer to a MiG-19 with 20mm cannons ) based in Udon Thialand performed ' Opfor ' aggressors to USAF pilots.

the F86H-1 had 6-50 caliber guns the F86H-5 and F86H-10 had 4 M39 rotary bolt 20 MM

Operation Featherduster is an example of Garbage In/Garbage Out. A carefully crafted demonstration can prove anything--and then the brass will draw conclusions based on their own biased agenda. The main problem was that the canned exercise was a pure fighter-versus-fighter exercise that didn't simulate the missions that the Air Force planned. Just watching this presentation without seeing the full Operation Featherduster report demonstrated how deadly the obsolete F-86 Sabre still was in the early 1960's. Why send interceptors to shoot down enemy fighters and photo recon aircraft? There are reasons, but Featherduster wasn't conducted to determine if the RF-101 would survive being intercepted by MiG-17 fighters (or supersonic MiG-19 and MiG-21 fighters vectored by ground control). The four fighters were not escorting bomb-armed aircraft, not required to remain with the bomb-carriers--a tactic used over Europe during World War Two was to lure fighter escorts away from the bombers so that other interceptors had clean shots at the bombers.

It's easy to draw parallels between the USAF's doctrine in the late 50s into the early 70s and Rome's ideological rigidity during the 2nd Punic war, refusing to alter their strategy even after numerous defeats of superior numbers of Roman soldiers by Hannibal's forces. The Air Force had a preconceived notion of how air war "should" be and refused to adapt to a reality that conflicted with what they believed air war should play out like.

Love the 104 shiny

I like what you said at 18:31, and it makes me wonder if the strike packages had been escorted by F-5's instead of just using them for dissimilar acm training, things may have turned out better in tangles with the MiGs.

Should have been the first Top Gun or Red Flag modern Phantoms vs Reservists in Sabres and Cougars learning ACM

I'm wondering if they played against CAC Avon Sabres, whether it would have been more interesting?

Hello, Where did you source the footage in this video? I work at an Air Museum in the States and we are currently raising funds to restore an F-86H Sabre that formerly served with the New York ANG. I would love to use some of the footage that you used in this video. Thank you!

Excellent video, as usual! I must, however, find fault with your aesthetic judgment w.r.t. Sabre vs. Fresco. Obviously the Fresco is one of the most beautiful aircraft ever built. It far outshines its predecessor MiG-15 as well as the Sabre. Believe me; I’m an authority on the subject. 🤪😆

Always fighting the last war and refusing to look forward. USAF!

Early F86H's had the 50's; most later F86H's had the 20mm's.

I was wondering while listening, I wonder how the F-86 would have faired in Vietnam?