Instructors often spent their first year on the staff learning to be an effective part of the training environment. The curriculum was in a constant state of flux based upon class critiques and integration of developing tactics to use new systems to combat emerging threats. All lectures were given without notes after being screened by a notorious "murder board" of evaluators who would point out ambiguities or flawed concepts in the draft presentation. Every instructor was required to become an expert in effective training techniques. Top Gun instructors were knowledgeable fighter tacticians assigned to one or more specific fields of expertise, such as a particular weapon, threat, or tactic. Mediocre instructors are unable to hold the attention of talented students. Highly qualified instructors were an essential element of Top Gun's success. Top Gun's efforts are dedicated to the Navy’s professional fighter crews, past, present and future." This select group acts as the F-4 community’s most operationally orientated weapons specialists. It serves to build a nucleus of eminently knowledgeable fighter crews to construct, guide, and enhance weapons training cycles and subsequent aircrew performance. Mechanics at the flight line of NAS Miramar, 1984Īccording to the 1973 command history of the Navy Fighter Weapons School, the unit's purpose was to "train fighter air crews at the graduate level in all aspects of fighter weapons systems including tactics, techniques, procedures and doctrine. The school's first headquarters at Miramar was in a stolen modular trailer. To support their operations, they borrowed aircraft from its parent unit and other Miramar-based units, such as composite squadron VC-7 and Fighter Squadron VF-126. Smith, Steve Smith, as well as Wayne Hildebrand, a naval intelligence officer, built the Naval Fighter Weapons School syllabus from scratch. Together, F-4 aviators Darrell Gary, Mel Holmes, Jim Laing, John Nash, Jim Ruliffson, Jerry Sawatzky, J. Its staff consisted of eight F-4 Phantom II instructors from VF-121 and one intelligence officer hand-picked by the school's first officer-in-charge, Lieutenant Commander Dan Pedersen, USN. Placed under the control of the VF-121 "Pacemakers," an F-4 Phantom–equipped Replacement Air Group (RAG) unit, the new school received relatively scant funding and resources. The United States Navy Fighter Weapons School was established on 3 March 1969, at Naval Air Station Miramar, California. Rolling Thunder became the Rorschach test for the Navy and Air Force, which drew nearly opposite conclusions. aircraft losses in about one million sorties. Operation Rolling Thunder, which lasted from 2 March 1965 to 1 November 1968, ultimately saw almost 1,000 U.S. air-to-air missiles used in combat in the skies over North Vietnam. In 1968, Chief of Naval Operations (CNO) Admiral Thomas Hinman Moorer ordered Captain Frank Ault to research the failings of the U.S. The pilots who were part of the initial cadre of instructors at Top Gun had experience as students from FAGU. Fleet Air Gunnery Unit Pacific and Marine Training Groups were closed, as an economy, and a doctrinal shift, brought on by advances in missile, radar, and fire control technology, contributing to the belief that the era of the classic dogfight was over, leading to their disestablishment and a serious decline in U.S air-to-air combat proficiency that became apparent during the Vietnam War. From 30 November to 4 December 1959, the last Naval Air Weapons Meet was held at MCAAS Yuma. In April 1958, Naval Air Weapons Meet was held at NAAS El Centro. In April 1957, Naval Air Weapons Meet 1957 was held at NAAS El Centro. In June 1956, Fleet Air Gunnery Unit Pacific held Navy Fleet Air Gunnery Meet at NAAS El Centro. Navy Fleet Air Gunnery Units, or FAGU, had provided air combat training for Naval Aviators from the early 1950s until 1960. Navy air-to-air combat training program, the U.S. "TOP GUN" text at the line shack of NAS Miramar, 1984 Origins Īn earlier U.S.
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