Quote:
Originally Posted by BadKharma
What were the causes of the fatalities? Was it intensive training leading to risks being taken in order to more accurately tune training to actual combat?
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The impression I got was that pre-Vietnam, there was a strong element of hot dogging that went hand-in-hand with the mindset of a fighter pilot, i.e., a live hard, live fast mentality. Post-Vietnam, they set up the Red Flag exercises at Nellis AFB, and there were initially some commanders and pilots who performed extended maneuvers that would to a degree force Bluefor pilots into dangerous maneuvers that had a higher risk of a fatality. My impression was that it wasn't due to the initial maneuver that would give the initiative to the aggressor pilot, but that the aggressor pilots would continue to press the Bluefor pilot when it didn't really contribute to the learning. The learning was in how to avoid getting into the situation, not in seeing how long you could last until the "official" kill.