Category: Navy

The Last of the Dogfighters! A little eye candy and laughs from the badass adversary pilots of VFC-13.

My buddy Wingnut is not only an intrepid and steely-eyed fighter pilot who has already garnered some well deserved ink here on FighterSweep, but he also happens to be a pretty damn good filmmaker.  This is his 2014 Hornet Ball video. It may not have been his intention, but here at FighterSweep: Navy Edition, it seems like […]

Today, the Navy released the name of the F/A-18 pilot who lost his life a few days ago flying from the USS Carl Vinson. It was a tragic incident in which a young man lost his life just as he was reaching the fullness of his pursuit. I did not know Nathan Poloski, but I […]

The F-5 was the enabler of this amazing flying club. It was a link between the pure era of fighting machines to the modern age of digital combat. The plane was essentially a jet-powered P-51 Mustang, and those days if you flew it well, you were really flying well. Cables linked the stick to the […]

An in-house BFM sortie between two seasoned pilots would consist of a short brief, a quick candy bar and a walk from the Ready Room 20 to 30 minutes before takeoff. Once airborne off of Runway 31, it was a quick right 90 degree turn, a push into combat spread and a climb. Two or […]

An F-5 against an F/A-18 is not a fair fight. The Hornet has a spectacular radar with extremely capable ACM modes. At “Fight’s On,” a pilot has just to flick on his VACQ, select AMRAAM, put lift-vector on and pull until he gets a SHOOT cue. “Kill…Knock it off.” The Super Hornet (Boeing F/A-18E/F)has an even […]

As a reservist who flew no more than 120 hours per year, .8 at a time, the F-5 was a dream. It is inexpensive to operate, therefore plentiful, and painfully simple, thus always mission ready. We flew as much as we could stand, often against each other to maintain tactical proficiency and to sharpen the […]

Jorge Canyon. The Centroid. The Six-Pack. Sperm Lake. Circle Squares. The Dong. These are the inside names of some of the secret hiding spots in the greatest aerial playground in the United States. For 10 years I was fortunate enough to be a member of a squadron flying the F-5 Tiger II as an adversary pilot, or Bandit, with VFC-13 […]

Jesse Ventura earned his SEAL status, amid controversy over his UDT role and a divisive lawsuit against Chris Kyle’s estate.