TheUnited States Navy Strike Fighter Tactics Instructor program(SFTI program), more popularly known asTOPGUN, is the modern-day evolution of theUnited States Navy Fighter Weapons Schoolwhich was originally established on March 3, 1969 at the former Naval Air Station Miramar in California. The SFTI program carries out the same specialized fighter training as NFWS (Navy Fighter Weapons School) had from 1969 until 1996, when it was merged into the Naval Strike and Air Warfare Center at NAS Fallon , Nevada.
History
The United States Navy (USN) Fighter Weapons School was established on March 3, 1969 at NAS Miramar , California at the direction of the Chief of Naval Operations (CNO).
The school was the end result of a study, published in May 1968, by USN Captain air to air missiles used in aerial combat in the skies over North Vietnam . Operation Rolling Thunder , which lasted from 2 March 1965 to 1 November 196! 8, resulted in nearly 1,000 US aircraft losses in approximately one million sorties. Operation Rolling Thunder became the for both the USN and the US Air Force, and from which they drew the nearly opposite conclusions. The USAF concluded that its air losses were primarily due to unobserved MiG attacks from the rear, and was therefore a technology problem.
The Navy, in what became known as the “air combat maneuvering (ACM) skills was the problem. The conclusions of the “Ault Report” were not news to the community, who had been lobbying for an ACM training program ever since the commencement of Rolling Thunder in 1965.
The Ault Report recommended establishment of an “Advanced Fighter Weapons School” to revive and disseminate community fighter expertise throughout the fleet. The school was initially formed using many F-8 pilots as instructors, and placed under the control of -equipped unit “Pacemakers.” At the time it recei! ved relatively scant funding and resources, and built its syll! abus from scratch, while borrowing aircraft from its parent unit as well as other units to support the practical aspects of their operations.
Its objective was to develop, refine and teach aerial dogfight tactics and techniques to selected fleet air crews, using the concept of Dissimilar Air Combat Training . DACT uses stand-in aircraft to realistically replicate expected threat aircraft and presently is widely used in air arms the world over. At that time the predominant threat aircraft were the Russian-built transonic MiG-17 ‘Fresco’ and the supersonic MiG-21 ‘Fishbed’ .
TOPGUN initially operated the Marine -crewed and USAF aircraft when available. Later, the T-38 was replaced by the .
One British writer erroneously claimed that the early school was influenced by a group of a dozen flying instructors from the Fleet Air Arm , who were graduates of the Lossiemouth , Scotland . However, an earlier incarnation of TOPGUN, the U.S. Navy! Fleet Air Gunnery Units, or FAGU, had provided air combat training for Naval Aviators from the early 1950s until 1960, when a doctrinal shift, brought on by advances in missile, radar and fire control technology, contributed to the belief that the era of the classic dogfight was over, leading to their disestablishment. The pilots who were part of the initial cadre of instructors at TOPGUN had experience as students from FAGU.
Course Similar schools US Air Force US Marine Corps Canada United Kingdom Greece Pakistan India Netherlands Turkey References References Notes
^ Michel, p. 186
Michel, p. 185, 186
Michel, p. 149
Michel, p. 181
Michel, p. 181, p. 186
Micel, p. 187
Sky News. 25 March 2009. Retrieved on 25 March 2009.
BBC Today. 24 March 2009. Retrieved on 25 March 2009.
^ ISBN 0-7434-9724-4
. . Retrieved 2010-02-18.
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