Aviation Specials - July 2018

Top: The initial

TOPGUN

instructors were

part of VF-121’s

Tactics Phase

section. Shown

here are several

of the original

instructors,

absent J. C.

Smith. Darrell

Gary via Brad

Elward

Above: The

instructors can

all walk to the

flight line from

the NAWDC

building via the

maintainer’s

office.

postgraduate training program devoted

to teaching advanced air-to-air combat

tactics. Ault also recommended

developing an instrumented air combat

range where crews could practice ACM

and have an objective means of assessing

their performance.

At roughly the same time, a group of

instructors in VF-121’s Tactics Department

were asking the same questions, and

looking for solutions that would keep

themselves and their colleagues alive.

In late 1968 these plans were

amalgamated as LCDR Dan Pedersen was

asked to form a department within VF-121

dedicated to teaching advanced air-to-air

combat tactics. Pedersen chose four pilots;

Mel Holmes, Jim Ruliffson, John Nash, and

Jerry Sawatzky, plus four radar intercept

officers (RIOs); Darrell Gary, Steve Smith, J.

C. Smith, and Jim Laing as the first cadre

of instructors. All nine were veterans of

combat in Vietnam. In fact, J. C. Smith

had been part of the team that claimed

the Navy’s first MiG of the war in 1965;

and Laing had downed a MiG in 1967.

Together, the nine were determined to re-

invent air combat tactics — the dogfight

— and to disseminate to the fleet the skills

necessary to employ those tactics.

TOPGUN begins

TOPGUN ran its first class from March 3,

1969, as a four-week program designed

to train aircrews in advanced air-to-air

tactics. At the time, the course, which was

taught in a small two-room trailer at NAS

Miramar, California, included a week of

TOPGUN instructors

in an F/A-18F

prepare to depart

from Fallon for a

local mission.

US NAVY & MARINE CORPS AIR POWER YEARBOOK 2018

TOPGUN^23

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