Air-to-air combat reading list.

[DarkFire]

I'm very happy with my ability to accurately and precisely fly my favourite aircraft, but other than having experience flying simulators for the past 20 years I actually know next to nothing about how to actually employ fighter planes in combat. I'm not interested in learning what happens to work in DCS, I want to learn actual tactics.

 

I'm currently working my way through the following:

 

• "Fighter Combat: Tactics and Manoeuvring" by Robert Shaw.
  
• "Fighter Combat: Art & Science of Air-to-Air Warfare" also by Robert Shaw.
  
• "The Silver Spitfire" by Wg. Cdr. Tom Neil.
  
• "The First and the Last" by Adolf Galland.
  
• "Boyd" by Robert Coram.
  

 

What would other people recommend?

[GGTharos]

Robert Shaw's stuff gives you some ideas but CNATRA material is more instructive, and used to teach real BFM. You may or may not be able to spot the differences, usually is hard without an actual instructor.

Don't expect to find much on BVR.

[aaron886]

Good books. Read first hand accounts of Desert Storm and smaller modern conflicts like Viper Pilot by Dan Hampton, they can help give you an impression of the complexity and scale of modern air war. It is interesting to contrast that book with Black Aces High by Robert Wilcox, not written by a fighter pilot. One interesting area to focus on in first-hand accounts is how tactics change in response to the air defense threat environment.

[Falcon_S]

 

Online version: http://scilib.narod.ru/Avia/Bonanni/bonanni.htm#03-07

[LuSi_6]

The biography of Erich Hartmann, Ace of aces of all time

[Lucas_From_Hell]

I can only recommend some WW2 and earlier reads, but they help a lot to get the fighter pilot spirit - an essential thing.

 

Pierre Clostermann's The Big Show (Le Grand Cirque) is a good read. For virtual flying and particularly the psychology of the fighter pilot, In Pursuit (read it here) has some great stuff.

 

Soak up whatever material you can find in English about Field Marshal Aleksandr Suvorov. I haven't had the chance to read all of it, but I found this USAF Air University paper that seems to contain a good basic overview of it here.

 

Try to read whatever you can on Russian fighter pilots too, particularly Aleksandr Pokryshkin (who was a near-religious follower of Suvorov). The war in 1941 and 1942 put them at terrible odds, and it took lots of guts and skill to go up there and kill rather than be killed.

 

Also, try to fly with a wingman whenever possible. Your tactical bag of tricks gets much wider that way.

[DarkFire]

Thanks for the suggestions everyone, much appreciated! I may actually go all the way back to reading about von Richthofen since a lot of the basic techniques he pioneered in WW1 seem to still be relevant today.

 

GGTharos - I take it by "CNATRA" you're referring to the Chief of Naval Air Training PAT Pubs? I've looked at the publicly available pubs... And my reading list just tripled :helpsmilie: lots of good information though.

 

You're also right about BVR stuff, as far as publicly available material goes it's as if BVR doesn't even exist. I can only imagine that this is because BVR is where everybody's secret radar and missile capabilities come in to play the most. :huh:

 

Edited to add: Does anyone know if there are publicly available copies of the following two articles:

 

Warden, John A. III (September 1995), "Chapter 4: Air theory for the 21st century", Battlefield of the Future: 21st Century Warfare Issues (in Air and Space Power Journal), United States Air Force, retrieved December 26, 2008

Warden, John A. III (1995), "Enemy as a System", Airpower Journal, Spring (9): 40–55

Edited October 14, 2015 by DarkFire

[GGTharos]

Yep, that CNATRA :)

 

BVR is like BFM, but with longer sticks (a missile is a guided glider, you BFM it like you would an aircraft).

 

But yes, BVR involves all this other fun stuff that tends to be pretty secret. You can catch glimpses here and there if you know where to look but generally like you said ... does not exist :)

[Bushmanni]

CNATRA PAT pubs have one manual that has some BVR stuff on it, mostly basic procedures (P-825. BASIC FIGHTER MANEUVERING (BFM) AND ALL WEATHER INTERCEPT (AWI) ). But for a noob it's a treasure trove.