What MiG Pilots Wrote About the Sparrow - 'Dead Before You See It'

March 1968 over Phuc Yen. Lieutenant Nguyen Van Coc pulls into a hard bank, but he has already made the fatal mistake - he turned into the Phantom's radar. No radar warning receiver in his MiG-21 will tell him that an F-4 crew has locked him up and an AIM-7 Sparrow is already burning toward him at Mach 3.5. A 60-pound continuous-rod warhead that doesn't need to hit - it sends an expanding ring of steel through the aircraft like a circular saw through plywood.

This Vietnam War documentary examines the AIM-7 Sparrow missile through enemy testimony - what MiG pilots who survived described as incomprehensible. From the Sperry Corporation's 1951 pitch for a radar-guided missile, to the Phantom's AN/APQ-100 radar that could lock targets before pilots could see them, to the MiG community's mounting terror as the missile's kill probability improved. Featuring North Vietnamese pilot accounts, declassified engagement records, and the engineering of the weapon that ended the dogfighting era.

Sources and further reading in the bibliography below.

Bibliography:
1. Michel, M. "Clashes: Air Combat Over North Vietnam 1965-1972" (1997)
2. Toperczer, I. "MiG-21 Units of the Vietnam War" (Osprey, 2001)
3. Davies, P. "F-4 Phantom II vs MiG-21" (Osprey, 2008)
4. Werrell, K. "Archie, Flak, AAA, and SAM" (2005)
5. Thornborough, A. "The Phantom Story" (1994)
6. Bonds, R. "The Vietnam War: The Illustrated History" (1979)
7. Sherwood, J. "Fast Movers" (1999)
8. Hobson, C. "Vietnam Air Losses" (2001)
9. McCarthy, D. "The AIM-7 Sparrow: Development History" (2003)
10. Nordeen, L. "Air Warfare in the Missile Age" (2002)

#vietnamwar #f4phantom #aim7sparrow #mig21 #coldwar #coldwarhistory #military #aircombat #coldwarhistorian #sparrowmissile #americanmissile #americanaviation #usaf #usairforce

Видео What MiG Pilots Wrote About the Sparrow - 'Dead Before You See It' канала Cold War Historian