A good read, got it from a thread over at airwarriors:

The Way We Were « Neptunus Lex

There were two types of fighters at Miramar in 1966—F-8 Crusaders and F-4 Phantoms. The two communities could not have been more different. The F-8 had been developed and refined as an air superiority fighter. For close aerial combat over Vietnam, its AIM-9D Sidewinder heat-seeking missiles allowed the pilot to point and shoot, while keeping his head on a swivel. If the dog-fight became close combat, inside the minimum Sidewinder range, the F-8 could use its four 20mm cannon on the MIG.
“Pirate” Nichols, an experienced driver in the Red Lightnings’ sister squadron (VF-191), had the only MIG engagement in CAG-19, and dispatched a MIG-17 with his guns after wounding the bogey with a Sidewinder shot.
The Navy F-4, on the other hand, was procured according to specifications of pointy-heads in the Pentagon to be a pure Fleet interceptor, using missiles only. It had no guns. It had two engines that left highly visible smoke trails, and a Radar Intercept Officer (RIO) in the back seat to run the radar. In Vietnam, this meant that it could not be as effective as the F-8 in close-range dog-fighting. In spite of these problems, LT “Duke” Cunningham and his back-seater, Willie Driscoll, scored five MIG kills while flying an F-4 to become the only Navy “aces” (5 or more kills) of the Vietnam War.

The differences in design of these aircraft caused their pilots to be trained and think differently. In one incident, an F-4 pilot accidentally shot down his wingman with a missile, mistaking him for a MIG. The F-4s incurred so many losses by the MIGs that the Navy created ‘Top Gun’ (ed: TOPGUN) to address these deficiencies. Having a crew member in the back seat also tended to overly “civilize” the flying of many F-4 pilots, while the F-8 pilot only had to worry about himself and could fly his aircraft with wild abandon. Meanwhile, the F-8 amassed the highest overall kill ratio against the MIGs. The essential difference between the two fighter communities was that the F-8 pilots were trained as airborne predators, while the F-4 crews largely viewed themselves as Fleet interceptor pilots.
True to form, the Red Lightnings delighted in making the F-4 crews feel inadequate by mercilessly hunting them on almost every flight. The area west of San Diego, between San Clemente Island and the coast, became “MIG alley,” infested with bogeys waiting to jump the unwary driver. While the Navy hierarchy had strict policies against “unauthorized ACM” (Air Combat Maneuvering –aka: dog fighting), they knew very well what was going on offshore, and wisely looked the other way. The admirals felt it was better for the pilots to get embarrassed around San Diego than killed by a MIG in Vietnam. So far, no aircraft accidents had been attributed to the “unauthorized” ACM, so it continued. Commodore “Swede” Vejtasa, Commander Fleet Air Miramar, was a double “ace” from WWII, and the recipient of three Navy Crosses, the Legion of Merit, and the Bronze Star. He understood the need for this realistic training and quietly condoned it. (ed. Must’ve been good to have vets like that in charge.)
The Red Lightnings took this wild-West practice to a new level, as usual. Every Friday, they would notify all Miramar ready rooms that they would be waiting for all challengers over the water near the 270 deg. radial from Miramar at 40 miles, which became known as “the OK Corral.” At 1400, the area went “hot,” and a giant “fur ball” of turning, twisting fighters would develop. It was not uncommon to see 30 or more aircraft in a single battle. When the F-4 pilots showed up, they would try to simulate the use of their Sparrow head-on radar missiles, quite useless in a “fur ball.” This usually resulted in the Red Lightnings pouncing on the F-4s as they decelerated and tried unsuccessfully to turn with the F-8s. Using gun cameras, the Red Lightnings acquired a huge inventory of documented F-4 “shoot downs.” On one occasion, I played about fifty of these film clips at Friday Happy Hour at the O’Club, resulting in a near riot and lots of broken glass.
There was also vicious competition among the Miramar F-8 squadrons. Commodore Vejtasa issued an annual award to the best F-8 squadron at Miramar. With this award came a coveted trophy, known as ‘The Mutha’ Trophy. It was a glass-encased Japanese animal figure, Tanuki, with a hideous face and eyes that constantly flashed. At her side, a baby sported an oversized set of testicles.
The Red Lightnings typically won this trophy each year, which became a source of intense envy and aggravation among the other F-8 squadrons. Finally, pilots from one of the other squadrons broke into the Red Lightnings’ ready room one night and stole ‘The Mutha’ Trophy. The Skipper immediately ordered a counter-strike to rescue ‘Mutha’ from the evil-doers.
On a Saturday afternoon, Buzzard, Gator and I executed a forced-entry into the offending squadron’s spaces, and after forcibly subduing the watch officer, left with ‘Mutha’. She was returned to her proper shrine in our ready room, and was locked in a large safe. She seemed happy to be home. Gator got a bloody nose, but the mission was a success. Sometimes you have to take casualties. (ed. The trophy still exists and is the subject of much friendly competition and outright larceny.)
One morning, Maggot told me that he was taking me on a sight-seeing tour of the Grand Canyon. We manned our aircraft and flew east to the Tuba City area, and started a run inside the canyon, heading back toward Las Vegas and Hoover Dam. The canyon became so narrow that Maggot had me fly directly behind him about 200′ in “trail” so that I could instantly match his turns. Soon the breathtaking canyon walls loomed high above us on either side as we zoomed along at 350 kts. It was great fun—until Maggot took a wrong turn, and flew up a box canyon. Suddenly the canyon stopped, and a vertical wall was directly ahead. “Burner now!” he yelled and pulled straight up. I thought, ‘what a lousy way to die.’
The F-8’s power saved us. We barely made the top of the canyon wall, and rolled inverted to float the nose over the rim, nibbling on a stall. Still in after-burner, we staggered over some horses and campers at the canyon rim as we struggled to keep the birds flying. It must have been exciting for the civilian sightseers. After we recovered, Maggot dove right back down into the main canyon again, determined to reach Hoover Dam. As we climbed out over the dam, I realized my fuel was dangerously low. We arrived at Miramar and my bird had about five minutes of fuel remaining. When I complained to Maggot, he replied, “No sweat. Fuel left after a flight is wasted. By the way, did you see the cables?” It seems that there were about 26 large power cables suspended from rim to rim of the canyon in various locations. I never saw them, because we were flying below them.
It was now time for a change of squadron command. Bob Chew (’48) handed the con over to his outstanding XO, Bill Conklin. Conklin was another superlative aviator, with heavy Korean War experience. He also was a wonderful officer and leader. He had flown with the Royal Navy flight demonstration team on an exchange tour, and loved formation aerobatics. There was only one problem with this handsome dude—he was 40 years old, and his eyes were bad. He had been secretly wearing glasses when he flew.
The squadron became concerned about his distance vision, and decided (without his knowledge) that he needed a “seeing-eye dog.” A confidential survey was taken to determine who had the best eyes. Unfortunately, that was me, which made me the new Skipper’s permanent wingman. This was an honor I did not really want, because this guy felt it was his duty to always be on the most dangerous mission. No guts, no glory.
His pet project was the squadron “air show” team. Leading a four-plane diamond, he put Buzzard on his left wing, me on his right wing, and Maggot in the slot. On one occasion, the Skipper led a very low barrel roll over the carrier “to boost the troops’ morale” and bottomed out with poor Maggot skimming the waves and screaming on his radio. His reply to Maggot was “Make sure your tail is black from my exhaust, or you are obviously not in position.” Wow!
The squadron deployed to MCAS Yuma for its weapons training during that summer. I had become friends with Porky and Buzzard, both of whom were great pilots and would have been good candidates for Pappy Boyington’s Black Sheep Squadron. They were incorrigible products of the old Naval Aviation Cadet program, and neither Chew nor Conklin found it worth the effort to reform them. Besides, they produced “the numbers” when flying, and in the Red Lightning squadron, that was all that mattered. For these two, every day was a new opportunity, as Buzzard would say, “to be VSH [Very $hit Hot].” Two of Buzzard’s favorite quotes were “Better to bust your ass than look bad around the ship,” and “I have never made an approach so bad that I couldn’t salvage it.” And Buzzard was our squadron LSO!

To be continued...