From: CMSgt Mike Bergman <bergman@afnews.pa.af.mil>
Subject: AF News Svc 08/12/92
Organization: Hq Air Force News Agency/SCC
Date: Thu, 13 Aug 1992 20:12:26 GMT


From CMSgt Mike Bergman <bergman@afnews.pa.af.mil>

647.  F-15 crash
650.  Vietnam aces
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647.  F-15 crash
     NELLIS AFB, Nev. (AFNS) -- Two crewmen were killed when their F-15E
crashed near Carp, Nev., Aug. 11.
     Maj. Bruce Netardus, pilot, and Lt. Col. Wendell Johnson, weapons systems
officer, were flying a training mission about 80 miles north of Las Vegas when
their fighter crashed.
     Netardus, from El Campo, Texas, and Johnson, from Greensboro, N.C., were
both assigned to the 57th Fighter Wing.
     The Air Force is investigating the accident.


650.  Vietnam aces
by TSgt. David P. Masko
Air Force News Service
     WASHINGTON -- For a war in which the definitive history is still being
written, it's not surprising to historians that the feats of the Air Force's
three Vietnam aces continue to be of interest in this period of reorganizing
and restructuring.
     Although it's been 20 years since Capt. Richard S. Ritchie, Capt. Charles
B. DeBellevue and Capt. Jeffrey S. Feinstein earned the title ace for their
victories in the air campaigns against North Vietnam, it's still difficult to
get details about the trio's accomplishments, said Hugh Ahmann of the Air
Force Historical Research Agency, Maxwell AFB, Ala.
     In Vietnam, DeBellevue, flying as a weapon systems officer in F-4D
Phantoms, was credited with six victories against Russian MiG jet fighters.
Feinstein had five victories to his credit; and Ritchie was the only F-4 pilot
to become an ace, flying as the aircraft commander during five air victories.
     Teamed with DeBellevue as his WSO, Ritchie shot down one MiG-21 on May
10, 1972, two on July 8 and his fifth on Aug. 28.  His other victory, also
against a MiG-21, was obtained on May 31, 1972, with Capt. Lawrence H. Pettit
as his backseater.
     This month marks the 20th anniversary of Ritchie becoming the Air Force's
only fighter pilot ace of the Vietnam War.
     Ritchie and DeBellevue were each assigned to the Air Force's famous
"Triple Nickel" unit -- the 555th Tactical Fighter Squadron, Udorn Royal Thai
AFB, Thailand -- when they got the MiG kills.
     Feinstein, who was also assigned to Udorn, was a WSO for Maj. Edward D.
Cherry when, on April 16, 1972, Feinstein earned the first of his five MiG
victories.
     In the two-seat F-4, when an enemy aircraft is destroyed, both the pilot
and the WSO are credited with the air victory.
     Ritchie is currently a Reserve colonel who is the individual mobilization
augmentee to the Air Force assistant vice chief of staff.  Ritchie is also
president of Steve Ritchie Associates, a consulting and speaking business.
     DeBellevue is an active-duty colonel and chief of staff, Air Force Flight
Test Center, Edwards AFB, Calif.  Feinstein is an active-duty lieutenant
colonel and chief, U.S. Central Air Force Plans Exercise Division, 9th Air
Force, Shaw AFB, S.C.
     Today, people are still interested in the leadership traits and flying
skills of those few who earned the distinction of being an ace, said Ahmann,
who did a history on the Vietnam air war with Ritchie and DeBellevue in 1973.
     Unlike World War II and the Korean War where there are volumes written,
there's no specific Air Force history about the Vietnam aces, and that's
unfortunate, Ahmann said.
     "We have to rely on their accounts in books and magazines, and to parts
of the Air Force history on the Vietnam War."
     The understanding of what makes an ace -- which the Air Force defines as
an expert combat pilot credited with not fewer than five victories -- was such
an anomaly after Vietnam that the Air Force started Project Corona Ace in 1977
to study the lives of aces who served in World War II, the Korean War and
Vietnam.
     "Corona Ace was basically to find out what made these guys tick," Ahmann
said.  The project also looked into a curriculum for pilots on the necessary
discipline to operate in the war zone environment, where aces are made.
     Because aerial combat was not a major feature of the war in Vietnam,
total statistics of air victories were not very large, Ahmann said.
     However, flying a fighter during Vietnam was far more dangerous than the
two previous wars because high-tech missiles would replace guns in aerial
combat.
     During Operation Rolling Thunder, the first American air offensive over
North Vietnam, the Air Force and Navy took considerable loses.  From 1965
through 1968, 48 American aircraft were lost.
     "Vietnam, was a complex, difficult, high-threat environment," said
Ritchie during a recent interview at Air Combat Command Headquarters, Langley
AFB, Va.
     "The triple threat of SAMs, AAA, and MiGs was a challenge we had not
previously faced."
     The war in Vietnam spanned eight years of large-scale American combat
involvement and many more years of more limited military support.  The Air
Force efforts sprawled across all of South Vietnam, through the air over North
Vietnam, and into neighboring Laos and Cambodia.
     Air Force history reports also state that during the end of the war,
North Vietnamese MiGs had become an increasing problem for American pilots.
Partly responsible was the introduction of the Soviet-built MiG-21s, which
Ritchie, Feinstein and DeBellevue faced in 1972.
     With a maximum speed of Mach 2.1 -- at high altitudes -- the MiG-21 could
nearly equal the speed of Air Force F-4s, and challenged the F-4s in aerial
dogfighting capability.
     The Air Force used many different types of aircraft during the Vietnam
War, but the majority of victories were claimed by variations of the F-4.
     "Whether they lived or died didn't seem to make much difference to them
-- time and again they set off on adventures that placed human values over
personal survival," said author and former Air Force pilot Richard Bach in
describing American pilots who served in Vietnam.
     Counter to this romanticized view, Ritchie said the folklore image of the
fighter pilot is not accurate.
     "To try to maintain that old fighter pilot image and then attempt to
operate at a high efficiency level in a very complicated, dangerous arena was
absolutely absurd."
     Judgment allows the pilot to determine where the line lies between "no
guts, no glory" and "two many guts, no glory," and keeps pilots from crossing
that line, he said.
     Ritchie also points out that great leaders know the tremendous power of
"positive discipline," that which inspires and instills a desire to achieve,
to win, to be the best one can be.
     "The flying environment is a high risk, challenging arena that very few
people ever experience," Ritchie said.
     "To live and excel in this arena requires a person who is a risk taker...
with the education, skill, training, attitude, determination and tempered
aggression to operate right up to the edge of their capabilities and the
capabilities of their machines."
     On being an ace, he adds that the key to success almost always comes down
to determination, effort and willingness that one puts into the endeavor.
     "There are fighter pilots who were and are better than I.  That's not the
point.
     "The point is, I was able to take advantage of the best training
available at the time, had a lot of combat experience and arrived at Udorn at
a time when I was able to put it all to use.
     "Preparation met opportunity," Ritchie said.

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    |               bergman@afpan.pa.af.mil                            |  
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