Sharpshooting Sabre Jets

Cruising along at 40,000 ft. over the Formosa Strait, eight Chinese Nationalist F-86 Sabre jets picked out the white contrails of nearly a score of Communist MIG-17s in the early morning sunlight. With a confidence born of repeated successes in aerial clashes with Red pilots and with more than 2,000 flight hours per man logged in Sabre jets (an operational experience that is the envy of U.S. Air Force pilots), the Chinese Nationalists jumped the MIGs.

At first the MIGs tried to form into a huge circle one behind the other, a new Communist tactic* the Nationalists described as "like Indians attacking a wagon train," in which "individual flying ability counts for little," since every plane's vulnerable tail is protected by the plane behind it. But the Sabre jets' quick passes into the circle made short work of that, and for 20 minutes--long for a jet battle --the planes whirled in a melee ranging from 40,000 ft. all the way down to the sea. When it was all over, four MIGs were down, including one drawn into Nationalist antiaircraft fire from the White Dog Islands. The jubilant Nationalist pilots flew home with all eight Sabre jets undamaged.

At an earlier date, Western observers were skeptical of all Nationalist battle claims, and still are of some, but they happily acknowledge that the Nationalist Air Force has no need to exaggerate its skill.

* But to Western airmen a World War I formation, long since discarded, known as the Lufbery circle, after Major Raoul Lufbery, U.S. pilot in France's Lafayette Escadrille.

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