16. Air losses to American forces altered the training of pilots
Operation Rolling Thunder was the sustained bombing campaign launched by American and South Vietnamese Air Forces against the North Vietnamese. It began on March 2, 1965, and from the first day, American military and civilian leaders were stunned at the losses of aircraft. By Christmas Eve of that year, when a temporary cease-fire was declared, 170 American aircraft had been shot down by the North Vietnamese. The bombing campaign continued through November of 1968, with more bomb tonnage dropped on North Vietnamese positions than had been dropped in the entire Pacific theater during World War 2. It failed to meet any of its strategic objectives, and cost over 900 aircraft, 416 of them from the Navy and Marine Corps.
The Air Force chose to pursue technological changes in order to address the loss of airplanes in air-to-air combat. The Navy decided the loss of Navy and Marine Corps airplanes reflected a degradation of pilot skills and created a new school to address the deficiency. In March 1969, the Navy opened its Fighter Weapons School at Naval Air Station Miramar, near San Diego. It became famous under the name of Topgun. The program was designed so that pilots graduating at Miramar could return to their units and train the rest of their squadron in the skills and techniques acquired in the school. Before Topgun, the Navy destroyed an average of just less than 4 MIGs for every aircraft lost. After Topgun the ratio exceeded 13:1.
