With specially commissioned artworks and dynamic combat ribbon diagrams, this volume reveals how the \'last of the gunfighters\', as the F-8 was dubbed by its pilots, prevailed against the growing MiG threat of the Vietnamese People\'s Air Force .
Davies charts the successful career of the F-8 Crusader over Vietnam..
Through the copious use of first-hand accounts, highly detailed battlescene artwork, combat ribbon diagrams and armament views, Osprey\'s Vietnam air war specialist Peter E.
However, in combat the F-8 had the highest \'exchange ratio\' (kills divided by losses) at six-to-one of any US combat aircraft involved in the Vietnam War.
Its 20 mm guns were unreliable as they often jammed during strenuous manoeuvres, although they were responsible for damaging a number of MiGs.
Although the Crusader was nicknamed \'last of the gunfighters\', its pilots employed \'secondary\' AIM-9D Sidewinder missiles in all but one of their MiG kills, with guns also used as back-up in three.
It entered combat as an escort for Alpha strike packages, braving the anti-aircraft artillery and surface-to-air missiles alongside the A-4 Skyhawk bombers and meeting MiGs for the first time on 3 April 1965.
When the Vietnam War began, the F-8 was already firmly established as a fighter and reconnaissance aircraft.
With specially commissioned artworks and dynamic combat ribbon diagrams, this volume reveals how the \'last of the gunfighters\', as the F-8 was dubbed by its pilots, prevailed against the growing MiG threat of the Vietnamese People\'s Air Force
