Tiger Check: Automating the US Air Force Fighter Pilot in Air-to-Air Combat, 1950-1980

by Steven A. Fino

Overview

How did American fighter pilots respond to the challenges posed by increasing automation?

Spurred by their commanders during the Korean War to be “tigers,” aggressive and tenacious American fighter pilots charged headlong into packs of fireball-spewing enemy MiGs, relying on their keen eyesight, piloting finesse, and steady trigger fingers to achieve victory. But by the 1980s, American fighter pilots vanquished their foes by focusing on a four-inch-square cockpit display, manipulating electromagnetic waves, and launching rocket-propelled guided missiles from miles away. In this new era of automated, long-range air combat, can fighter pilots still be considered tigers?

Aimed at scholars of technology and airpower aficionados alike, Steven A. Fino’s Tiger Check offers a detailed study of air-to-air combat focusing on three of the US Air Force’s most famed aircraft: the F-86E Sabre, the F-4C Phantom II, and the F-15A Eagle. Fino argues that increasing fire control automation altered what fighter pilots actually did during air-to-air combat. Drawing on an array of sources, as well as his own decade of experience as an F-15C fighter pilot, Fino unpacks not just the technological black box of fighter fire control equipment, but also fighter pilots’ attitudes toward their profession and their evolving aircraft. He describes how pilots grappled with the new technologies, acutely aware that the very systems that promised to simplify their jobs while increasing their lethality in the air also threatened to rob them of the quintessential—albeit mythic—fighter pilot experience. Finally, Fino explains that these new systems often required new, unique skills that took time for the pilots to identify and then develop.

Eschewing the typical “great machine” or “great pilot” perspectives that dominate aviation historiography, Tiger Check provides a richer perspective on humans and machines working and evolving together in the air. The book illuminates the complex interactions between human and machine that accompany advancing automation in the workplace.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781421423272
Publisher:	Johns Hopkins University Press
Publication date:	11/01/2017
Pages:	448
Product dimensions:	6.10(w) x 9.30(h) x 1.30(d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Steven A. Fino is a US Air Force command pilot and a graduate of the Air Force’s Weapons School. He is currently assigned to the Pentagon.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments vii

List of Acronyms and Abbreviations ix

1 Introduction l

2 The Myth of the Fighter Pilot 17

Crafting the Mythical Ace 19

Revisiting the History 23

Ritualizing the Myth 33

War's Next Test 35

Conclusion 39

3 Sabres over Korea: "Every Man a Tiger" 41

A New Solution to an Old Gunnery Problem 44

Thrust into War 67

Capturing Glory 76

Using the New Gunsights 97

Conclusion 108

4 Phantoms over Vietnam: The "GIB" 111

A New Approach to the Gunnery Problem 116

Thrust into War, Again 142

Tension in the Air 157

Who Gets the Credit? 187

Conclusion 195

5 Eagles over Nellis: "A Fighter Pilot's Fighter" 199

A Pure Air-to-Air Fighter 204

Trial by Test 231

"Sorting" Things Out 247

Conclusion 261

6 Conclusion 264

The Irony of the Fighter Pilot 265

A Lesson for Future Automation 273

Knights or Scientists? 280

Notes 283

Works Cited 379

Index 425

What People are Saying About This

Alan Meyer

Thoroughly researched, well organized, and masterfully written, Tiger Check takes readers inside the cockpit to really get a feel for the complexities inherent in—and the technological and cultural evolution of—fighter aviation.

Merritt Roe Smith

" Tiger Check is a masterful account of how the advent of new technologies changed the face of air combat during the twentieth century. But it’s a good deal more than that. Author Steven Fino excels at identifying and explaining complex social tensions and relationships that existed within the US Air Force as the introduction of increasingly automated equipment challenged the reigning myth of the heroic fighter pilot and its implications for air-to-air combat. His findings are very compelling."

From the Publisher

Thoroughly researched, well organized, and masterfully written, Tiger Check takes readers inside the cockpit to really get a feel for the complexities inherent in—and the technological and cultural evolution of—fighter aviation.
—Alan Meyer, Auburn University, author of Weekend Pilots: Technology, Masculinity, and Private Aviation in Postwar America

Until you read this book you will never fully understand how the marriage of fighter pilot culture and technology, often marked by deep disagreements, has nonetheless survived in the long term to produce the world’s greatest fighter aircraft and fighter pilots.
—Col. C. R. Anderegg, USAF (Ret), author of Sierra Hotel: Flying Air Force Fighters in the Decade after Vietnam

Taking his readers into the cockpits of Air Force fighter planes, Fino ably describes how the automation of flight controls and of the aircraft’s guns and missiles altered the experience, and even the meaning, of being a pilot. Tiger Check contributes not just to the history of aviation but also to the history of the computerization of human labor at large.
—Joseph J. Corn, Stanford University, editor of Into the Blue: American Writing on Aviation and Spaceflight

Tiger Check is a masterful account of how the advent of new technologies changed the face of air combat during the twentieth century. But it’s a good deal more than that. Author Steven Fino excels at identifying and explaining complex social tensions and relationships that existed within the US Air Force as the introduction of increasingly automated equipment challenged the reigning myth of the heroic fighter pilot and its implications for air-to-air combat. His findings are very compelling.
—Merritt Roe Smith, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, coauthor of Inventing America: A History of the United States

Joseph J. Corn

"Taking his readers into the cockpits of Air Force fighter planes, Fino ably describes how the automation of flight controls and of the aircraft’s guns and missiles altered the experience, and even the meaning, of being a pilot. Tiger Check contributes not just to the history of aviation but also to the history of the computerization of human labor at large."

Col. C. R. Anderegg

Until you read this book you will never fully understand how the marriage of fighter pilot culture and technology, often marked by deep disagreements, has nonetheless survived in the long term to produce the world’s greatest fighter aircraft and fighter pilots.

Editorial Reviews

Ultimately, this work is one of the best works of air power (and technology) history that this reviewer has read in quite some time, and will likely become a standard of the field. It certainly sets a very high bar for other historians. For those interested in pilot culture and/or aircraft technology, this is required reading, while still pointing towards directions for future scholarship.
—Ballons to Drones

Fino has truly written a very fine and well-researched academic book that will appeal across disciplines and military services. Tiger Check proves that aggressiveness and being a good stick, are still the hallmark of being of fighter pilot, but adds switchology and scientific skills needed to the traits necessary to operate a modern fighter aircraft. If the Sabre pilots were tigers, then today’s fighter pilots are tigers in lab coats. Fino should be mandatory reading for fighter pilots, especially those who are not familiar with the genesis of the tactics and tradecraft that they ply today. Though highly technical in some sections, it is an imminently readable tome that will also appeal to air power and technical aficionados, and those who seek to understand the origins and the changing nature of air-to-air combat.
—The Strategy Bridge

This is a masterly analysis of fighter combat in the Korean and Vietnam wars and beyond...an outstanding book showing how pilots grappled with new technologies that promised to simplify their jobs while increasing their lethality in the air but, the author says, also threatened to rob them of the quintessential fighter pilot experience.
—Aviation News

From the Publisher

This is a masterly analysis of fighter combat in the Korean and Vietnam wars and beyond...an outstanding book showing how pilots grappled with new technologies that promised to simplify their jobs while increasing their lethality in the air but, the author says, also threatened to rob them of the quintessential fighter pilot experience.

Aviation News

Fino has truly written a very fine and well-researched academic book that will appeal across disciplines and military services. Tiger Check proves that aggressiveness and being a good stick, are still the hallmark of being of fighter pilot, but adds switchology and scientific skills needed to the traits necessary to operate a modern fighter aircraft. If the Sabre pilots were tigers, then today’s fighter pilots are tigers in lab coats. Fino should be mandatory reading for fighter pilots, especially those who are not familiar with the genesis of the tactics and tradecraft that they ply today. Though highly technical in some sections, it is an imminently readable tome that will also appeal to air power and technical aficionados, and those who seek to understand the origins and the changing nature of air-to-air combat.

The Strategy Bridge

Ultimately, this work is one of the best works of air power (and technology) history that this reviewer has read in quite some time, and will likely become a standard of the field. It certainly sets a very high bar for other historians. For those interested in pilot culture and/or aircraft technology, this is required reading, while still pointing towards directions for future scholarship.

Ballons to Drones