Word: mig
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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Captain Harold E. Fischer Jr., 27, the U.S.'s third-ranking jet ace,* is a shy, boyish-looking Iowa farm boy who drew a bead on a MIG-15 as if he were leading a wild duck. Interviewed last month on becoming a "double ace," he embarrassed the Air Force by saying that he knocked out eight of his ten MIGs, not by using the Air Force's fine radar gunsight, but just by using "Kentucky windage" to get on his target...
Seventeen hundred miles south of its Alaskan base, and only 25 miles from Kamchatka, the long tongue of Soviet territory that hangs down from eastern Siberia, a U.S. four-engine B50 bomber sighted two MIG-15s. One of them closed to a cautious 800 yards and opened fire; the B-50's gunners returned a few bursts. The bomber returned to base undamaged...
...Texan named Royal N. Baker, who had flown British Spitfires against the Luftwaffe in 1942, was now, at 34, a colonel and commander of the Air Force's 4th Fighter-Interceptor Wing. Nearly 40,000 ft. up, Baker and his followers ran into a flight of eight MIG-15s. Two of the MIGs turned tail and headed for the Yalu. Taking out after one of them, Baker edged close, fired one short burst. The shots "just sprayed the air because I was caught in his jetwash." From 1,200 ft. away, Baker fired another burst...
...catch up, Baker pushed on his throttle, forced his Sabre jet through the sound barrier. From a distance of 800.ft., he fired a long burst of his guns. The MIG started coming apart. The cockpit canopy flew off to the left, and the pilot narrowly missed Baker's plane as his ejection seat dumped him to the right. The MIG, trailing flame, crashed ten miles south of the Yalu...
That afternoon, the Sabre jet pilots shot down six Red MIGs. But the one they were proudest of was Baker's: it was the twelfth MIG he had destroyed and made him the leading jet-to-jet ace of the Korean war. Previous record holder: another Texan, Major George A. Davis of Lubbock, who destroyed eleven MIGs in ten weeks, then was shot down himself (TIME, Feb. 18, 1952). Said Baker: "I just lucked out on him." The Air Force, just to make sure that luck doesn't finally run out on its new ace of aces, ordered...