Press, Please Note: McCain was not a "fighter pilot"

This may seem like a small thing, but if the press cannot tell the difference between a fighter and a bomber it needs to be spanked and sent to boot camp.

John McCain flew the A-4 "Skyhawk," a light bomber called a light attack aircraft by the DOD. The A-4 was assigned to VA squadrons; V meaning Navy Air Squadron and A meaning light attack. (In the 60s there were also VAH squadrons -- heavy Attack -- that flew the A-3 "Whale" and the A-5 "Vigilante.") Fighter squadrons are designated VF and at that time flew the F4 Phantom and F-8 Crusader.

This may seem like a small point but the press' inability -- or unwillingness -- to get such facts straight appears to be part and parcel of today's MSM -- bad writing, bad research, and twisted so far to the left that they cannot be seen unless you have exophoria.

You don’t want to align yourself with the New York Times, do you?

“When McCain was famously shot down over Vietnam, he was flying his usual plane, a small jet aircraft known as the A-4 Skyhawk, which the Times now refers to as an “attack aircraft.” That’s a safe and widely-agreed upon label for the plane pilots dubbed “Scooter”, but the newspaper needn’t have apologized for calling it a “fighter.” Many in the aviation community regard it as precisely that, starting with the military’s most famous training program, Top Gun.

Top Gun, the nickname for the Navy fighter pilot school made famous in the Tom Cruise movie of the same name, originally used the A-4 to simulate Russian MiGs. The key attribute for a “fighter,” according to widely recognized definitions, is high speed and maneuverability and weapons designed to shoot down enemy aircraft.

The A-4 proved itself fast and maneuverable at Top Gun, as well as in the service of the Navy’s Blue Angels precision-flying team, but in neither of those cases did the aircraft carry any weapons. But it was built to do so. All versions of the aircraft can carry Sidewinder air-to-air missiles for self defense, according to Bill Gunston and Mike Spick’s excellent “Modern Air Combat.” And they often did, for example in the service of the Israeli Air Force, where an A-4 shot down a Syrian MiG-17 during the Yom Kippur war. Boom, fighter! “

The A-4, F-5, and T-38 were used at Top-Gun to simulate lighter-smaller Soviet fighters (in certain profiles) that the F-14's would be up against. They were flown by fighter pilots at Top Gun that were taken out of fighter squadrons. So that would make a Top-Gun A-4 pilot a fighter pilot, but it would not make the A-4 a fighter plane or the fleet squadron attack pilots, fighter pilots.

I assume that the NYT is occasionally correct about some things.

for example in the service of the Israeli Air Force, where an A-4 shot down a Syrian MiG-17 during the Yom Kippur war. Boom, fighter! “

Other aircraft that have air-air kills are the A-1 Skyraider, the SBD Dauntless, and even the Piper Cub (via a Thompson .45 against a German Storch). That doesn't make them fighter planes, nor their crew fighter pilots.

FYI, McCain's A-4 did not carry Sidewinders. The A-4 is very maneuverable though, I liked the little amount of time that I got in TA-4s very much. Still without afterburner or air-air radar, it was never a match for the fighters of its day.

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