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I seem to have started a fire here. I better start smoke jumpin’. I have not read all the responses yet, but already I’ve detected some common themes. So I’ll respond to the ping list with one post, and then proceed to each post that has any substance & respond accordingly.

Rule of COIN. How do we know what an established fact of history is? When both sides agree to a fact, that usually seals it, such as in a court of law. The measure of whether something is a historical fact goes along the lines of an acronym I came up with: COIN. C stands for Concurring Sources, people who are friendly to the historical subject. Let’s examine the historicity of the claim that John Adams was president of the US. John Adams’s friends certainly agree that he was President. O stands for Opposing sources, the most significant in establishing historical accuracy. John Adams’s enemies acknowledged that he was President, they just didn’t like him. That tends to seal the issue of historicity. I stands for Indifferent Sources. These are the folks who “have no dog in the hunt”, such as innocent bystanders. Archaeological discoveries fall into this category as well. The historians and apolitical observers of the 18th century all agree that John Adams was President. And the final initial, N, stands for No Evidence Against. There is virtually no evidence to suggest that John Adams was a pretender to the title of President. If you follow all the elements of COIN, you can get to the established facts of history. I’m usually much less interested in the opinions about those facts, such as whether John Adams was a good President or a bad one. These lower level opinions are simply subordinate to the higher level facts of history.

Following the rule of COIN, the concurring sources would be the Myles book, Commander Ward's book "Sea Harrier over the Falklands", that kind of thing. These guys are published authors with verified history, not guys who signed up anonymously as Joe Flyboy. The Opposing sources would be the acknowledgement on both sides of the debate over at the debate forums that discuss flight strategy, such as atomicmpc.com, strategypage.com, and users.zetnet.co.uk. These tend to be secondary sources rather than primary sources, but the fact that both sides agree on certain facts tends to be highly significant. Indifferent sources are often the hardest to find. I would suggest the Kill Ratios found in “NATO Warplanes” article is an indifferent source, as well as the Harrier’s record in air-to-air kills, which I think is about 28:0. And on No Evidence Against, this is where there tends to be a lot of noise rather than signal, because people will vehemently argue back & forth and not venture facts for investigation. At that point it doesn’t matter if people think the Harrier is a piece of dog doo in the air, what matters are facts and primary sources. What is the evidence against the Harrier as a good dogfighter? It’s from Bandit, who proceeds from the supposedly poor turn rate of the Harrier, even though it is reputed to have the tightest turn in the industry. But he has said nothing about the posted kill ratios.

Primary sources vs. Secondary sources. Commander Ward is a primary source, because we can verify his story. Someone who signs up as Barfin Hound or Joe Flyboy might like to think he’s a primary source, but with no way to verify their identity and facts, they are operating as secondary sources, subordinate to primary sources. When you’re a hotshot, feisty fighter jock, you might think that you should be regarded as a primary source, but unless you’re operating in the clear, there is a disconnect to verification and you’re a secondary source. Anyone whose screen name matches their real name is operating in the clear and qualifies as a primary source, should they choose to reveal their expertise. We all need to learn Pukin Dog’s lesson. With his posting privileges suspended, it’s not even easy to find his manifesto unless you know it already exists. I was hoping to find out if he had ever posted anything on the Harrier, but you can’t even click on his name on “in forum” to see his posts. So how do we KNOW that the average Joe Flyboy isn’t a Hawkeye pilot who goes home to his dreary existence and wishes he was a fighter pilot? By the quality of the information he posts. That is, unless I missed the secret decoder ring seminar at the last VRWC meeting. And, proceeding from Pukin Dog’s fate, the quality of the information needs to be WITHIN that PARTICULAR thread. If Joe Flyboy’s posts fail the smell test, his credibility is open to question. He becomes an unreliable secondary source. And, since I’m operating at the N in my acronym, his evidence becomes unreliable and I will proceed to bolster my COIN case further. Once the suspicion radar comes up, it’s difficult to tone it down, I find myself wondering if Bandit’s tagline is intended to ward off timid questioners.

Facts/Opinion ratio. I suppose I should have been a little more explicit in terms of what I was asking from the ping list. I am looking for Primary Source Facts. Period. Opinions are good and enlightening, but think about it from the perspective of someone who comes across this material 2 years from now, searching to resolve the issue. The opinions expressed won’t be from Primary Sources unless someone is posting in the clear, so they will not be as valuable as the information. They might not know who Pukin Dog was, and they might not be able to follow up on his background. So I’m looking for lots of facts and not so many opinions, a high Fact/Opinion ratio.

I have been a member of this forum for longer than 99.8% of its participants. Unlike Pukin Dog, I’ve never lost my posting privileges; I’ve never even been chastised by a moderator. Heck, when I first started, Jim Rob was probably the only moderator. If someone with 7 years’ experience starts asking you direct questions, it probably isn’t a very good idea to ignore his posted primary facts, give oblique answers, ignore questions, and generally pour gasoline on the fire unless you don’t mind the subsequent treatment. Bandit has a tagline of “sarcasm engaged at all times”, so he can take the heat – if he can’t stand the heat, he should stay out of JimRob’s kitchen. I have to admit that I tend to go into pursuit mode a little quicker against such targets, but that’s just a personal preference. The Bible says that “as iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another” – we will both be better off as a result of this engagement.

Bandit claims to be an expert while I claim to be just an afficianado. I do like the line that the Titanic was built by experts, but the Ark was built by amateurs. I think that the greater the expertise on claims, then that means that he should be expected to carry a larger burden of clarity in a forum such as this. Something along the lines of “extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof.” After all, we’re supposedly in his back yard. Someone with my obviously limited knowledge shouldn’t be able to poke holes in his story so easily. This is his chance to educate the public but he chose to take a pass on that opportunity. Free Republic has become one of the strongest forums on the net. We have a chance to clear up the air-to-air discrepancy over Harriers once & for all, for thousands of people. Once Google updates their engine, this will become the best place for millions of people to read up on this issue. I would challenge all of the pilots and experts to do better than I have at digging up 20 year old source material.

We have a relatively straightforward factual discrepancy. The first fact at odds is the turn rate of the Harrier under VIFFing vis-à-vis other aircraft. I don’t know where to go & get that information, but it would be helpful if others could find it as well, a gold standard of turn rates for fighter aircraft. We would need turn rates of fighters and the Harrier with & without Viffing. The second fact is undisputed at the time of my last post, which is that the Harrier seems to have a strong kill ratio against supposedly superior planes in exercises and combat. Things like 10:1 against the F4 and F14, 3:1 against the F15, no combat losses against Super Etendards, A4s, and Mirages. The third fact is the fact that Harriers have been turning off VFF during A2A exercises, and we need to know some of the particulars of that, like whether Bandit would have been up against declawed Harriers. I look forward to resolving these discrepancies of fact, using the COIN approach, Primary Sources, good clarity, and high Facts/Opinion ratio. Then we can all go home and have a beer.

What do I think is the most likely outcome? I think it’s most likely that I’ll be proven wrong somehow, because of all the expertise lined up against my position. Do I really think Bandit is some kind of imposter? No, it is a distinct possibility but a very low probability, kinda like winning the lottery. Then what do I think? I think Bandit was just lazy, didn’t want to write more than one paragraph, didn’t want to spend the two hours it would take to research the discrepancy, overlooked facts and neglected that people in the future won’t know who he is from Adam. He passed up a chance to educate the public, posted factually incorrect information (and proceeded from it), and generally blew me off because he was annoyed. In my industry, Bob Pease wrote a fun article about being an Apps engineer and said that he was constantly being “nibbled to death by ducks.” I think that’s how Bandit viewed the situation, rather than a chance to clear up something that probably comes up all the time, and do his friends a favor. That would be unfortunate because it would mean his poor choice led to all of us wasting some time and bandwidth. There’s a possibility that the Harrier was once a good dogfighter but the pilots have gotten its number, kinda like the Stuka dive bomber in WWII. When it first entered service, it racked up some impressive air-to-air kill ratios, even though it was a bomber, because of its high speed and maneuverability. But gradually, the Allied pilots got its number, their fighters got faster and more nimble, and by the end of the war most of the Stukas were shot down. So, someone coming in claiming that the Stuka was a great dogfighter based on its kill ratio from 1939-1942 would be only half right, because by the latter half of the war it was toast. In that case the best primary source material would be kill ratios from later exercises than what I’ve posted.

FRegards,

Wow. You are really something. You've gone from calling USNBandit a fraud to calling everyone who disagrees with you (which is everyone on this thread) a fraud. You rely on one book published in 1978, and another published following a war fought in 1982 to declare the Harrier an air to air killing machine. Did you actually read Commander Ward's book? Perhaps you could share with us how many times British Harriers "VIFFed" in their engagements with Argentinian aircraft. And perhaps you ought to mention that nearly every kill was made using U.S. provided Aim-9L missiles, which were leading edge technology at the time. You also might want to mention that all of the Argentinian aircraft were operating at the extreme edge of their operational radius, and had neither the fuel or configuration for aerial engagements. Finally, Argentinian A-4 and Mirage III aircraft are not exactly a useful control group to determine an aircraft's potency as an air to air fighter. They couldn't even get their bombs to function correctly.

Your air to air kill ratio numbers against anything more potent than the Argentinian Air Force are all based on anonymous sources pulled from internet chat sites. That is ironic considering you spend several paragraphs explaining your "rule of COIN". Live by your own rule, and stop posting "bogus" numbers. For the record, my last name is Rokke and I've been flying F-16's for 15 years. I've personally met Gunrunner2 and am very familiar with his background. USNBandit and I both attended the finest military academy in the world and graduated one year apart. I have also met A6Intruder while I was deployed to Langley AFB shortly after Sept 11. Grace522 and I just sat Noble Eagle alert together 2 days ago. The only person I haven't met in person is Mr Rogers, but I've corresponded with him enough to know he is who he says he is. None of us claim to be aficionados. That is because we are all experts. We have to be to accomplish our jobs. Knowing the air to air capabilities of aircraft is a job requirement, and one that our life depends on. I have fought against Harriers several times in my career. Never. Not once have I seen them use anything resembling a "VIFF". Nor do I know anyone else who has ever fought a Harrier that performed a "VIFF". That is because it would be stupid for them to do that, and they know it. Getting extremely slow in a within visual range engagement is your last move before dying. It may give you the turn radius from hell, but when your adversary takes it into the vertical after you try your little trick, your little Pegasus motor doesn't have what it takes to transition from nearly stopped to useful forward thrust before you're taking a AIM-9 up one of your very hot little nozzles. By your definitions, the meanest air to air aircraft in the sky would be helicopters. And since the B-52 has a 2 - 0 air to air record in actual combat, it must be a potent air to air platform. Hell, it's undefeated against a threat that actually did quite well against our top fighters at the time.

Your lectures on this site being Jim Robinson's house are all very nice, but since you've been here for so long (and incidentally, my first signup name was Rock and I can't remember my login either. 23 July 1998) you must know that one of the greatest assets of this site is the fact that it is populated with true to life experts on just about every topic imaginable. Since you acknowledge that you aren't one in this field, perhaps you shouldn't be so quick to dismiss others who offer reasonable discussion on the topic at hand just because their opinions are not the same as yours.