05/08/2026
We take a peek at Dissimilar Air Combat Training or DACT at McChord in the early 80’s for today’s Feature.
Through the late 50’s to the mid 60’s, an emerging Soviet threat would contribute to technological advances in aircraft and weapon systems centered around delivering nuclear weapons over Europe or firing missiles at bombers attacking the United States. These advances fed to the misconception that the days of the “dogfight” were over.
What was thought to be “days gone by” came to life skies of North Vietnam as U.S. pilots found themselves in “knife fights” against smaller more nimble aircraft that led to challenging battles that resembled aerial combat from wars of the past.
Starting with the Air Defense Command in the mid 60’s, the U.S. Air Force and the U.S. Navy soon thereafter, began to train for this “new” combat reality using DACT or Dissimilar Air Combat Training or DACT where pilots train to fight against different types of aircraft and tactics.
In 1970, the Marine Corps and the Navy discovered the existence of USAF’s Aerospace Defense Command's DACT training program (Operation College Dart) and began to fly practice air-to-air combat missions with F-106 squadrons in the summer of that year. This training was so successful, the Navy had proposed an F-106 "Aggressor" for the service.
This type of training between the Navy and the ADCOM would later be adopted by the USAF’s Tactical Air Command and other Air Forces across the World. Today DACT remains as an essential and required component type of training to ensure military readiness.
In the associated picture we see the beginning of a DACT mission at McChord AFB between a F-106 Delta Dart of the 318 Fighter Interceptor Squadron “Green Dragons” and a F-14 Tomcat from VF-111 “Sundowners” in the 1979 - 1981 time frame.
With the generational gap in technology between the Delta Dart and Tomcat, one may think the 50’s vintage F-106 would be outmatched by the more modern F-14 – not so fast !
In a post from the best F-106 website (f-106deltadart.com), Lt Col Dick Stultz (USAF Ret), a former F-106 Pilot and premiere aviation artist, sheds light on the F-106 vs its generation of aircraft and the "Teen" fighters:
"The F-106 proved its ultimate performance capabilities in providing aggressor "enemy" delta-wing familiarization training to the Navy's best pilots during the time they were implementing TOP GUN. The Navy jocks learned valuable lessons that the Delta winged 106 was almost unconquerable in the dogfight arena, with guns in the air-to-air environment, which you read so little about in the Navy publications.
Wing loading of 43 lbs./sq ft and a .8 -1 (thrust to weight) put it in a class of its own against the A-4s, F-104s, F-4B,C,D, F-105, F-100, F-8 fighters of its time.....not to mention the many many '14s and '15s that blew engines (compressor stalls and surging at high altitudes) in attempting to fight when it took them above 40,000 feet, to a guns-only environment. Good thing they finally fixed those great fighters to handle the altitudes the 106s formerly ruled."
Chalk one up for the “Six” !
