Rolling Scissors

There's an old jetfighter tactic called "rolling scissors" where the planes roll over each other in circles as they fly along.

It looks like ballet, but both pilots are trying to reduce their airspeed to get behind the other plane so they can shoot.

The History channel has an awesome show called Dogfights where the use computer animation to recreate historic dogfights... it's seriously the coolest show ever. Some of the stories just blow your mind.

Anyway, I was eating lunch today watching a story about a dogfight from the Korean war where an F-86 Sabre was battling an enemy MiG. It was the early early days of jet dogfights, so it especially interesting; the pilots hadn't yet fully learned to respect the awesome power of the jet engine, so the tactics were still a little clumsy... like your first date in highschool.

The Sabre pilot, now a little-old-grandfather, was recounting getting into a rolling scissors move with the MiG pilot. This dance continues until one pilot makes the slightest mistake, or the planes slow down so much they stall. In this story, it was the MiG pilot who made the slightest error, allowing the Sabre to get behind him and into firing position.

Anyway, the reason I'm telling you all this, is because I totally loved the Sabre pilot's quote:

"I saw him overshoot, and ah' just though to myself, 'friend, that's gonna cost ya...'"