中国王牌焦景文与美军王牌雷斯那之间的一场空战

焦景文是朝鲜战争中著名的王海大队的一员，王海的僚机，有击落敌机三架的记录，在中国空军的英雄榜上并不是最突出的一位。但在美国的空军圈子里，他的大名却比任何其他一名中国飞行员都响亮。因为他和美军王牌飞行员罗比-雷斯那(ROBBIE RISNER)之间的一场经典空战。
雷思那可不是简单的人物。他是美国空军最著名的王牌飞行员之一，国会荣誉勋章的获得者。和德国、日本、苏联的顶级飞行员都交过手。可他认为自己一辈子遇到的最强大的对手却是一位被他击落的中国飞行员---焦景文。美国空军界也把这次空战视为空战史上经典中的经典。

阅读雷思那的战斗报告，虽是从敌人的角度，虽是一次我军失利的空战，其精彩与惊险却仍然历历在目，叹为观止。双方斗智斗勇的过程，也让人热血沸腾。读罢由衷叹一句，焦景文，真英雄也！

空战爆发于1952年10月10日。战斗一开始，经验老道的雷思那就先发现我机，突施偷袭。第一炮就打掉了焦景文座机的座舱盖，使焦一开始就陷入绝境。正当雷思那以为这将是一次轻松的猎杀时，焦景文却突然驾机直扑地面。在目瞪口呆的雷斯那认为已不可能的情况下，在离地面不到5英尺(不足两米)的高度拉起改平，擦地飞行。雷斯那虽然也直追下来，但已无法攻击。因为战斗机的机枪有个微微向上的角度，怎么也不可能对离地两米的目标开火的。两架飞机就在树梢的高度你追我赶，翻滚，盘旋，蛇形机动，互相企图寻找射击角度。按雷思那自己的话，他把“最后一点点的本事都使出来了”，“完全是凭着直觉”，才勉强咬住焦景文。为了争取一点点速度上的优势，焦景文曾飞出了一个让雷思那惊呼“平生所见最疯狂的动作之一”，横滚后倒着擦山顶飞过(焦景文可是没有座舱盖的)，焦的脑袋离山顶的树梢也只有几英尺。另一刻两机曾机翼挨着机翼贴地飞行，雷思那有机会清楚的看到对手的面孔(焦的氧气罩也被吸走了)，吃惊的发现是个年轻的东方人。他原以为这么高超的飞行员一定是个苏军飞行员。焦景文则向他示威的挥了挥拳头。

两人缠斗一阵后飞抵中方机场上空。地面防空炮火猛烈开火向美机射击。这时焦景文误以为在防空火力的掩护下已经安全了而放松了警惕，准备着陆。没想到狡猾的雷思那竟然穿透防空火网，直扑下来，在焦着陆的一刻打飞了他的半个机翼。但焦临危不乱，成功的将飞机迫降在跑道旁的草地上，安然无恙。但迫降激起的巨大尘土让雷斯那误以为战机已解体爆炸。他的僚机也兴奋的狂叫，“你刚刚干掉了整个共产空军！”(呵呵，对焦的评价够高的。)不过雷思那也为他的冲动付出了代价。他的僚机在返航途中被地面炮火击落，跳伞身亡。

雷斯那战后对此精彩空战的描述轰动美国空军，但一直不知道对手是谁。几十年后与中国空军开始接触后才知道是焦景文，於是他名扬海外。但中国空军很少有人知道这次空战，毕竟这是一次败仗。但我认为，重要的不是以成败论英雄，而是为焦景文在空战中表现的大无畏精神和无比高超的飞行技术而由衷自豪。

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英文原版报告:

Major Robinson "Robbie" Risner's sixth kill.
10 October 1952.
At 0900 Risner and his wingman, Joe Logan, taxied [their F-86s] down the Kimpo runway. The other two pilots followed in quick succeession. This flight, code-named "John Red," made its way to the Yalu, some thirty minutes from Kimpo. The flight's mission was to protect a squadron of USAF fighter-bombers that was scheduled to attack a chemical plant at the mouth of the river. When the flight arrived at "MiG Alley," Risner immediately gave the "pus*y willow" command [turn off IFF] and took the flight on a sweep along the Chinese side of the Yalu. This preemptive maneuver would give the fighter-bombers maximum protection against any potential MiG attacks.

The initial sweep yielded no MiG sightings. On the second sweep, however, Risner saw a glint of sunlight at his twelve o'clock low. As if by instinct, he knew that this sparkle meant MiGs. He ordered his flight to drop their wing fuel tanks. The four MiGs did the same as they made a 180-degree turn and retreated back toward their base at Antung. These MiGs were hungry for the lower performance F-84 fighter-bombers, and had no intention of tangling with the top-of-the-line F-86s. But Risner had other plans. He aligned his pipper on the tail-end Charlie and gave his six M-3 .50 caliber guns a squeeze. The incendiaries shattered the MiG's canopy.

In an effort to escape, the MiG pilot descended at maximum speed. At one point the MiG did a half-roll and flew upside down for fifty seconds as Risner pounded him with short bursts from his machine guns. The MiG then entered into a split-S, and Risner thought to himself, "This is going to be the easiest kill of my career." Risner, convinced that the MiG would not be able to pull out of the S in time to avoid hitting the ground, made an angling split-S and braced himself for the impending explosion. Nothing happened.

The MiG did not crash as Risner had so smugly predicted. Instead, it pulled out of the dive just in time, created a billowing cloud of dust and pebbles over a dry riverbed. The MiG, now flying five feet over the deck, was too low to hit with the F-86's guns, which fired slightly upward. But Risner had too much drive to cut off the chase. He was not about to let all those practice dogfights flown in the F-51 over the Oklahoma skies go to waste. FInally, he had met his match -- a pilot who would force him to draw on every skill he had ever learned. Risner was about to embark on the ultimate dogfight. At this point, Risner could not kill the MiG but at least he could take a good look at his foe. He maneuvered his F-86 alongside the MiG-15. As they coasted wingtip to wingtip, Risner peered into the now open cockpit. He could see the eyes of the pilot and the stitching of his leather helmet. Risner noticed that the pilot's oxygen mask was gone: it had been sucked off when he shot away the canopy. The MiG pilot returned Risner's gaze and raised his fist in defiance.

The MiG then throttled back in an attempt to catch Risner off guard. He hoped to slip behind Risner and pound him with his 23- and 37- mm cannons. But Risner had too much situational awareness to fall for such a trap; he did a high G-force roll over the top of the MiG and came down behind it. SImultaneously, the MiG broke right, pulling all the G's it could. But Risner stayed behind the MiG. HE later commented, "I never thought about what I was doing, it was all reflex."

After several minutes of hard maneuvers, both planes exited the dry riverbed and began to climb a heavily wooded hill. To Risner's surprise, the MiG executed one of the craziest maneuvers he had ever seen. In an effort to gain a small speed advantage, the MiG did an inverted roll and flew upside down over the hill. His open cockpit was just a few feet from the treetops. Risner's wingman, Joe Logan, who had been flying high and to the right the entire time, screamed in the headset: "Hit him lead. Pound him!" But Risner could not. He was doing all he could just to stay behind him.

The planes rounded a hill at .8 Mach, then all of a sudden the MiG cut his throttle and Risner rolled over the top of him. Wingtip to wingtip now, the MiG pilot again raised his fist at Risner. Next the MiG made an abrupt, full-throttle, 90-degree turn to the left. Risner new that this was his last chance to blow this guy out of the sky. He let his pipper creep toward the MiG's tailpipe, and just as he was about to fire, Risner heard Logan's voice: "Lead, they're shooting at us." The two planes were now directly over the Chinese air base at Tak Tung Kau.

Despite this warning, Risner continued the chase: he was too close to let the MiG slip away. The MiG pilot erroneously assumed that the flak from the airfield would scare him off. It did not. Risner chased the MiG in between two hangars. When the MiG attempted to land on the dusty runway, Risner hammered him hard. He blew four feet off the left wing.

As the wing burned, the MiG pilot desperately sought out the grassy side of the runway for an emergency landing. Risner still had no intention of letting the plane land; he fired all of his remaining ammunition into its tailpipe. The MiG would not give up: it leveled off and attempted a "belly landing." At this point, his luck ran out. The MiG burst apart in a tremendous explosion, and pieces of flaming aircraft flew all over the airfield, igniting the parked aircraft nearby. "Red lead," Logan yelled ecstatically, "you just destroyed the whole Communist air force." Risner chuckled but was more intent on getting his wingman and himself safely back to base than reveling in his victory. Risner and Logan threw the coal to their engines and made a steep climb away from the base.

As the F-86s climbed out, they passed over some 250 anti-aircraft guns which lined the perimeters of both Tak Tung Kau and Antung air bases. Flak exploded all around them as the pilots jinked to avoid it. Just before Risner and Logan crossed the Yalu back into North Korea, Logan radioed Risner, "Lead, my fuel gauge is down." Risner flew around Logan's F-86 to make sure that the fuel tank had not been hit. It had. Fuel and hydraulic fluid were streaming out of Logan's belly. Risner radioed Logan, "It looks like you've been hit."

Fearing that his wingman would not have enough fuel and fluid to make it back to Kimpo, Risner decided on a bold course of action. He ordered Logan to open the throttle up: "Might as well use it before you lose it, Red 2." As soon as Logan ran out fo fuel, Risner would position his nose behind Logan's stricken aircraft and gently push it periodically until they reached the friendly island of Chodo [Cheju-do?], where Logan could safely bail out. Risner figured that enough air would be flowing through Logan's tailpipe and the gap below Risner's tailpipe to prevent Risner's F-86 from stalling, but the move was still risky. While executing this maneuver, Risner realized that he placed his own aircraft in danger. If he sucked in any damaged engine parts from Logan's plane, his own engine might quit, or worse yet, explode. To the pilots' utter amazement, the emergency maneuver worked.

Risner successfully pushed Logan's plane to a point tenes off the coast of Chodo. At this point, Logan radioed Risner, "OK, I am going to bail out. I'll see you in a little while as soon as they pick me up."...

(Risner lands, waits two hours, meets the seaplane, Logan drowned when the chute cord tangled around his neck)

From: Officers in Flight Suits. Sherwood.