A Brief History
On January 4, 1989, two Libyan pilots made the massive blunder of attempting to engage a pair of US Navy F-14 Tomcat fighters over the Gulf of Sidra off the Libyan coast, with the entirely predictable result of both MiG-23 “Flogger” fighters being promptly shot down.
Digging Deeper
The Libyan fighter pilots would have done well to remember the previous incident over the Gulf of Sidra back in 1981, when two Libyan Su-22 “Fitter” fighters were shot down by a pair of USN Tomcats, another time enemy pilots made the mistake of attacking US naval aviators.
As you may have seen depicted in the major motion pictures, Top Gun, and Top Gun: Maverick, 1986 and 2022 respectively, American naval aviators are well trained in air-to-air combat, including US Navy and US Marine Corps pilots. While the movies are fiction, the excellence of US naval aviators is not, and enemy pilots would do well to remember that!
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Historical Evidence
For more information, please see…
Brown, David. F-14 Tomcat: Grumman’s “Top Gun” from Vietnam to the Persian Gulf. Schiffer Military History, 2019.
Elward, Brad. TOPGUN: The US Navy Fighter Weapons School: Fifty Years of Excellence . Schiffer Military History, 2020.
The featured image in this article,, a simplified depiction of the incident, is a work of a sailor or employee of the U.S. Navy, taken or made as part of that person’s official duties. As a work of the U.S. federal government, it is in the public domain in the United States.
You can also watch video versions of this article on YouTube.