Has a helicopter ever shot down a fighter?

When you watch Airwolf (yes its a tv show and fake) you would see the copter shoot down jet fighters all the time.Anyone know of any engagements where a helicopter like a apache ever shoot down a fighter or even other helicopter?

It is possible to do so BUT I have never heard of it happening.

Heliocpter crews are trained to try and avoid that situation.

Wing-Nut

Happened in the Iran Iraq war, an F-4 phantom got shot down, I think it was an Mi-24 tow missile that did it.

There was a program many moons ago called J-CATCH where they pitted fighters and attack aircraft against helicopters, and the helicopters acquitted themselves admirably.
I don't remember any actual engagements, however.

Here's an example:

The Mi-24, which has the NATO reporting name 'Hind', was developed during the mid-1960s to provide a multi-role military helicopter-of formidable capability. It appears to be evolved from, the Mil Mi-8/Mi-14 family, but a combination of reduced size and increased power gives this aircraft improved manoeuvrability and performance.

...[A]t least one Iranian F-4 Phantom II destroyed by AT-6 (NATO 'Spiral') anti-tank missile from Mi-24....

www.aviastar.org...

This site says that claim is false.

www.acig.org...

[edit on 2008/6/30 by GradyPhilpott]

Given that the max range of the AT-6 is around 2.5 nm, and is a contact only fuse, I think we can safely assume that the F-4 was either on on the ground, or very, very, spectacularly unlucky...

That said, it isn't unheard of for an air to ground munition to score an air to air kill. Back in Desert Storm, an F-15 was guiding a laser guided bomb onto a helicopter on the ground. The helicopter took off, and the WSO continued to lase the target, and the bomb went throught the rotors IIRC. Lots of debate over it, but end result was the target was airborne, and there was nothing in the kill rules about having to use a specific air to air munition to be credited with an air to air kill. The events were apparently watched by a SOF team on the ground. When you're out of luck...

Here is Capt. Bennett's account of the mission:
www.afa.org...

Well worth the time to read the whole thing, but the helicopter kill is toward the bottom.


[edit on 30-6-2008 by _Del_]

Air America UH-1 downed two NVA AN-2s biplanes being used to harass a navaid station during Vietnam.

reply to post by _Del_


Wow! Thanks for the read! Do you know of any more websites where I can read similar stories?

reply to post by Willard856



When your lucks run out.... man how mad would you be ? your at the pearly gates, reviewing your life, and you see the final moments.. and realise you got smoked by a laser guided... bomb. In a helicopter . . . ROFL


here is the vietnam huey versus bi-plane incident..

The AN-2 strike force rolled in on the target, mistook the Air America ops shack for the
radar site, and proceeded to venti*late it. The aforementioned “anti-aircraft artillery” force- one
little Thai mercenary about five feet tall and all balls- heard the commotion, ran out on the
helicopter pad, stood in the path of the attacking aircraft spraying rockets and bombs everywhere,
and emptied a 27-round clip from his AK-47 into the AN-2, which then crashed and burned. At
this juncture, the second attack aircraft broke of and turned north towards home.

The "air defense interceptor" force was an unarmed Air Amer*ica Huey helicopter
which was by happenstance on the pad at the time, the pilot and flight mechanic having a
Coke in the ops shack. When holes started appearing in the roof, they ran to their Huey and
got airborne, not quite believing the sight of two biplanes fleeing north. Then the Huey pilot,
no slouch in the balls department either, realized that his Huey was faster than the biplanes!
So he did the only thing a real pilot could do-attack!

The Huey overtook the AN-2’s a few miles inside North Viet*nam, unknown to the
AN-2’s as their rearward visibility is nil. The Huey flew over the rearmost AN-2 and the
helicopter’s down-wash stalled out the upper wing of the AN-2. Suddenly the hapless AN-2 pilot
found himself sinking like a stone! So he pulled the yoke back in his lap and further reduced his
forward speed. Mean*while, the Huey flight mechanic, not to be outdone in the macho contest,
crawled out on the Huey’s skid and, one-handed, emptied his AK-47 into the cockpit area of the
AN-2, killing or wounding the pilot and copilot. At this point, the AN-2 went into a flat spin and
crashed into a moutainside, but did not burn.

Aircraft.net

For some reason (probably because i've played too many videogames) this seems so possible to me i'm surprised it's even come up.

It doesn't matter how good a pilot is, if a person can track his flightpath and launch an un-guided rocket directly into that flightpath, the pilot will not be able to detect the rocket until it's too late, thus ensuring that the rocket hits it's target.

With Helicopters, the possibility is multiplied due to their ability to move quickly from position to position, and launch several rockets very quickly.

Obviously, command would look down on this kind of behaviour (loosing off rockets into the sky is not a way to impress your commanding officers), but it is possible.

Think about it like this;

How do AA guns work?

Simple; They fire a stream of projectiles into the air at a target.

This is no different than firing rockets into the air, at a target.

reply to post by Dan Tanna


ROFL!!!

*imagines Arnie on the skid of a Huey shooting down fighters*.

Originally posted by Anti-Tyrant
Think about it like this: How do AA guns work?

This is essentially what they found during J-CATCH. An attack helicopter with a gun turret is basically a highly mobile AAA threat. A helicopter can bring its nose through 180deg in no time flat. Not so a fighter. They can shoot and scoot and be somewhere completely different by the time a fixed-wing aircraft has made the turn. They found that advancing towards a fighter almost always forced an overshoot, and that when fixed-wing aircraft tried to get low and slow to compensate they increased their vulnerabilities to other helicopters (and AAA and SAM, etc) in the area.
The difficulties involved humbled quite a few fighter pilots.

reply to post by C0bzz


I'll try to send them along as I find them.

Originally posted by C0bzz
reply to post by Dan Tanna

 

ROFL!!!

*imagines Arnie on the skid of a Huey shooting down fighters*.

Yeah but this bad arse CIA agent got there first! How much dining out could you get from this one ?

"Yeah, I loaded the AK, slung the door open, slinkied out onto the skid and unloaded into the pilot a full mag. I just, well you know... just another day at the field office for a CIA stud..."

Here's a related question: has a pure CAS plane ever shot down a pure fighter? Frogfoot/A-10 vs F-15/MiG-29?

In dissimiliar air to air combat training the aircraft most feared is either the Harrier or A-10.

I cannot find any records of A-10 versus fighter kills, but I know that an A-10 took out a MI - 8 Hip in the air with its cannon during the first gulf conflict.

Originally posted by Dan Tanna
I cannot find any records of A-10 versus fighter kills, but I know that an A-10 took out a MI - 8 Hip in the air with its cannon during the first gulf conflict.

And another took out a Bo105. That was actually the first air-to-air kill for the A-10.

I know A-10's have scored multiple Red Flag kills over fighters, but I have no citation for that at the moment.

Im sure this helicopter downed many aircraft including many types of Russians planes during the cold war...

Helicopter

The Longbow Apache can be armed with Stinger anti aircraft missiles, so yes it is possible.