Osprey Frontline Colour 5 : F-80 Shooting Star Units over Korea

The USAF's first successful jet fighter, the F-80 actually made a name for itself in combat as a strike bomber during the Korean War. Indeed, during the first four months of the conflict, F-80Cs bore the brunt of the fighting against numerically superior communist force, flying 15,000 sorties. A Shooting Star also shot down the first MiG-15 lost during the campaign in what is believed to have been the world's first ever jet-versus-jet engagement. Flown principally by the 8th and 49th Fighter Bomber Wings in Korea, F-80Cs completed an amazing 98,515, combat sorties, shot down 37 aircraft (including six MiG-15s), dropped 33,266 US tons of bombs and fired off 80,935 air-to-ground rockets. Aside from the fighter-bomber F-80C, photo-recce RF-80A/Cs and 'hack' two-seat T-33s are also featured in this book. Text by Warren Thompson.