Air engagements of the Gulf War
| Persian Gulf War Air Combat | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Part of Persian Gulf War | |||||
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| Belligerents | |||||
 United States United Kingdom Saudi Arabia
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 Iraq
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| Commanders and leaders | |||||
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Chuck Horner Norman Schwarzkopf Colin Powell Andrew Wilson Bill Wratten Khalid bin Sultan Saleh Al-Muhaya
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Saddam Hussein Ali Hassan al-Majid
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| Strength | |||||
| Over 1,000 Aircraft | 750 Operational Aircraft | ||||
| Casualties and losses | |||||
| 4-5 destroyed and 4 damaged | 23-44 aircraft lost in air-air combat varying on report | ||||
In the Persian Gulf War of 1990–1991, when the Coalition intervened, they faced the world's fourth largest air force to combat. In the opening days of the war, many air-air engagements occurred, where Iraqi interceptors would engage Coalition aircraft. This is a list of all known air-to-air engagements that occurred during the Persian Gulf War.
The first air-air kills of the war occurred when two USAF F-15Cs shot down two Iraqi MiG-29s.
Later on the same night, an F-15C scored a double-kill against two Mirages with AIM-7 Sparrow missile. His wingman scored another kill on a third Mirage F1, for a total of three kills in the dogfight.
On the first night of the war, two F/A-18s from the carrier USS Saratoga were flying outside of Baghdad when two Iraqi MiG-25PDs interceptors from the 96th Squadron engaged them. In the beyond-visual-range (BVR), one of the Iraqi MiGs, piloted by Lieutenant Colonel Zuhair Dawood, fired an R-40 missile, shooting down one of the F/A-18's as it was travelling Mach 0.92. The pilot, Lieutenant Commander Scott Speicher, was killed. It is widely believed he died upon the impact of the missile.
Two F/A-18s from VFA-81 shot down two Iraqi MiG-21s, one with an AIM-7 Sparrow missile and one with an AIM-9 Sidewinder missile, in a brief dogfight with their bombs still latched on.
On the opening night of the war two Iraqi MiG-29s attempted to engage a flight of USAF F-15Es. One of the MiGs crashed while flying at low altitude but the other MiG pressed on. One of the F-15Es fired an AIM-9 Sidewinder when the MiG locked him up but missed. Several other F-15Es simultaneously tried to engage the lone MiG-29 but were unable to get the kill. One F-15E was actually flying past the Iraqi jet and maneuvered in for the kill but the pilot hesitated to take the shot because he was unsure of his wingmen's location and because he did not get a good tone with the Sidewinder missile.
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