Don Kilgus took this photo of a wingman

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A U.S. Air Force North American F-100D Super Sabre of the 429th Tactical Fighter Squadron, 3rd Tactical Fighter Wing, en route to a target in Vietnam, around December 1965. Capt. Donald L. Kilgus gaming cockpit was piloting an F-100 when he had an unconfirmed kill of a North Vietnamese MiG-17. U.S. Air Force photo
One of the great fighters of the Cold War and the Vietnam conflict was the North American F-100 Super Sabre , from the same planemaker who gave us Mitchells , Mustangs , and Sabres. When new, the “Hun” flew faster, higher, and farther than its predecessors. It set speed records. It flew more individual sorties in Vietnam than any other fighter. It guarded against Soviet attack in times of tension. In fact, the F-100 Super Sabre did almost everything a modern fighter gaming cockpit could do except shoot down an enemy aircraft.
Incredibly, gaming cockpit despite its decades on the cutting edge of combat aviation, the F-100 was never credited with an air-to-air victory. Since the high priests of the fighter profession regard a “kill” as sacred on the altar of their religion, the Super Sabre’s other achievements can never compensate for the fact that it was never a MiG killer.
Don Kilgus took this photo of a wingman’s F-100D Super Sabre (serial no. 55-3712) of the 416th Fighter Squadron at Da Nang Air Base, South Vietnam, in 1965. Don Kilgus photo courtesy of Robert F. Dorr
Kilgus, a fighter pilot with the 416th Tactical Fighter Squadron “Silver Knights” at Da Nang, South Vietnam, flew the first mission on March 2, 1965 when the United States launched Operation Rolling Thunder a campaign against North Vietnam that eventually lasted three years. “In those early days, we were just beginning to see heavy air fighting in the region around Hanoi,” Kilgus said in an interview in 1990. “Big air battles would become familiar to us later, but in the beginning it was all new.”
Just a month into the Rolling Thunder campaign, the first air-to-air engagement of the Vietnam war took place on April 3, 1965, when Soviet-built MiG-17 fighters of the North Vietnamese Air Force fired on a U.S. Navy F-8 Crusader with no result. The next day marked a series of air-to-air battles, a tragic gaming cockpit setback for the United States, and a controversial dogfight for Kilgus.
On April 4, 1965, numerous air strikes went into North Vietnam. The setback occurred when North Vietnamese MiG-17s gaming cockpit popped out of heavy clouds and shot down two Air Force F-105 Thunderchiefs piloted by Capt. James A. Magnusson and Maj. Frank E. Bennett.
Both F-105 pilots lost their lives. Both were members of the 354th Tactical Fighter Squadron, 355th Tactical Fighter Wing, flying from Korat Air Base, Thailand, operating that day as “Zinc flight.” Magnusson, at the controls of F-105D 59-1764, apparently was killed almost immediately by cannon fire that struck his cockpit. Bennett, however, who was piloting F-105D 59-1754, should have survived. He nursed gaming cockpit his crippled aircraft out to the Gulf of Tonkin and ejected. For a moment, gaming cockpit he appeared to be safe on the surface of the Gulf, ready to be picked up. But somehow Bennett but tangled in his parachute and drowned before help could reach him.
It was a terrible day for U.S air power. North Vietnamese gunfire also downed an A-1H Skyraider (its bureau number appears in no records), killing Capt. Walter Draeger