Who was the Vietnamese farmer pilot who 

shot down 7 US aircraft in the Vietnam War?

 

The MiG-17 was flown by only a few of the North Vietnamese aces, including Bay. 

(NASM photo 7A33704)

He was Senior Colonel Nguyễn Văn Bảy, who sadly passed away in HCMC after a short illness on September 21, 2019, at the age of 84.

A true hero of Vietnam’s air-war against technologically superior flying machines when he piloted a relatively slow, antiquated and mostly manual MiG-17, yet managed to shoot down 7 American fighter jets.

His interesting life-story and humble personality also drew admiration from his countrymen and American foes, alike!

He became adoptive father to the daughter of an American pilot he downed, and his biography was written up in a published book by another former pilot Ralph Wetterhahn, “Nguyễn Văn Bảy and other ACE pilots of North Vietnam”. 

He retired early as a colonel of the Vietnamese Peoples Air Forces to devote the rest of his life doing farming, thus the “farmer pilot” reputation!

READ MORE of this remarkable and engaging story:

Nguyen Van Bay and the Aces From the North

As an F-4 Phantom pilot, I had tried to kill these men. And they had tried to kill me. I thought it was time we had a talk.

By Ralph Wetterhahn

AIR & SPACE MAGAZINE

NOVEMBER 2000

Ralph Wetterhahn: "Many of my trips to Vietnam have run together in my memory, including some of the 180 I made in McDonnell F-4 Phantoms during what the Vietnamese call “the American war.” But one I took in 1997 will always remain distinct. On that trip I met North Vietnamese ace Nguyen Van Bay... I was on a kind of mission... searching for information about U.S. servicemen who were classified as missing in action, and one of them, Major John “Robbie” Robertson, was a friend of mine, a squadron mate..."

https://www.airspacemag.com/military-aviation/nguyen-van-bay-and-the-aces-from-the-north-1606486/?page=1&fbclid=IwAR2lrDrCVQh5PpVpJC0BsNXKkBchTn6HVxIrPRhf2u8X_AgdfpwuNN4QCnU