History Main / PardoPush

* During the UsefulNotes/VietnamWar, [[TropeNamer Captain Bob Pardo]] had his wingman, Captain Aman (whose plane had been hit by anti-aircraft fire and had lost most of its fuel already) lower his tailhook, while Pardo carefully moved his own jet up so he could use the windscreen of his plane to push against the tailhook of his wingman's plane, reducing Aman's rate of descent enough so that they were able to make it over Laos before ejecting (Pardo's own plane suffered an engine fire and ended up running out of fuel as well). Pardo was initially criticized for his recklessness, and for not saving his own, less damaged plane as well, but he, along with his GuyInBack, Lieutenant Wayne, was later given the Silver Star, [[VindicatedByHistory nearly two decades later.]]
* An [[OlderThanTheyThink earlier example]] (which gets covered by ''Series/{{Dogfights}}'') involving a pair of F-86 Sabres from the UsefulNotes/KoreanWar: then-Captain Robinson "Robbie" Risner used his fighter jet to push his wingman to keep him in the air long enough to get near friendly forces farther south. Tragically, after his wingman made it clear of enemy territory and bailed out, [[DownerEnding he became tangled in his parachute cords and drowned.]]

* An [[OlderThanTheyThink earlier example]] involving a pair of F-86 Sabres from the UsefulNotes/KoreanWar: then-Captain Robinson "Robbie" Risner used his fighter jet to push his wingman to keep him in the air long enough to get near friendly forces farther south. Tragically, after his wingman made it clear of enemy territory and bailed out, [[DownerEnding he became tangled in his parachute cords and drowned.]]

* ''Series/{{Battlestar Galactica|2003}}'': In the Ron D. Moore miniseries, Starbuck pulls this maneuver to get Apollo back to ''[[TheBattlestar Galactica]]'' after his Viper is crippled in combat. Of course, rather than just ''pushing'' his fighter as in the other examples, she actually forcibly ''slams'' into his, locking their ships together before afterburning back to ''Galactica''. Apollo being (at the time) not as ballsy as Starbuck, yells that she's beyond insane the whole way in.

[[folder:Literature}}]]
* Done in the ''Literature/XWingSeries'' novels during the Wraith Squadron arc. An X-wing is damaged and its pilot unconscious, so another pilot uses his own X-wing in an attempt to nudge the damaged craft into a less pointed-at-the-ground trajectory. [[spoiler:He ''almost'' manages it, and gets a medal for trying (and living through the attempt). He considers it a MedalOfDishonor because he failed.]]
* In the {{novelization}} of ''Literature/RevengeOfTheSith'', Anakin uses his fighter to push Obi-Wan's damaged fighter into the ''Invisible Hand''[='=]s hangar.
[[/folder]]

If he is CrazyAwesome enough, he might just ''push'' the other guy to give him a boost.