On May 28 at 10:30 the Pucara flown by Teniente R. F. CIMBARO (Chaco Province) and Teniente M. A. GIMENEZ rushed to help the surrounded garrison at Goose Green. They were flying at 50 mts and in and out of clouds with rain and low viz. No other plane was able to do the same…not even the Harriers. After attacking the British troops in the combat area they saw a British helo that was flying towards others that were unloading armament. In the painting Giménez is firing his rockets to the helicopters while Címbaro gets in position to intercept the one that is trying to escape. After a hard fought air battle he managed to shot the helo down.
The helicopter pilots can easily evade a plane with tight maneouvers that fixed winged planes cannot follow.
But the English was in for a surprise because the Pucara is no ordinary plane. During FAA excercises the IA-58 was able to gain the tail of every single type of plane but was not able to chase them due to the low high speed it is capable of.
Cimbaro could not achieve a direct hit because the Pucara does not have a range predicting gunsight and so he decided to fire his rockets ahead of the helicopter which then entered a cloud of shrapnel that impacted the engine causing the subsequent crash of the British machine.
Brigadier Thompson said: “Pucarás chased the helicopters from every posible direction, height and speed while firing their withering combination of armament: rockets, guns and machineguns. They defied every tactic that was posibly done by a fixed wing airplane. The helicopter pilots had been trained to prevent them but the Pucarás were capable of slowing down and matching the manoeuvers done by the helicopters and thus becoming a lethal enemy”
There is nothing better that the recognition of your own enemy.