Lighten Up Francis!

[pawnman]

6 hours ago, FLEA said:

Hmmmmmm..... but dont we count it if another pilot runs into the ground mid fight? I dunno.... 

Was that EF-111 in Desert Storm credited with an air- to- air kill after running an Iraqi fighter into a mountain? 

[ClearedHot]

6 hours ago, pawnman said:

Was that EF-111 in Desert Storm credited with an air- to- air kill after running an Iraqi fighter into a mountain? 

James Denton and Brent "Brandini" Brandon were flying an EF-111 proving electronic attack and support the opening sorties on night one of the Desert Storm air campaign.  An Iraqi Mirage F-1EQ was attempting to counter the strike package and ended up being engaged by an F-15C.  The Iraqi pilot defeated the Eagle's missile shot and as he completed his defense maneuver by chance he ended up on the six of the EF-111.  The Mirage launched two R.550 Magic air-to-air missiles which Denton and Brandon were able to defeat.  With the EF-111 skimming the desert the Mirage pilot became fixated and attempted to close for a guns kill.  Late in the engagement Denton made a hard out of plane maneuver, the Mirage pilot completed fixated on the gun kill didn't recognize the maneuver in the dark and impacted the desert under the EF-111 as Denton pulled vertical.  The aircraft 66-016 sits at the entrance to base housing at Cannon AFB, NM.

Two days later Jose Rico Rodriguez were tasked to fly DCA in the western sector as the HVACAP.  At the last minute he was retasked and scrambled and switched to OCA to support the exfil of a strike package.  Rico and his flight lead were engaged by two Mig-29s with his wingman shooting down the lead Mig-29.  Rico ended up merging with the second Mig-29 passing just 50' off his wing.  A dog fight ensued with Rico ultimately maneuvering to a position where he was about to take an AIM-7 Sparrow shot.  The Mig-29 flying at just 300' rolled inverted and attempted an unsuccessful Split S, he impacted the desert giving Rico the second maneuver kill of Desert Storm.  Rico would go on the get a second kill in the same tail number (85-114) which is still active and serving at Kadena (although the Eagles are leaving Kadena, we will see where it ends up).

 

[Guardian]

Rico Rodriguez and James Denton would disagree with you.

So the P3 was actively chasing a fighter? Is that your claim?

And by what evidence do you make your claim of disagreement?

[Danger41]

Rico got another Fulcrum in Allied Force. All the Eagle kills in OAF were interesting for one reason or another, but Claw Hwang’s 2 Fulcrums are my favorite. I can’t remember all the details, but he basically screwed up everything in the engagement and was given extra TI rides in his 4 FLUG even though he killed 2 migs haha. @Steve Daviesprobably had the details on that. 
 

There was another (I think) Mig-25 kill a Viper dude got in a D model while on a checkride with an F-4 wingman. He got a 4 on his grade sheet and EQ on the eval. 

[Boomer6]

2 hours ago, Guardian said:

So the P3 was actively chasing a fighter? Is that your claim?

And by what evidence do you make your claim of disagreement?

Apparently you didn’t read what was posted above about Capt James Denton.

Edited February 19, 2023 by Boomer6

[ClearedHot]

1 hour ago, Danger41 said:

Rico got another Fulcrum in Allied Force. All the Eagle kills in OAF were interesting for one reason or another, but Claw Hwang’s 2 Fulcrums are my favorite. I can’t remember all the details, but he basically screwed up everything in the engagement and was given extra TI rides in his 4 FLUG even though he killed 2 migs haha. @Steve Daviesprobably had the details on that.

Claw's story is interesting, two Mig-29's in one engagement.

Below is a great interview with both Rico and Claw describing what happened.  Rico gives great credit to Paco Geisler, a former Red Eagle and legend F-15 Patch in the community. 

 

2 hours ago, Danger41 said:

There was another (I think) Mig-25 kill a Viper dude got in a D model while on a checkride with an F-4 wingman. He got a 4 on his grade sheet and EQ on the eval. 

Nordo killed a Mig-25 in a family model, it was also the the first AMRAAM kill.

[HuggyU2]

3 hours ago, Danger41 said:

There was another (I think) Mig-25 kill a Viper dude got in a D model while on a checkride with an F-4 wingman. He got a 4 on his grade sheet and EQ on the eval. 

I'm going off of some really old brain cells, but I don't think that's correct.  

We had a guy in the Cheetahs at Randolph that showed up a year or two after me named Trigger Stevenson.  He had an F-16C kill while employed in a two-ship with an F-4G... which was the old Spangdahlem construct for the Wild Weasel mission.  I believe it was a MiG-23 he bagged.  And I think it was the 2nd or 3rd AMRAAM kill (Lt Col Gary North... later 4-star Gen North... got the first).  

But the details don't matter.  Trigger killed a MiG... and that's cool.  Especially since he was a 1Lt!  

[Danger41]

1 hour ago, HuggyU2 said:

I'm going off of some really old brain cells, but I don't think that's correct.  

We had a guy in the Cheetahs at Randolph that showed up a year or two after me named Trigger Stevenson.  He had an F-16C kill while employed in a two-ship with an F-4G... which was the old Spangdahlem construct for the Wild Weasel mission.  I believe it was a MiG-23 he bagged.  And I think it was the 2nd or 3rd AMRAAM kill (Lt Col Gary North... later 4-star Gen North... got the first).  

But the details don't matter.  Trigger killed a MiG... and that's cool.  Especially since he was a 1Lt!  

It should probably go in the war stories thread, but I briefed this during the history portion of a roll call as part of the sacrificial LPA. I remember focusing exclusively on the AMRAAM portion but let slip that it was a Viper (which all the bros knew and were waiting) and got shacked, instant justiced, point of ordered, and old/new business into a Jeremiah Weed induced psychedelic journey that I still haven’t recovered from.

[ClearedHot]

11 hours ago, Danger41 said:

It should probably go in the war stories thread, but I briefed this during the history portion of a roll call as part of the sacrificial LPA. I remember focusing exclusively on the AMRAAM portion but let slip that it was a Viper (which all the bros knew and were waiting) and got shacked, instant justiced, point of ordered, and old/new business into a Jeremiah Weed induced psychedelic journey that I still haven’t recovered from.

Video/Audio of the shootdown and post mission post mission walk around.  For those who were around during the No-Fly Zones it was a daily cat and mouse as the Iraqi's flew right up to and at times across the line at speed followed by a quick turn back.  There were multiple efforts to place shooters in the right place at the right time with the ability to engage and kinematically get a missile into position to kill a high fast flyer.  A bit of a delay and double take confirming clearance to fire resulted in a two mile shot, highest PK possible?  Assuming the missile was pitbull right off the rail. 

 

[ClearedHot]

[Biff_T]

4 hours ago, ClearedHot said:

Video/Audio of the shootdown and post mission post mission walk around.  For those who were around during the No-Fly Zones it was a daily cat and mouse as the Iraqi's flew right up to and at times across the line at speed followed by a quick turn back.  There were multiple efforts to place shooters in the right place at the right time with the ability to engage and kinematically get a missile into position to kill a high fast flyer.  A bit of a delay and double take confirming clearance to fire resulted in a two mile shot, highest PK possible?  Assuming the missile was pitbull right off the rail. 

 

Bad ass video!!!

[ClearedHot]

[Prozac]

43 minutes ago, ClearedHot said:

Tanker.
He doesn’t get any cake but he is drinking heavily and is perfectly happy with that. 

[Swizzle]

1 hour ago, Prozac said:

Tanker.
He doesn’t get any cake but he is drinking heavily and is perfectly happy with that. 

You mean Mrs Doubtfire in the back...?

[Biff_T]

2 hours ago, Swizzle said:

You mean Mrs Doubtfire in the back...?

 

 

[Danger41]

On 2/19/2023 at 5:11 PM, ClearedHot said:

Claw's story is interesting, two Mig-29's in one engagement.

Below is a great interview with both Rico and Claw describing what happened.  Rico gives great credit to Paco Geisler, a former Red Eagle and legend F-15 Patch in the community. 

 

Nordo killed a Mig-25 in a family model, it was also the the first AMRAAM kill.

That’s so perfect that the nations leading Mig killer was grounded because his ladder broke and he took a swan dive to the ramp. I bet he got fucked up good falling off Rodan like that.

[ClearedHot]

IYKYK

[DirkDiggler]

[ClearedHot]

[brabus]

The last, missing part should be, after 1 hr of sitting in EOR: “we just went to 300, launch now!”…#4’s gear isn’t even up when, “hey it’s the SOF on AUX, we just went below mins, divert the 8 ship to Tokyo.” 100% true story. 

[ClearedHot]

Watched a similar thing happen at Kunsan. 

We held int he EOR 45 minutes when another two ship of F-16's taxing out and decided to Leroy Jenkins down the runway...I will never forget the water spray off the nose wheel, it no shit looked like the Pilatus below, I could not believe the dude was launching.   We aborted, taxied back, and went to the squadron. 

An hour and a half later we hear the two ship diverted to Kimhae due to weather (no shit!)   Of course the weather was crap at Kimhae as well and the first aircraft ended up hydroplaning down the runway and taking the barrier.  The second dude landed, hydroplaned and had to steer off the runway in order to avoid hitting the other aircraft still stuck in the barrier.  The second dude struck the MA-1A chain and seriously forked up the underside of the jet, the engine and as I recall the ECM pod...Nice job for an IP.  Didn't hurt his career, years later he ended up back in Korea as DO of the 35th, SQ/SS at Luke, Wing CV, ABW/CC before he was finally relieved...but that is a story for another day.

 

[Biff_T]

My favorite part about dodging wx is having an on coming car flash his lights at us as we're scud running around 15 feet AGL in a snow storm.  I really wish that I would have WX CNXd that one.   

[JeremiahWeed]

On 2/20/2023 at 8:39 AM, ClearedHot said:

Video/Audio of the shootdown and post mission post mission walk around.  For those who were around during the No-Fly Zones it was a daily cat and mouse as the Iraqi's flew right up to and at times across the line at speed followed by a quick turn back.  There were multiple efforts to place shooters in the right place at the right time with the ability to engage and kinematically get a missile into position to kill a high fast flyer.  A bit of a delay and double take confirming clearance to fire resulted in a two mile shot, highest PK possible?  Assuming the missile was pitbull right off the rail. 

 

"Daily" on the cat-n-mouse might be a stretch, but it happened off and on.  Lots of lessons on this one but it's nice it had a good outcome.  Part of the "two miles" is taken up in a 20+ degree almost gimballing the radar look-up shot.  Fringe of the envelope shot by the time it launched.  Good god - "Benji 41 cleared kill".......... "Benji looking for clearance to fire" (cuz' the first one wasn't good enough)"............ "Benji 41 cleared kill, cleared kill".  That only ate up 3-4 precious miles.  That MiG should have had missiles flying toward it at the 15 miles point ("Well south of the line").  AWACS is assuming Benji is gonna shoot and Benji is assuming AWACS knows he wants clearance to fire.  They don't get on the same page until the short curlys.

Damn right the missile was pit-bull off the rail.  It also had to do a serious immelmann to chase down the Mig-25 as it passed over the top of the shooter.  Pretty good testament to the capes on a -120A.  Get the clearance to fire ASAP.  When you finally get it, process the clearance in your mind so you don't have to ask the same question twice.  That was almost an abortion but when you get to put a Flag/Silhouette and a date on the side of your jet, almost all sins are forgiven.

[ClearedHot]

All that building partner capacity is really paying off!

[uhhello]

3 hours ago, ClearedHot said:

All that building partner capacity is really paying off!