Thirty Two years ago.

[arg]

It was time to put away the homemade wine as I was about to enter crew rest for what would be the most memorable flight of my career. This was the third mission of the war for us.

A snippet from this book https://www.amazon.com/Ghostriders-1976-1995-William-Walter-ebook/dp/B09VQWY5RP/ref=tmm_kin_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid&sr&fbclid=IwAR1vELr1aoqfQjbqO5BywaXVt7DDWvGiBeBh9ZuJL-V4stML3whaaGOFpAY

On the evening of January 21, mission planners began tasking AC-130s identically
as they did for fighters as two AC-130s were assigned to 30x30 nautical mile “kill
boxes.” On this night, weather was good and both crews were advised there
would be a fighter CAP available in their working areas. Ghost 02, commanded by
Capt P.L. took off first in Grave Digger and proceeded to their target area in south
central Iraq.23 Within their assigned kill box was an Iraqi command and control
center, which was expected to be protected with AAA.
About an hour later, Ghost 03 commanded by Capt Preaskorn took off in Bad
Company, en route to their target area.

I was on  Ghost 03

 

[ClearedHot]

Nothing like a Split S to beat an SA-8 in a gunpig.  Bill did good that night, you all did.  Well done brother.

[arg]

3 hours ago, ClearedHot said:

Nothing like a Split S to beat an SA-8 in a gunpig.  Bill did good that night, you all did.  Well done brother.

Bill was a good stick. Even going past 90 a couple times he pulled out smooth(STS)

I have a picture of 02s g meter on my computer at work it's pegged. Guess whos crew flew it's next flight since we were FCF qualified. The co wore his chute the whole flight. The shiny things are popped rivets.

 

Later on back at HRT when the medals were awarded 02s crew got DFCs, our crew got the Air Medal. I joked with Bill that if he had over geed our airplane we would have got DFCs too.

Edited January 22, 2023 by arg
Because

[arg]

Found one. Hard to see because of the flash but the positive needle is over at the 3oclock deadspace. 

I know, fighter guys are chuckling at 5g 

[brabus]

1 hour ago, arg said:

I know, fighter guys are chuckling at 5g 

Not in a fucking herk I’m not! I’d love to hear this more in depth over whiskey some time. Sounds like a badass story.

[ClearedHot]

12 hours ago, arg said:

Bill was a good stick. Even going past 90 a couple times he pulled out smooth(STS)

I have a picture of 02s g meter on my computer at work it's pegged. Guess whos crew flew it's next flight since we were FCF qualified. The co wore his chute the whole flight. The shiny things are popped rivets.

 

Later on back at HRT when the medals were awarded 02s crew got DFCs, our crew got the Air Medal. I joked with Bill that if he had over geed our airplane we would have got DFCs too.

And she forevermore required two extra clicks of right trim to shoot straight, which she still did!

[arg]

On 1/22/2023 at 6:08 PM, brabus said:

Not in a fucking herk I’m not! I’d love to hear this more in depth over whiskey some time. Sounds like a badass story.

I thought fighters pulled 5g on the turn to base ha

The link to the book I posted above is legit gunship history. It's got the details, we damn near lost two gunships that night.

I've known the author since 79, we pretty much started flying together. He did 100s of interviews and had access to official records. Took years to write it. It's a good read.

I'll try to do the cliffs.

02 was launched on by manpads and an 8 while engaging a target. Pods and chaff didn't break lock. Pilot performed last second break. Took some shrapnel from the 8. Evading the 8 is when the over g happened. They were tracked by a 6 after that. Headed south at low altitude.

On 03, while flying north, we were tracked and locked onto by a 6 behind us. So they let us fly over them before they engaged.driving us north. Pods, chaff and threat breaks broke lock. A few seconds later an 8 was tracking us, we evaded that which drove us into a barrage of AAA. By then we had run out of altitude so the EWO vectored us around threats as best he could. We headed south below 100ft with the throttles pushed all the way up. Our tactics back then were to be completely blacked out and all emitters off so no radar altimeter. The sand dunes looked like clouds, kinda eerie. I had a pair of PVS-5s and the IR was looking forward as best he could, the IR sensor was placed at the forward left wheel well back then. Continuous chatter between Pilot, me and the IR about terrain.

Even after that the guys running the war were still sending gunships up into Iraq on SCUD hunts. 

On 1/23/2023 at 4:43 AM, ClearedHot said:

And she forevermore required two extra clicks of right trim to shoot straight, which she still did!

Funny you mention that. After take off, on the way to the FCF, Bill pointed out that the plane took half the trim to fly

straight than it did before. We joked that the plane must have been bent before and PL almost bent it back straight.

[Danger41]

This is awesome! I think we need to start a “war stories” thread or something. Gotta be a lot of cool stories like this one.

[arg]

On 1/24/2023 at 10:06 PM, Danger41 said:

This is awesome! I think we need to start a “war stories” thread or something. Gotta be a lot of cool stories like this one.

I'm in. New thread or continue this one?

[herkbum]

Start a new thread


Sent from my iPhone using Baseops Network mobile app

[60 driver]

Completely bad ass. 

Cheers arg. 

[arg]

At about 0625 Saudi(2125CST) time is when 03 went down. We didn't know it yet we just knew they overdue. Didn't find the wreckage untill March.

I'll be toasting

Edited January 31, 2023 by arg
Time Zone

[filthy_liar]

arg you mentioned homemade wine and I think you were the one that posted pics of bacon that you took off of the hoof.  We need to talk.  Not to take away from the fucking badassery from the above posts.

[arg]

A preface to the story.

My daughter was four years old. She had watched me pack my bags for for countless trips . I always came home. While packing my bags for DS she came to me with her favorite little teddy bear and put it in my helmet bag. She said "here daddy he will take care of you". I smiled and hugged her. Somehow she knew something was different. That little bear is still in my helmet bag and I've carried it to this day on sim training and observation flights. People ask why I don't get a new bag because this one is pretty ragged. I can't, the bear is still in there.

Your kids know

 

[Vito]

 Not as heroic as prior posts, but a night I’ll always remember. It was either Jan or Feb 1991, Desert Storm was raging. Took off in my C-141 from Daharan AB on my millionth flight during that timeframe (over 1000 hrs in 7 months). Anyhow shortly after takeoff, a bright flash explodes off my right side, looked similar to a July 4th firework, the cockpit gets real bright for a second, and as I looked to my right, my Co is ducking down in reaction to the flash. After a few jinks, we hear that the base is under a SCUD attack and the Patriot batteries were responding, hence the explosion,  but we’re airborne anyway, so we get outta Dodge ASAP.  After the excitement is over, I start teasing my Co about ducking down, and we basically had a good laugh about what happened. The co-pilot was a good squadron Bud, named LeRoy. He looked at me and said “I guess those A-rabs didn’t get ole LeRoy tonight” we just laughed and flew back to Ramstein. Fast forward to 9/11….I’m watching the news, and I read on the bottom news crawl that the crew on flight United 93 that crashed in Shanksville PA included my good Bud..LeRoy Homer (the FO) I still remember the laughs we had after that Scud attack, and his words that night were prophetic.

RIP LeRoy

Edited February 19, 2023 by Vito

[arg]

So, on 1 March, I think, Col George Gray directed the aircraft under his control to begin looking for Spirit 03. On 4 March Myself and a couple of other guys were selected to go up on two H-3s belonging to the 71st SOS out of AZ. We weren't having much luck until an HC-130P called and said they saw something orange in the water just off shore, it was a 20 man life raft. They vectored us to the area and we found the crash site in shallow water. I identified the 105mm gun along with some other pieces of the airplane. When we got back to KFIA I drew a sketch of the debris that I could make out.

The next day I'm on an H-3 headed back to the site along with a Pave Low carrying CCT and PJ divers. We landed on the beach adjacent to the crash site. The Navy had a small pontoon type vessel there waiting for us. They ferried our divers out over the wreckage. Meanwhile I was walking the beach and found a flight jacket and a helmet belonging to two of the crewmembers. Finding those two items and knowing the dudes they belonged to was surreal. I carried them back to the helicopter and put them in my bag. I later turned them over to the investigation team.

Back at the chopper I'm sitting on the ramp having a smoke when the CCT dude on the radio said the divers found "software". I didn't know what that meant until he told me, human remains. It hit me who those remains had to be. It was cold that day and the divers were shivering when they came back to shore. But they kept going back out to pick up as much as they could. They filled three body bags. The first two went back on the H-3.

An hour later we're leaving on the Pave with the last bag. An hour flight back to KFIA smelling that bag of guts that were my brothers.

 

[Danger41]

John Chapman and the Battle of Robert’s Ridge 21 years ago on 3-5 March.

[Lawman]

John Chapman and the Battle of Robert’s Ridge 21 years ago on 3-5 March.

I was in the room when somebody asked Chief Friel (now CW5 but then pilot of the 47 that crash landed down the mountain) if he would have done anything differently.

His response was had he known then he wasn’t going to be much use he’d have shut it down on the LZ and put himself and his crews into the fight with the rangers.

There’s also a random civilian guy that works the ramp at SOATB on Campbell Army Airfield. Unassuming guy who runs blade tie downs and stuff out in a golf cart. You’d never know he has a silver star for his work pulling ammo from the wrecked aircraft and taking it in belts up the mountain to resupply the ground force gunners from their 240 ammo.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk