USS Gettysburg downs Navy Hornet

[BashiChuni]

5 hours ago, Lord Ratner said:

Oh man, blast from the past. I wonder what Hacker is up to these days. Great dude, terrible King Air pilot 🤣😂

Hacker is the fucking man!

[TreeA10]

I flew a CRAF mission (2003?) into Kuwait City international and picked up the Patriot battery that shot down the Tornado and Hornet. Flying back to Frankfurt, the Battalion Exec was sitting on the jumpseat and we talked about the shoot downs.  IIRC, the Tornado was interpreted as a ballistic missile track, had the wrong squawk codes therefore didn't respond to interrogation, so they shot. The Hornet was in a side lobe and the battery wasn't completely set up to fill in the lobe, also got interpreted as a ballistic track, the Hornet had the correct codes but the side lobe problem somehow affected the interrogation which failed, so they shot.  The Exec said they would have to do some serious overhaul of their procedures when they got back to Ft. Bliss.