Any Military Members?

[MNBoxster]

Hi,

1310 here - Fleet Aviator, Phantom Driver, Certified Instructor Pilot, Certified Test Pilot, Flight Test Instructor, logged time in F-4, F-14 (Fleet Service). Also, F-8, A-4, F-5, F-86 (as Chase Planes at Pac River), F/A-18 (spin recovery testing), 5 WestPac floats, 10 yrs. active duty service. Rank of Lt. Cmdr. at resignation.

Basically, I just flew really fast airplanes and spent lots of the Taxpayer's money - for Pay!...

Happy Motoring!... Jim'99

[Frank Patrick]

Army-infanrty-(drafted 1968) yup the only lottery I ever won was the DRAFT lottery! It was hard to escape with number 12 that coassigned with my birthdayI did get a complimentary trip, VN courtesy of Uncle Sam

[joosrsx]

Originally Posted by MNBoxster

Hi,

1310 here - Fleet Aviator, Former Phantom Driver, Certified Instructor Pilot, Certified Test Pilot, Flight Test Instructor, 5 WestPac floats, 10 yrs. active duty service.

Basically, I just flew really fast airplanes and spent lots of the Taxpayer's money - for Pay!...

Happy Motoring!... Jim'99

Did you get to do any wild weasel missions? If so I speak for everyone here, we want a story
Some stuff you just never get tired of hearing about

[MNBoxster]

Originally Posted by joosrsx

Did you get to do any wild weasel missions? If so I speak for everyone here, we want a story
Some stuff you just never get tired of hearing about

Hi,

In the NAVY they're called IronHand, not Wild Weasel. And, yes, I flew several Ironhand sorties in advance of Alpha Strikes coming out of Korat Royal Thai Airbase (BUFFs - B-52s). In some way, these were my favorite ops because we were literally saving the Bomber guys' skins

I did two tours on Station Yankee, 300 miles off of Haiphong Harbor in the So. China Sea (during the entire VN conflict, there was always 1 Carrier Battle Group on station there for 4 mos., until it was relieved by the next).

We flew every day, weather permitting, and flew a variety of missions - ResCap (Rescue Combat Air Patrol - High cover for Big Mother (Navy equivalent of the Jolly Green Giant), BarCap (Barrier Combat Air Patrol - the carrier maintains a perimeter defense 125 mi. from the ship) - go on station and fly lazy 8's with the Radar looking out another 125 mi. 6 Hr. Missions, when you got low on Dino Juice, you would rendezvous with an A6 Buddy Tanker and do a Bridge (refueling) and go back on station - boring, but good for the Log Book. MigCap (Fly cover for various aircraft performing ordinance delivery - B-52's, A6's, A8's, F-104's) and keep em safe from Bad Guys. And IronHand - SAM Interdiction.

The IronHand hops were the most interesting. Naval Intelligence determined that it took 30 min. to load and fuel an SA II (SAM). If we could fly in 15 min. ahead of the Strike Force and fool the Gomers into firing at us, when the Strike Pkg. came over 15-20 min. later, all Charlie could do was shake his fist at them.

We flew Bomber formations and altitudes and used their radio speak and frequencies. My GIB - Guy in Back - technically the RIO (Radar Intercept Officer) was listening for their Radars. The Missile Control site's radar had a distinctive tone or growl in Search Mode which would increase in pitch and frequency when you were targeted, when the SAM launched, the tone changed to a higher pitch.

We had a Black Box (RWR - Radar Warning Receiver) which was supposed to tell us the direction the SAM was coming and which direction to take to avoid it. But, the computing power of the thing was less than a modern calculator, so it had a 3-5 sec. lag from real time - it didn't work. You had to visually acquire the SAMs to evade safely.

So, whenever the radar went into Launch Mode, I'd take the port side and my GIB the starboard side to try and find the thing. The SAM mirrors your movements, and looks like a point of light sprialling out of the jungle. Once either of us acquired the missile, we'd call it out - "SAM at 4 o'clock", or whatever.

At this point, I'd have to go back to flying the airplane and maneuver into the SAM keeping it at either 10 o'clock or 2 o'clock, full MIL Power. At about 1000 meters (4000mph closing rate), you'd roll and pitch away from the missile - about a 6g maneuver.

The missile couldn't turn with us, so would overshoot. It had only a forward looking radar, so it would lose Lock and eventually exhaust it's fuel supply and fall back into the jungle and go Boom. In fact, many of the reports from the VC that US planes had bombed a village were really their own SAMs falling back on top of them.

But, they often launched multiple missiles at you and this is where it got interesting. The first one was usually easy to evade, but you had to stay out of the radar envelope of the others. We had Chaff dispensers and these helped. But, the worst were those fired from your 6 o'clock because they were traveling at Mach 3 and you didn't have time to turn into them. In this case, you'd dive for the deck and hope that the ground clutter would confuse the missile's radar, which it usually did - always in my case.

Our worst day at the office came when we had 4 SAMs fired at us nearly simultaneously. Our Intel Briefing that day alerted us that the Soviets has started to arm the SAMs with proximity fuses - fuses which would detonate the warhead if it got within a certain distance of you, in the hopes that some shrapnel would take you out. But, they said, not to worry, because they hadn't been fielded yet. Anyway, we evaded the 1st one and just as we were rolling off of the 2nd one, the proximity fuse in the 3rd detonated and really messed up the Tail Surfaces of the airplane. I still had the turbines spinning and had most of the control of the plane, so we called a MayDay and headed for the Beach.

When I got back to the Boat, we did a fly-by to determine whether we'd be allowed to come aboard or have to go swimming. So, with the Helo standing by, we came on Final and fortunately trapped a 3 wire on our 1st pass. When I got out, I went to the rear of the aircraft and 3 feet of the Tail surface was gone - I don't know why we were still an airplane!

We did our debrief, got a meal, and went to our cabin. It was then, 45 min. later, that I started shaking uncontrollably - it had finally sunk in. But, the next day, they had a fresh aircraft for us and we just went ahead and flew our flight assignment - at 23, you're immortal...

Happy Motoring!... Jim'99

[joosrsx]

Great stories sir.

I agree that protecting the buff was your best mission (I'm a buff nav if you didn't catch that earlier).

No matter how many times I hear about these missions I can't believe how f'ing crazy you guys were. Waiting for an SA2 to launch on you, visually looking for that flying telephone pole flying at you, and then pulling a 6g maneuver to get away.
What type of missile was it that "hit" your aircraft? Was it a 2 also?

I know this is nothing like what you did, but back at undergrad nav school we had some sims where we had RWR gear and did our normal TOT missions but had to call out maneuvers for threats. It was fun doing a lot of the mission on the fly cause you were off the black-line and then all the other stuff that came with this new challenge along with all the other ones. Now I have an EWO that does as the EA/EP and makes the calls.


Sir, I can't tell you how much I respect the job you did at the time you did it

[dougster01]

U.S. Army, 23 Years, Infantry Officer (11A) and ORSA (49)

I am still in the Army. I left Active Duty in Sep 92, but was recalled to Active Duty in August 2004, and commanded a Task Force that trains Army, Navy, Air Force and Marines Individual Augmentees for deployment in Iraq and Afghanistan.

I've had two Porsche's.... bought a 1988 944 back in 1991 when I was a Captain, and bought a 2001 Boxster a few months ago in order to commemorate the promotion to Colonel. I was a big TR-6 fan as a kiddie, and has two of them as a 2LT and 1LT..... then moved on to a Pinninfarina Spyder, then an Audi 4000 CS Quattro.

[spongebob]

RSwN (figure that out!)
Since 1989 a Navy Engineer (Lt)
Stationned in San Diego whith my sub for the moment.

[joosrsx]

Originally Posted by dougster01

U.S. Army, 23 Years, Infantry Officer (11A) and ORSA (49)

I am still in the Army. I left Active Duty in Sep 92, but was recalled to Active Duty in August 2004, and commanded a Task Force that trains Army, Navy, Air Force and Marines Individual Augmentees for deployment in Iraq and Afghanistan.

I've had two Porsche's.... bought a 1988 944 back in 1991 when I was a Captain, and bought a 2001 Boxster a few months ago in order to commemorate the promotion to Colonel. I was a big TR-6 fan as a kiddie, and has two of them as a 2LT and 1LT..... then moved on to a Pinninfarina Spyder, then an Audi 4000 CS Quattro.

Congrats, does this mean we need to call the thread to attention when you come in Sir

[Dr. Kill]

Army - Airborne Infantry back in the early 90's. Did the Florida Guard after that - not as great an experience.

Happy to have served, happy to be done with it.

[NickCats]

But can you guys fly this :

http://www.hurtwood.demon.co.uk/Fun/copter.swf

Game is SO addicting. Let me know if you beat 700 ( my highest )

Enjoy,

Nick

[joosrsx]

Originally Posted by NickCats

But can you guys fly this :

http://www.hurtwood.demon.co.uk/Fun/copter.swf

Game is SO addicting. Let me know if you beat 700 ( my highest )

Enjoy,

Nick

798 You're right though, the simplicity of the game is addicting.

[MNBoxster]

Originally Posted by joosrsx

Great stories sir.

I agree that protecting the buff was your best mission (I'm a buff nav if you didn't catch that earlier).

No matter how many times I hear about these missions I can't believe how f'ing crazy you guys were. Waiting for an SA2 to launch on you, visually looking for that flying telephone pole flying at you, and then pulling a 6g maneuver to get away.
What type of missile was it that "hit" your aircraft? Was it a 2 also?

I know this is nothing like what you did, but back at undergrad nav school we had some sims where we had RWR gear and did our normal TOT missions but had to call out maneuvers for threats. It was fun doing a lot of the mission on the fly cause you were off the black-line and then all the other stuff that came with this new challenge along with all the other ones. Now I have an EWO that does as the EA/EP and makes the calls.


Sir, I can't tell you how much I respect the job you did at the time you did it

Hi,

Don't call me Sir - I haven't worn any Rank for quite a while and I'm not that old...

Ironically, I may well have escorted the very ship you're flying. When we flew MigCap, we escorted Buffs both to and from the target areas. These usually flew in 3 plane formations in which one, an H model (latest and last of the series) carried only ECM gear.

IIRC, only the H models are still flying and the last of these rolled off the line in Wichita back in '62. Amazing that this aircraft, the precursor of most modern commercial aircraft would be so enduring.

It was amazing the power these things could exert, we could actually feel the concussion waves from the ordinance...and this was at angels 30!! I can't imagine what it would be like to have been on the ground.

Not my thing though - you guys have something like 16 hr. endurance, IMHO, that's waay too long for a Government Job. Longest sortie I ever flew was like 8.5 hrs. and I thought I was gonna die. BTW, you should change your screen name to Steel RainMan... lol

Happy Motoring!... Jim'99

[Grizzly]

Originally Posted by NickCats

But can you guys fly this :

http://www.hurtwood.demon.co.uk/Fun/copter.swf

Game is SO addicting. Let me know if you beat 700 ( my highest )

Enjoy,

Nick

Damn you, Nick! I'd just gotten over the fact that I'd misplaced this game! 865, first flight. 2nd flight...38ft. No sleep for me tonight.

[joosrsx]

Originally Posted by MNBoxster

Hi,

Don't call me Sir - I haven't worn any Rank for quite a while and I'm not that old...

Ironically, I may well have escorted the very ship you're flying. When we flew MigCap, we escorted Buffs both to and from the target areas. These usually flew in 3 plane formations in which one, an H model (latest and last of the series) carried only ECM gear.

IIRC, only the H models are still flying and the last of these rolled off the line in Wichta back in '62. Amazing that this aircraft, the precursor of most modern commercial aircraft would be so enduring.

It was amazing the power these things could exert, we could actually feel the concussion waves from the ordinance...and this was at angels 30!! I can't imagine what it would be like to have been on the ground.

Not my thing though - you guys have something like 16 hr. endurance, IMHO, that's waay too long for a Government Job. Longest sortie I ever flew was like 8.5 hrs. and I thought I was gonna die. BTW, you should changed your screen name to Steel RainMan... lol

Happy Motoring!... Jim'99

Ok no more Sirs

I'm sure you did escort some of the jets I've flown. And the great part is they are supposed to be around another 33 years. Since they sat on alert so long none of the jets have that many hours for their age. At the current hrs/yr we are putting on them they say the wing supports (I'm pretty sure thats what it is) will need upgraded and that's when they will go down in 2040.

I'm not sure what the longest sortie has been (I'll have to find out but wikipedia says it's 35) but I know that they flew some 24+hr sorties back in Desert Storm. It's a little different that a fighter cockpit though because we can get out of the seat, almost stand up, and walk in a small circle or go to the piss funnel.

Originally Posted by Grizzly

Damn you, Nick! I'd just gotten over the fact that I'd misplaced this game! 865, first flight. 2nd flight...38ft. No sleep for me tonight.

Damn, i must be good 1215 on my first try,NO JOKE, omg this is addicting

[Jonesy08054]

I'm Air Force too. I'll be pinning on captain next month, so that is why I recently picked up an 06 Boxster. (had to get the "captain's car"). Currently stationed at McGuire AFB in Jersey. KC-10 Pilot. In fact, at the present time, I'm writing all this from Al Dhafra AB in the U.A.E. I bought the car in January, but I've been out here since February. The weather was so bad when I got the car that I haven't even had a chance to enjoy it with the top down. Can't wait to get home and put some miles on her.

[Mantis]

Originally Posted by dmcutter

Hey Mantis-
when I went through the Basic School back in '82 we had a liar, er, lawyer in my platoon. He didn't catch any more **************** than anyone else. Smatter o' fact, if I recall correctly he was a 1Lt, so maybe he had it easier.

Wow, 82? I finished TBS in June 81. Best thing about that stretch of time was cavorting to DC on the weekends during the early Reagan years.

[Chills]

That was a great story, Jim. Thanks for posting it.

I was Army Aviation and not a day went by that I didn't say, "I should have joined the Air Force." lol Especially when it was my turn to pull watch and sit in a fox hole after a 16 hour shift of controlling air traffic.

[dmcutter]

Damn, I hate reading these flyboy stories. My biggest regret in life is not having gone to flight school. Of course, I'm sure I'd be dead by now. When I was at Twentynine Palms back in about '83, I was driving around in the desert with a major from Range Control looking for things my platoon could blow up. A CH-53 had crashed at MCAS Yuma the week before and he told me that he had gone to flight school with the guy who had been flying the 53. He said that only he and 2 other guys from his flight school class were still alive, and that was post Viet Nam...all peace time attrition. I'm amazed anyone actually made it through a war alive. My hat is off to you and all your ilk, Jim.

[trube78]

Submariner currently CO at VT NROTC. Think I'll hang around and make it a career.