Liked that first story, #4 could have been pulling a “Patton”, leaving the rest of the group to back him up as he took out a couple of tank parks in the GDR.
Yeah. . .but I tell ‘ya, I was pretty worried I would be in a heap of trouble over that. . .someone HAD to have seen us.
During a NATO Tac-Eval, flying out of Sembach, launched on a mission taking my 2-ship into France to fly against their EW range.
Got close to the border of france and called and called their ATC to receive clearance to cross into france (after all, they were ‘independent’ and we HAD to call to enter france even though we were protecting them). Anyway, mid-day, no answer from the frogs. Climbed to get better radio performance and still no answer. Well, I called the airborne french FAC on the range and he said ‘stand by.’ A few minutes later he called me and gave me clearance to cross into france. So we did.
Low level, warting along, after about 15-mins a Mirage F-1 showed up diving out of the sun onto me. Thinking this was part of the Tac-Eval, I did the Hog thing, defeat with turns and he couldn’t hack the turn to stay at my six. He zoomed, re-positioned and tried a re-attack, I turned again and he zoomed up. . .again. Having enough of this, when he re-positioned and began another attack I pulled up and went nose-on to him. He immediately broke off the attack, climbed and ran away.
We completed our mission and the next day there was the American ATC rep, standing with the German ATC rep, alongside a very pissed off french ATC rep.
I was called aside and told I entered without clearance and the french scrambled a full-up alert Mirage to intercept me and force me to leave. Didn’t work out that way.
Anyway, why did the french ignore my call? It was lunch time and by gawd, even thought the french controller heard me, it was break-time and he wasn’t going do anything. . .except launch a fighter when he saw me enter france.
Piffle. . .darned french weenies.