Posted on 03/23/2006 8:08:08 AM PST by Cliff Dweller
I've got a few stories to support that. For example, one day we had the opportunity to intercept some B-52's flying up to Alasks to drop on our ranges. One of our wingmen decided he wanted to get video of him "killing" a Buff using his bomb pipper. So he rolls in on the guy and the Buff zaps him with a string of trons that made his pipper start doing 360's around the HUD. Undaunted, the intrepid wingman decides to just gun the guy instead. So he rolls in at the Buff's 6 o'clock just in time to hear "Guns kill on the Viper at our 6 o'clock" from the Buff. It was beautiful! And believe it or not, it wasn't me. But don't ask me to tell you about the first time I went 1 v 2 with a couple of hogs....
I got nothin but love for the Vark.
There were times I wished the Tomcat had your seating arrangement, just so I could have elbowed a certain RIO in the throat during one of his incessant fuel calls. I swear that dude hated to see us in burner because he knew I was about to load him up.
"1200,.......1100.......Unload......Watch.....the......gaaaaaaaaaaauuuuuhhh.
Me: "What?".
Lets hear it.
A pilot I knw was flying with a WSO known to be a bit low on the SA side. During an aircraft emergency, the WSO kept trying to run the wrong checklist. Finally, the pilot reached over, grabbed the WSO's oxygen mask hose, and shook the dude's noggin back & forth while shouting "Shut the F up!"
It worked, and may be the ONLY good thing about side by side seating.
But when it came time to use a piddle pack? Not good at all...
Oh suuuure. Lets get ol Rock to air his dirty laundry in public so we can beat him over the head with it whenever the opportunity arises in the future. Let's just say what should have been one of the funnest sorties ever turned into a real humility lesson. Put one young wingman in a fast jet, and tell him to go meet a couple A-10's flown by an instructor introducing his wingman to 2 ship air to air tactics. I pounced from behind in full blower just under the Mach and watched in horror as two A-10's demonstrated a really exceptional turn rate. I was gunned before I could make it to the merge. Nobody told me those guys could gun you two miles out! Then there was the problem of working my way into a 1 mile diameter "circle of Hogs" rotating at 150 knots. Live and learn. That's why we train isn't it? ;)
Ha! Same thing happened while I was going through pilot training with a guy in my class and his brand new instructor in the T-37. The instructor grabbed his O2 hose and shook it, and the student grabbed the instructor and shook him. They had a little stand down in the air and decided to come home. After much counseling for both, they worked out their differences and actually became good friends.
Let me refresh....
"If you get low and slow and the bogey is this-a-way, you punch it and go that-a-way! If he is blind and doesn't hose your ass, you can Emmel back with energy, but then, you were stupid to get low and slow, so you probably should just keep going."
Training cant cure stupid. Know thy enemy. That's a 30' not a 20' gun.
Okay, thats enough.
But to be fair, you are right. Guess who holds the record for over-stressing main gear on a cruise? Guess who caught a 4-wire while comp-stalling both engines? (thank you 4-wire) Guess who on a TARPS run made a sound like a puppy yelping after getting lit-up-locked in a cloud over Bosnia because RIO called Missile? (no missile)I still pay people in beer to not repeat that sound. So, I wont call you low-slow, and you dont call me 'Arf'?
What do you think the "F" stands for?:^)
And they have occasionally managed to record a "kill" on F-15s at Red Flag.
Now the F-117 - no way is that a fighter.
No quite. Gs were USAF FB-111A (the SAC bomber version) reassigned to tactical use, and have not been upgraded to C standard (which is now F-111C AUP - virtually Pacer Strike Plus).
However 4 ex-USAF F=111As were acquired in the 80s and upgraded to F-111C standard, and later AUP.
And all RAAF F-111s (Cs and Gs) have been reengined with P&W TF30-P-109 engines removed from USAF F-111Ds and EF-111As at Davis Monthan - so it is possible for a RAAF F-111G to be a little bit EF-111A
Anybody propose reclassifying that as a F/A-3?
Typo?
Not on my part. That was a cut and paste from another site, fas.org, IIRC.
My F-111 pilot and bomb-nav buddies tell me that the late model -111s were pretty much a match for the -14A, in the merge. Of course the -14 could shoot them in the face from BVR, but if the ROEs didn't allow that, and were restricted to guns and sidewinders, well .... Or so they said. (Auto wing sweep telegraphed maneuvers, or so the pilot/Major said. )
Asbestos underwear on.
Maybe, it does run in my family, but more likely because I've been multi-tasking. But you are correct, I did say "and first tested in them". or more likely I meant, and though I'd said, "tested in F-111Bs before they were used in the F-14".
Only when the pilot paddles off and ignores the cue. I worked at the factory for the TFR, and did quite a bit of work on the algorithms for the upgrade to the -111 TFR, and for the LANTIRN TFR. The original, analog, -111 TFRs were before my time, but not before the time of several of the folks I worked with. There was never a documented instance of the TFR flying the aircraft, into a mountain, or any other sort of terra firma. Even when there wasn't enough left of the crew to ID with anything other than their DNA and/or dog tags, the accident investigators were able to tell if the TF was flying the aircraft, it never was and if the pilot had paddled off, they always had.
The B1 does look like an up-scaled F-111 now that you mention it
Huh?
Dude, there were 6 known incidences of the F-111 TFR killing pilots between 1971 and 1973. Now, maybe I had access to stuff that you didn't, but this is a well known fact.
Couldn't do that any more. They took the guns out of the BUFFs. Stupid Clymers in the old Log Command. The radar the controlled those guns (along with the gunner of course) was getting unsupportable. Even back in the mid '70s when I was in AF log command (as an LT, engineer, not a loggie) they had in for that radar and those guns. However, I was told that about the time they had the powers that be convinced to remove them, some Sgt. shot down a MiG over North Vietnam, and it was a couple of decades before they could finally pull off the removal of the "stinger".
Since the F-4 doesn't have the swing wing, I don't think so. But then again the Major, who I'd also known from AFROTC days, was a bit of a blowhard.
The Tomcat was never meant to have those TF-30 engines either. When the Tomcat got the right engine, it started kicking ass like you would not believe.
I know, that's why I specified an -A model. I know the -As with the TF-30 couldn't live up to the design of the airframe and flight controls.
The fact remains that the primary design mission of the F-14, and the F-111B and F-4 before it, was fleet air defense against Soviet Naval bombers (Bears, Badgers, Tu-22, etc). Grumman built a good fighter out of that requirement, as had Mac. GD OTOH, with a lot of help from RSM, did not.
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