Originally Posted by
sigtauenus
Sorry, I haven't been following this for a few days.
Touche', valid point on why they didn't fly. However, '99 was a long time ago, relatively speaking considering we've been at war for 5 years now.
My point was that in the context of "actions speak louder than words," there has been a lot of killing in SW Asia since 2003 that didn't involve any Migs. If your metric for "actions that speak louder than words" is limited to Mig kills, then yes, F-15's rule. I'm not afraid to say Eagles are the best at A-A, and if there is any A-A threat, I want them there on CAP for me. But I think it is a little inaccurate to say "actions speak louder than words," when there really hasn't been any "action" lately in the A-A arena.
As far as the rest of the thread goes, its interesting how as much as a single Mig kill makes you famous forever within the fighter community, yet using a well placed LMAV shot to take out a sniper picking off Marines or soldiers is just another routine day in the life.
The Eagle will probably be the last single mission fighter the US Military machine buys and I understand why. However, I can't change that.
As for history, which units were doing the brunt of rotations through out the ONW & OSW years? I'm looking at a pretty small snapshot I agree, but that is the point. My particular F15C was the first Eagle through 4k and 5k hours wise. That latter number occurred in 1996 on a 1985 tail (that is the year it was purchased and was produced with in a year of that usually). Yes, the Eagles flew quite a bit and yes I did numerous rotations in it. My point is how far back do you want to go?
If you pick only the last 3-5 years then yes, there has been a lot of action in the Middle East and the bomb droppers have been tasked heavily. If you want to roll back all the way back to pre-Desert Storm 1 then just pull up the flying hours of ALL the fighter aircraft (I'm keeping this narrow folks) involved and look at which fleet has the most hours for it's age. I don't remember seeing the bomb droppers in the CAP between the hours of sunset plus two to sunrise plus 2 for the majority of my rotations. My biggest fear was falling asleep going North and not having enough fuel to make it home once I woke up.
As for a single kill making you famous that could be argued. However, you would probably need to go back to the PR folks who started that entire scene in WW1. It was carried on in WW2 but the real honor belongs to those who got 5 or more regardless of which war, time frame, branch or country.
As for a grunt who shacks some piece of FOD at 1000 yards (or any distance) I salute him. That is one less piece of sh!t that could kill one or more of ours. That's a long way and I'm sure there is quite a bit of training that goes into making him good. If you know the guy who did that (not sure what is spoken of or not outside that unit) then speak a few kind words to him. Buy him a beer and tell him his bro's have one less threat, and we back here in the states support him 110%. I don't want him to ever regret what he is doing.
However we are on an aviation forum.
I did Desert Shield in a hummer with the 24th ID. I feel for you. Being an ALO is the pits. At least you are with your own branch.