20 Years
 

Hard to believe, but it's been 20 years since Gulf War 1 (today).

I was days away from starting flight school in Pensacola when I watched the TV that first night.
It is amazing how time flies when you're having fun :D
Well....here to the next 20!

USMCFLYR

Wow! Hard to believe is right...I was airborne from Diego Garcia. Sure brings back the memories...and reminds me I'm an old fart!

Care to share the story(ies)?

20th anniversary of the first flight that I logged combat time on. I actually had an SA-2 launch indication on the flight. Never saw it, and doubt it came off the rails. Actually, that was one of the less exciting portions of the 6 hour flight.

I was in Al Dhafra UAE. Didn't have any duty on the first day of the war. Went down to the runway to watch the launches and count airplanes on the recovery.

I vividly remember waiting in the Command Post (standing room only) for the first inflight report. It was from "Deci" (Mark Decesari...forgive the spelling),"Zero losses, target obliterated." and the place erupted with cheers. We really expected a much bigger fight on that day than we got.

Ran out to the end of the runway to watch everone come up initial. The only sign of combat was no bombs on the returning jets and one airplane with jettisoned tanks. The jettisoned tanks turned out to be the result of a switch error while trying to get rid of a hung bomb.

Deci has since passed away. He was an true fighter pilot. There was a reason he was leading on day one.

Two days later I had my first combat sortie against Talil...but that's another post.

Ha Ha, they were still working on that runway when I got there in '05. Nice shooting (dropping?).

Yeah, no kidding. Saw first hand some of your guys work, 16 years later.

Keep the stories rolling.

Agreed! Some really nice hits at Al Asad too :D

USMCFLYR

back then we were hauling AMRAAM's in the back of our DC3 for Raytheon,old girl still earning her keep, 20 years....

We (69 BS, Loring AFB, ME) had already been on "the rock" for 6 months (deployed 13 Aug 90), so we were more than ready to get this thing over with.

We hit 5 airfields night one, low level, think it was 15 sorties. There were a lot of dire predictions on how many Buff's we'd lose in combat and they were all wrong, thank goodness.

High level vs low level was batted around for a bit, but low level won out (for the first 3 nights). I didn't agree with it, but it worked out. I thought the "golden BB" threat from random, wild fired AAA down low was a greater threat than their OCA or their SAM systems.

We flew low with dedicated cap the first 3 nights (maybe it was 4?) and then switched to all high level sorties with area cap. Sortie lengths were from 13-17 hours (depending on how deep in country you went) with 3 air refuelings (2 on the way up and 1 on the way home).

We co-pilots were usually always begging our AC's for AR stick time during normal training sorties, but AR time was so scarce that most of it went to the ACs to maintain their proficiency. That wasn't even an issue during our combat sorties:D

There's nothing like the light show from 51 MK82/M117s going off behind (and maybe in front of) you at night at 400 ft AGL followed by reactionary wild fired AAA from all quadrants!! It was an incredible light show for #3, but it also sucked!!

Day 1
 

I was in the first daylight wave. We (F-4Gs) were supporting ANG F-16s who were fragged to drop Mk 84s (Non-LGB!!) on SA-6s!!

I was worried as I figured we would have stirred-up a hornet's nest, and the Iraqis would be out for revenge in the daylight.

Takeoff from Sheikh Isa, tanker, then feet wet around Kuwait City. The whole country was on fire....black smoke, towering everywhere.

Long story short: A missile went streaking by my jet (I was #2) and I broke for it. Turned out it was a HARM fired by number 3 or 4, behind me. I got stripped from the 4-ship, tossed two HARMs at SA-2s, and got out of there (southeast of Basrah).

I had never seen anything accelerate so fast in my life as that HARM coming off the rail. Never thought about smelling the rocket trail....it went in the intake, and out the bleed air it came.

No one knew (or told us) that inboard-rail HARMS often caused compressor stalls (easily recovered in idle).

And the F-16s? Well, high-paid airline pilots didn't want to get their a$$es shot-off dropping dumb-iron on an SA-6. Supposedly, they jettisoned their bombs and went home.

Me, not much better. I went to my room and lay awake, all day, wondering how I would do that again....that night.

But I did. 32 more times. You learn a lot, and you learn a lot about yourself. You learn how to conquer your fears, or at least suppress them until the job is done.

Here's to all who served, and continue to serve.

Big Brass
 

I was never a Wild Weasel, but I've always thought it would take BIG BRASS BALLS to fly the WW mission. We were always glad to have them around too. Cheers! and thanks for serving.

There is a statistic going around that there has never been a S-A loss when there was HARM/SEAD coverage.

You guys make my combat time feel more like glorified cross countries (which they pretty much were). LL Buff's, dumb bombs on mobile SAMS, wow.

I was busy fighting the cold war. Still pulled nuke alert in the B-52H model while our G brothers went to war. Heard about the first three nights of low level, including the story of one buff doing a race track back over the target when they failed to release their weapons on the first try....word was they got shot up like hell, but made it back.

The G model guys flew so much they hit up some H model crews to come off the bench and get recurrent at Castle in the G. One of our pilot's who went told me they got over there just in time to get one mission in. While they're briefing it up his deployed ops O tells him he'll be tanking behind a KC-10...."you've been behind a KC-10 before, right?" "Oh, yes, Sir!" He said it took him 5 attempts to get his first hook up with a KC-10 that night.

Best story I ever heard was from an AC-130 copilot who said they had multiple SAM launches on them that they eventually were inverted pulling the nose back up to the horizon only to miss going into the sand around 500'. He said AWACS thought they were dead for sure. Hearing his story first hand made the hair on my neck stand up.