Adlerdriver

By "done for the day", I wasn't implying he would leave the formation or run for the border. He's just "done" with bombing (obviously).

From what I could see on the tape, that guy was barely maintaining G or speed. The only time he got over 400 knots was in the delivery dive. Most of his shucking and jiving occurred after weapons release, so at least he was rid of those. I hope he got rid of his tanks shortly after he dropped his bombs. I seriously doubt his jet would have had much "orthogonal roll" in it had he chose to keep 4000 lbs of bombs on it hoping to shake a SAM and then, if he survives, unload them on the target.

What is the typical jett criteria for a bomber? I'm not suggesting it should happen on every spike or even every launch. I'm surprised that actually seeing multiple SAMs launched AT YOU, with correlated spikes and a high potential for a last ditch would still leave some level of wiggle room on the jett decision. You're really saying that you can predict whether your bomb laden jet can generate enough movement in a last ditch maneuver as you watch the missiles come and jett is still just an option? Big gamble, IMO.

I had a couple of SA-3s shot at me and fortunately I didn't need the last ditch. Went to the beam with chaff, picked them up visually, full AB, dumped the external tanks (all 3) and started for more knots. Fortunately, I lost the spike and they went ballistic. I'm pretty sure if I had bombs instead of fuel tanks my decision process would have been the same.

Rawhide16

You can't maintain G while defending with the bombs. The bombs limit you to 5.5 G's. I absolutely want more than that available if I'm going into a last ditch. I always briefed a jettison plan which usually consisted of going to the merge (dependent on the threat), battle damage and unable to maintain a tactical airspeed, or last ditch.

Grumble

Or as we like to say "don't die with bombs on your jet."

nwaf16dude

Got the whole story on this mission from Stroke 8 a couple years after. If I remember correctly this was the first big daylight trip to baghdad. The "root cause" of all the flailing was that the mission planners didn't consider the winds in their plan. IP to target was planned against a crazy headwind, slowing their ground speed way down, doubling their time in the heart of the threat and making them slow-moving grapes for the SAMs. At the time (Pre-gulf war) almost all of our training was low altitude stuff where winds weren't much of a factor. I think there were at least two aircraft lost that day. Lesson learned.

Follow on to the story. There were some real hero's driving the tankers that day. All that burner time dodging missiles had several guys very low on fuel. The tankers came way north from their safe areas to get them. Stroke 8 hit the tanker boom with about 600 lbs of gas, well north of good guy land. For you non-viper guys, that is just a very few minutes from running out of gas.

Dougdrvr

Anything similar to the "Pardo Push" happen in that war?

UAL T38 Phlyer

Not that I've ever heard, but post-war (from 2003-2006; in the No-Fly Zones), when I was flying with F-16 wingmen, I offered (in the brief) to push them if they lost their engine. (We flew F-4G/F-4G in the South, but F-4G/F-16C in the North).

I figured that was better than the alternative.

Adlerdriver

So..... are we talking radome up the nozzle? Or something a little more creative and less invasive involving the tailhook? What was your plan?

nwaf16dude

Amazingly enough, in all the thousands of viper hours in Operations Desert Storm, Southern & Northern Watch, and Iraqi freedom, there was only one case (maybe two, one was possibly battle damage) of non-combat related engine failure. I flew it for almost 19 years without ever losing an engine. I can say that without knocking on wood since I'm no longer flying it.

hjs1971

Did a fighter guy just give credit to the tanker drivers? Must be a misprint...

BTW- this guy was not up to ATP standards that day...in today's Air Force, he would have been Q-3'd for not holding altitude and he would have had to face the Wing King and Logistics Group Commander and explain why he left his bombs in the middle of the desert. He probably wasn't even wearing his reflective belt when he flew that mission...seems like a real renegade to me. I kid, I kid! Nice piece of flying.

Hrkdrivr

What amazed me were the number of missile launches without any target track tones from the RWR (unless I just couldn't hear them). This tape was used in a tactics class talking about radar threats, specifically the SA-6 launching with delayed illumination. They had a whole pant-load of SA-6s in flight at the same time. I can only imagine what they were feeling when they kept hearing the ML tones.