Omens

Well...The New Year is upon us.  Mrs J, ever the intrepid Travel Agent, has put together a "Wine Cruise" for our Winemaker Friends and 45 of their wine club members.  Little J and LJW will be joining us as "helpers" during the two tasting and seminars on our at sea days.

This is going on as we speak.  If Galveston weather complied with the forecast, we will have sailed Saturday afternoon and will be somewhere in the Gulf of Mexico right about now.

I'm not trying to make anyone jealous, because it's going to be a working vacation.  I mean I've got to pour wine during two 1 hour seminars over the course of 9 days.  You feeling my pain yet?

There are also other indications this is going to be a good year.

First cup of coffee the New Year. Not a drop wasted! It's going to be a GREAT year.

I mean really, put the pod in the coffee maker, push the button, turn around and do something else for about 5 minutes.  Remember the coffee, and mutter an AWWW Sugar! (or something) while turning around only to spot a perfect cup of coffee.  That has happened exactly never in my lifetime.  So...Good year.

There I was (on Thursday) looking for a subject to write about, when my good friend from Florida, Señor Frijoles, made a comment about basic firearm skills.  After the 6th paragraph of my stunningly brilliant rejoinder, I realized I might just have a post.  Another omen, as I, as Sarge is sometimes wont to say, "Got Nuttin".

So, there I was...(and this might be a retread, but I can't find it in the archives) A Captain, in his 4th fighter assignment (3rd operational) flying the world's finest fighter, the F-15C.

The Source is an article about a F-15 crash last summer that I hadn't heard about.  Spatial disorientation during a fight with an F-22 lead to ejection and serious injuries.

 I'm relatively new to the squadron, so flying as a wingman.  My flight lead, for the day, had been one of my students going through Lead-In at Holloman.  He'd been an F-4 Back Seater, gotten his pilot wings and become a flight lead since I'd last flown with him.

We're scheduled for the first launch of the day, right after dawn.  Our mission will be what was called a dart mission.  The Dart was an aluminum covered plywood tapered cruciform (say that one three times fast) target that was towed behind, at the time, an F-86.  Those jets were flown by old retired fighter pilots, most of whom had multiple medals with meaning.  (As opposed to medals one might receive for PCS'ing and not having peeved anyone.) As a further aside, the F-86 guys rarely bought drinks when they came to the bar.

In ANY case, my flight lead and I are going to take off just before dawn, drive a couple of hundred miles east of Okinawa, sweeping the seas to see any ships that might be adversely affected by a couple of thousand rounds of 20mm Lead bullets.  While we are doing that, an F-86 with a Dart aboard will launch and proceed out to the Western edge of the airspace.

Source

If we timed it right, we will just have completed the sweep and he won't have to orbit.  (He doesn't have a lot of gas, so we don't want to waste time.)

So...My flight lead has briefed that first radar contact will run the intercept and first tally (sight) will get first shot.  The wing F-15's had just been given an update to the gun sight which predicted where a bullet, fired now, would be when it reached the range of the target.  The sight would be moved to that position on the canopy.  If it was stabilized on the target when the trigger was pulled and held for 1 second 100 20mm holes would appear on the target.  (Which is a bad thing...if you are the target.)

This will be both my Flight Lead and my first time actually using the system with real ammunition.

We're enthused.

The jet with my name on it, as well as the actual owner, the crew chief's, is on the schedule, so I'll be flying it.  I'm happy about that as the radar and avionics in it are very reliable, even more so than the usually reliable avionics on the Eagle.  I'm confident the airplane won't let me down.  The reverse may not be so.

We blast off in a formation takeoff as the first rays of sunshine break the horizon, climb quickly to two grand (before the end of the runway) so our jet noise will dissipate somewhat and not awaken our Japanese neighbors.  Very shortly thereafter, we are feet wet.  I'm expecting my Flight Lead to continue climbing.  Instead he pushes it over and we return to 500'.  He kicks me out to tactical formation (9000' line abreast) and pushes up the power.

We're soon doing about 600K at 500'.  As we drive out to our side of the area, I am ardently searching for surface traffic to the exclusion of all else, such as not hitting the water, lead, a bird, you know the non-essential stuff.

Or maybe not.

We safely arrive at our edge of the airspace, as I see his burners light.  I push my throttles forward, feel the push back in the seat as they  light, see the airspeed indicator flutter as we rapidly go through the Mach.  I then see him begin a gentle pull.  (Snatching the stick back in your lap above the Mach will result in the engines continuing in their current direction while rest of the aircraft will go up...for a while.)

I do the same.

He turns it into a 38000' Immelman.

Yes, I know it's a Flanker.  They're allowed to do an Immelmann also. 
Source

I'm already working the radar as I transition between #2 and #3 above, and have a contact as I begin the roll out.  Lead gives me the intercept. The F-86 is on my nose for about 50 miles and I notice I have two contacts now, the second in close trail.

I call that I have a Judy and Lead clears me to engage.  I maintain altitude and put the target slightly right of my nose.  I'm on the left of the formation, so the F-86 will fly between us, but about 18,000' below.  That will give us vertical turning room and he will have to turn into one of us, which will put us inside his turn circle.

Assuming that guy turned into sees the target, (a requirement to shoot in peacetime, a great idea in war time), he will arrive in shooting parameters quickly.

The F-86 is about 20 miles now, and everything is progressing as I hoped.  I'm looking through my HUD when I see a flash just below the Target Designator box.  The sun is behind us and it's coming  from the F-86.  At about the same time, I see the Dart in the TD box.

I am "Tally 2", a quick glance to my left and I see Lead falling back behind my wingline to protect my six (in combat, to wait for his turn, on this ride.  But practice like you fight, right?)

I make that call, Flight lead says the same, and the F-86 driver clears us hot.  I flip the Master Arm hot, extend my index finger off the trigger and begin the conversion dive.  I see the F-86 begin a right turn.  He's turning in to me!

I'm now 90^o nose low and do a slow roll to the right as he transitions from right to left.  This keeps my canopy pointed towards him eliminating my having to reacquire him as I pull lead coming out of the dive.

I'm bottoming out of the dive with my nose pointed to where I think he'll be when I get in range.  Quick glance at the F-86.  He's on the right of my nose, the Dart on my left.  Pipper is stabilizing on the Dart, No, it's dead steady on it as I reach 1500'.

I think this is a screen capture from a game, but the  pipper is the circle, the TD box is the square.  1800 is the range to target, the line between the pipper and the TD box is the Time of Flight line (bullets will follow that line to the target,  the longer it is, the less accurate the shot.  If this were me, I'd hold the stick steady for another millisecond to get to 1500' and see if it stabilized a bit.  11960 is the altitude, He's at 314 Knots (.59 mach), pulling 6.1 g with an AOA of 15.2.  He's got gun selected with 524 rounds left.  Not sure what 8.4 is, Gas maybe?
Source

I squeeze and hold the trigger for what I thought was an eternity.  Then, I hear the BURRRRRP of the cannon off my right shoulder, release the trigger and begin to pull, when I see the Dart explode below me.

The F-86 pilot calls "Knock it off".  We acknowledge, safe our switches, rejoin the two ship and then rejoin with the F-86.  He tells us to hold high as he cuts the cable which is whipping a bit in the wind.

Once the cable is gone, we do a quick battle damage check of each other, he clears us off and we head home.

To say I'm a tad jazzed by the ride, might be the understatement of the millennium.

Back on the ground, my Flight Lead comes over shakes my hand and said, he'd been wanting to do a sortie like that with someone who appreciated the advances in the F-15.  He said "Eagle Drivers who've never flown anything else don't fully appreciate how great the airplane really is.  I do, now so do you."

I bought the beers that night in the bar.  Apparently, I had basic firearm skills.