I remember that first day at Soesterberg against the F15 very well Jaysi. I remember standing outside the crewroom while waiting for permission to enter as no one was ready for us even though it was a planned exchange, and hearing someone say " what are the cousins here for?" and the reply was " they are here to see how we do it!". Then they all died.
We had planned for weeks what we were going to do ( day one of a war is always a surprise) and we knew their capabilities whereas they did nor realize we could out climb them - and we cheated a bit
My tactic was not to turn back in for the merge but to continue outbound and do a 180 knot climb and loop to way over the top then come down from the vertical as they flew through. They were very good though, in that they always came out of re-heat at 10,000 feet but I kept forgetting to look at the altimeter
I remember the night trip into Amsterdam as well
Back to the thread: I did 7 (35 minute) DACT trips in the F6 against the F1 at Reims in August 87 and agree that the Lightning should have been able to deal with the Mirage in any situation, but like the Hawk it's small frontal area meant it could get in close before you saw it even if you got a 15 mile pick up on radar. I don't have much written in my logbook about kills, etc, but I still remember one hard fight where I just got him before I had to Joker out. We went back together and shut down at the same time. I clambered down, sweating like a pig in the heat and from the 3kw of heating from the electrics in the Lightning cockpit ( I seem to remember being in an immersion-suit but not sure why in August). The aircraft did the same - it radiated heat, it smelt, it leaked fuel all over the pan, the engines clattered, it had a heat-haze all around it and if it would have panted it could have.
Alongside me the canopy of the F1 opened and out stepped an immaculately smart, cool pilot from his air conditioned cockpit, not a hair out of place. He came over to me after I had struggled down past the re-fueling probe and shook my (sweaty) hand. Then the expression on his face changed and his jaw dropped open as his head tilted up taking in the wall of angry aircraft behind me that towered over his F1. In a hushed voice he said "C'est l'avion pour l'homme n'est pas?"