F4 Phantom

[brickhistory]

http://www.pprune.org/military-aircr...l-tales-4.html

Then-Captain Kevin Hale, an EWO in the 561st recalled that he was ‘cottonmouthed’ the whole time from take-off to touchdown. He was in Captain Jack Patterson’s pit in the seventh jet, callsign Lonestar 43, of the 16 headed to Baghdad.

We were briefed to expect twenty percent losses. That is a sobering statistic.

We hit the tanker as fragged [directed by the ATO portion or ‘frag’], then flew in a long trail formation with about 7 nautical miles between jets. I was in the back, head down running the scopes when Jack said, “Ooh, look at that.” There were tracers everywhere!

Jack jinked and turned the jet, but all that cost us altitude and airspeed until we wound up at about 12 thousand feet. We had to climb back up and that was a long climb….

We heard the first MiG call as we were heading north from the south of Baghdad. At around 0320, we saw a spear of burning smoke pointed right at us. That was awe inspiring.

The ‘burning smoke’ was F-15C pilot Captain Steve Tate’s AIM-7 Sparrow kill of an Iraqi F1 sent to intercept the string of Weasels. Detected by the E-3 AWACS’ long-range radar, the controller aboard the Boeing-built jet vectored Tate’s flight into position. Tate acquired the F1 on his radar, locked it up and called “Fox One” as he pickled the Sparrow. Seconds later, the unlucky Iraqi pilot died in the fireball.

Major Bart Quinn led an eight ship of 81st TFS F-4Gs in support of F-117s and F-111s attacking the Salman Pak chemical and biological warfare (CBW) production and storage site located to the southeast of Baghdad. His strike package was a few minutes behind the opening attacks on Baghdad. Such was the importance placed on destroying the stocks of biological and chemical weapons stored at the target area, that even though the initial wave would undoubtedly stir up the air defenses, Salman Pak had to be hit to prevent those stockpiles from being disbursed and used against Coalition forces.

One of the concerns for the F-117s was the belief that the Iraqis had moved at least one battery of the Kuwaiti I-HAWK (Improved Homing All the Way Killer) SAM from the conquered country to the Salman Pak area. The HAWK’s continous wave targeting radar could track the ‘Nighthawks’ better than the more common pulsed radars, so the F-117s were a little nervous about being vulnerable. Quinn’s flight was briefed to watch for the HAWK.

Additionally, two SA-3 sites were located to the northeast and northwest of the target area and were a real concern to the non-stealth F-111 ‘Aardvarks’ who would go in at low level to hit the CBW bunkers. Says Bart Quinn of the mission:

The F-111s were going in fairly low in order to lob their laser guided bombs into the entrances of the storage bunkers. The theory was that the bomb would penetrate the door and fry any ‘bugs’ inside, thus destroying them immediately. The problem was that there were dozens of threats in the immediate area, including an SA-8 at the F-111s release point. The -8 is a fearsome weapon particularly at low to medium altitudes. We had to make sure we got anything that could target the strikers.

During the mission planning, the EWOs, led by mine, Ken ‘Howdy’ Hanson, divided up the threats among the flight, taking the highest priority ones in order depending on what stage of the strike we were on at any given moment.

Vinnie Quinn [no relation], our Fighter Weapons School graduate, took a look at my chart and just muttered “Schweinfurt.” [During World War II, the ball bearing plants located in that German city were a prime target of the American heavy bomber campaign. The Germans knew it was valuable and had placed unbelievably heavy concentrations of flak and fighter airfields in the area to protect it. The first such mission cost 60 bombers each with a crew of 10. It became known as ‘Black Thursday’ because of the horrendous losses.]

‘Victor’ Ballanco told me that the computer models estimated that we’d lose 30 percent of our force that first night. That gets your attention in a hurry as I briefed the 15 other guys in my Weasel mission.

From the beginning, fuel was a concern. The planning was tight the whole way in and out. I told everyone that we just did not have the gas to deal with any MiGs encountered or if anyone went down, there could be no RESCAP, we just had to leave whoever it was and press.

Stepping to my jet, I couldn’t get the APR-47 repeater scope on my dash to dim. It was so bright I couldn’t see the other instruments. Rather than go to another jet and risk missing the take-off, I taped my right flight glove over the scope and told Ken what I was doing. The -47 scope was my primary threat warning receiver, but I knew Ken could take care of us and there was no way I was going to miss this flight.

We met our tankers as fragged, about 100 miles south of the Iraqi border. The tracks were designed to be that far to keep the Iraqis guessing about our actions. Unfortunately, that’s a long drive when fuel is tight. To their credit, those tankers flew us much closer to the border than they were supposed to, thus letting us get as much gas into us as possible. I really appreciated that from them.

The whole time on the tanker and heading north, the flight kept expecting to hear the ‘abort’ code word, but since I knew that the first bombs had already dropped, I knew we were going.

We were in a line astern formation, with me at about 20 thousand feet and the rest of the jets stepped up in altitude into the high 20s. As we crossed the border, I remember saying to Howdy “This is it.”

At about that time, I caught some chatter between my # 2 and # 4 about air-to-air missiles. I wasn’t exactly sure what they were referring to, but I told them to “disregard and press.”

About then, I saw off my left wing a large, green explosion. Looking like liquid metal, the first thought I had was that it was a flare the Iraqis had set off to see us. Of course, it was really triple A. From then on, the fire was just constant.

At Nasiriyah, I saw a cloud which was unusual because the night was clear everywhere else. That cloud was actually the remnants of the 57mm AAA gun powder. I realized I had to go through that cloud and the intense, continuous barrage AAA.

I was scared, but what I remember most is that I didn’t want to **** up or make a mistake that cost somebody else. My throat was so tight it hurt; it was like my adenoids were growing. I said to Howdy that “here we are at the cradle of civilization and we’re gonna blow it up.”

As we got to the target area, I called “Buntari” which was the code for the Weasels that they were cleared to fire.

It was about then that Derek Knight, in my #4 saw a MiG taking off below us, but as briefed, we couldn’t do anything about it due to fuel.

We set up an orbit between the Euphrates River to the south and the Tigris to the north. In the orbit, we always had at least an element facing toward the target area and the threats.

Outside it is just mayhem. SAMs are going off unguided, just long streaks of flame, the triple A tracers with their greenish flashes and sparkles, I can see cars driving along roads, and the city lights are still on. I peeked underneath the glove hiding my APR-47 scope and it looked like a bowl of Cheerios had been spilled on the screen, so thick were the threats of SA-6s and -8s.

Howdy shot at the SA-8 which went down at the right time, but we don’t know for sure that we killed him. I forgot about the HARM’s exhaust and didn’t have the motors in mil[itary power – full power without using afterburner]. Using mil kept them from air starvation in the event of ingesting missile exhaust, but I just forgot until I had one flame out. I quickly got it re-lit and pressed on.

After the war, one of the F-111 drivers contacted Howdy and thanked him for taking out that SA-8 since he had to fly right at the SAMs position to loft his bombs. That was nice thing for the guy to do and made us feel good about the job.