Yankee Air Pirate: Brass Balls

[Guest zerocinco]

People buy Yankee Air Pirate missions for lots of reasons...some just to get the stuff. But we sell stories and Brass Balls is one of my favorites. Hero stories are often about someone trying to accomplish the impossible...climb Everest, orbit the Earth, etc. But the ones that make sense to regular people like us are the ones done by young men just trying to get through the day...the ones not born to be heroes. They just were when the time came...like our Bernie Fisher or John Levitow missions.

 

Brass Balls starts off as an escort mission off the Ticonderoga in 1968. You will fly as the F-8E chasing an RF-8G on a post-strike bomb damage assessment photo run.

 

 

You can hear the Scooters off the Oriskany calling in our their strikes. It's going to be hot.

 

 

You fly loose wing on the RF as you line up for the photo run when the RF pilot has his head down lining up the shot.

 

 

As you approach the target, the North Vietnamese time a SAM launch to make you maneuver to spoil the shot.

 

 

The target area is heavily defended by angry gunners.

 

 

On the way back to the ship, just when you think the escort mission is over, the RF turns back to the target to get the shot he missed.

 

 

You strafe the guns giving the RF trouble rather than just fly along being shot at.

 

 

But that's not the story. The story is this: You carried 4 Sidewinders instead of two...more weight and drag. You were in and out of afterburner more than the RF. The second pass burned even more fuel. And now, going feet wet, you realize that you don't have enough fuel to make the ship.

 

So you get vectors to an A-4C buddy refueler to gas up. But he has no more fuel.

 

 

You are out of gas over the Tonkin Gulf and a long way from a safe place.

 

 

After a few moments, you see the prop start to spin on the Douglas pack as he signals you in. He has the ability to give you his own fuel...and that is what he does...at least enough to keep you in the air a while longer.

 

 

When asked if he still had enough fuel to make the ship, he calmly says that he doesn't know. Now both of you are facing an ejection into the open sea as the day is dying. Eventually, another A-4C is vectored your way and you both get just enough fuel to trap ONCE.

 

 

You make it without enough fuel to start a barbecue fire.

 

 

And the man who risked his ride home to keep you in the air makes it, too.

 

 

You want to thank him. But you don't get the chance. Four days later, he is blown out of the sky over North Vietnam.

 

Just a young man on one day in his life a long time ago who chose to do what he felt he had to do.

 

We will put you in the situation. You have to fly your butt off to complete it and when you are on the deck you will know better than most living men what the guy in that Scooter did for the pilot of that Crusader a long time ago.

 

681201 Brass Balls in Missions 61-70 from Yankee Air Pirate.

[+SidDogg 130]

[sniff, sniff] ...........

 

what a freakin story.....

[+Dave 2,319]

Still one of my favorite stories ever told.