Tactics for Reco mission

[Lt. James Cater 62]

I've now flown two more missions in the Foxbat and have managed to avoid being shot down by enemy fighters.

 

The first was pretty hairy because i was being tracked by F-14s as i was still climbing to altitude. Knowing that AIM-54s would soon be on the way, i decided to turn away from them while climbing gradually up to the operational height. They were really determined and chased me for a really long time but the onboard ECM meant that they couldn't get a lock at the range that was maintained.

 

The enlightening part of the mission was getting downed over the target by a Hawk SAM. Damned if i knew that they had that kind of perfomance! However, i did learn something about them.

 

 

The next mission was a complete success.

 

By now i know not to be rigidly attached to flight plans. almost as soon as whells were up i was being tracked by enemy fighters and so determined that going up and away was the only potion. As it turned out, it was a flight of F-15s and so the object was to keep out of AIM-7 range and keep them at high speed until they ran short of fuel and had to turn away.

The second shot shows the F-15s heading back to base at low level after failing to engage.

 

Things were not to to be easy though because a pair of F-18s took off from the target area base and climbed swiftly to intercept. I duly turned 180 and the chase was on. They were faster than i thought and actually fired an AIM7 that was defeated by chaff and ECM before i opened up burners and opened the range. They were persistant but i knew that sooner or later they would run short on fuel and the misson will continue.

 

The moment came and so i turned and once again headed back towards the target.

 

I had a strong suspicion that SAMs would be fired but a big surprise was awaiting. The shock at the sheer number of Hawks coming up led to abandoning of the pass and pulling out of range to think things over. The second pass was even worse but i made it despite SAMs flying like a fireworks display!

 

The thing that saved me was flying a weaving back and forth course. I figured that by the time the missles got to my altitude they would be ballistic and shouldn't have much energy for maneuvers. In any case, no fewer than 34 SAMs were fired.

Note the distance from the target to homebase.

An easy distance but nothing is easy about the difficulty of doing Recce work flying a Foxbat in ODS. I probaly flew 5 times the distance just avoiding being shot down.