The Double D's

[UnknownPilot 33]

April 65

Ensign Davan "Maniac" Hawk

VA-94 Mighty Shrikes, flying A-4C

Gulf of Tonkin, CVA-61 - USS Ranger

 

We returned from a successful warehouse strike, all hands accounted for, and only some minor damage.

 

...but this one was a bit different from most. The flight deck was mobbed. The CAG looked furious though, and as I turned my attention toward him, amidst the cheering of the other VAs and utter shock of the VFs, he ordered me into his office - "I don't know what the hell you think you were doing out there mister, maybe you're looking for a transfer? My office.... NOW!"

 

As soon as I closed the door behind me, his stern expression broke into a grin.

 

"Hawk, seriously boy, what the hell are you trying to do out there? Show off? Prove a point?"

 

He paused, took a moment, and continued, looking up at me in a soft tone, "do you want a transfer?"

 

'No sir.'

 

"You know that while taking out an enemy fighter is never a bad thing, being as you're the only Attack pilot to currently hold 4 kills, and 2 of them in this last mission, hot on the heels of 1 kill each in your previous 2 missions, well.... it's starting to look like you are going out of your way, as if you were a fighter pilot or something."

 

'But sir I....'

 

He put up his hand. "Don't sweat it ensign. I'm not obligated to formally reprimand you, and to be quite honest, I love the accomplishment you've managed to pull off. But this is a dangerous game. I can't have you getting shot down just because you were being a glory hound out there, trying to become an Attack Squadron dog fighting ace. Both you, AND that Skyhawk you are entrusted with are too valuable. Not to mention what could happen with the rest of your flight."

 

With my head down, I managed to utter a '.... yessir'

 

"Look, just keep cool, ok? At this rate, I'm certain that the next kill will, uh, 'accidentally' find itself in front of your cannons" he said with a wink "but I'm serious about wanting you to come back alive, ok? Unofficially, I don't care what you do out there as long as you bring yourself and your flight back home with from a successful mission. And to be honest, I'm pulling for you to become an Ace. I just want you to take your time, relax, and let it happen when, or IF, it does. Remember, your job is to drop bombs and get home safe, everything else is fluff."

 

He turned and walked back around to his chair and pulled a box out of his desk.

 

"Word came back just before you trapped, due to the success of that mission, and the extraordinary feat of 2 kills in one sortie for a VA pilot, you've been awarded the Air Medal" he said as he opened the box.

 

My eyes lit up as I received the medal. I saluted the CAG 'thank you sir!'

 

"You've earned it."

 

'Poker tonight?'

 

"If I can make it, there's a pile of paperwork that just isn't going away, but I'm going to try. Now go on, get out of here. Oh and Ensign..."

 

'Sir?'

 

"Make those VF jocks sweat a little, eh? You maniac."

 

 

 

Grabbing a quick bit of grub in the galley, there was a small mob around me.

 

'You know, I'd be an Ace already if the Skyhawk just had a few more round of ammo.'

 

"Get the hell out of here." came a jeer from the crowd "Three kills in 1 sortie? Now way."

 

"Sure!" came another "After all, VA pilots are used to earning their living!"

 

laughs, and snickers and jeers broke out

 

'Yeah, that's pretty much true, we don't even need all that fancy radar and missiles and afterburners you jocks do!'

 

Laughter broke out among the boos and hisses.

 

'But seriously guys, I did put a few rounds into a 3rd, but it was like 1 or 2 and a glancing blow at best. Just wasn't enough to really damage him. I hung with him for a while, trying to will him to go down, but ended up giving up on him and just came home. Some fighter jock took him out for me not too long after though'

 

"Hey, no problem, we don't mind stepping in to finish the job right"

 

quiet laughter, with interspersed "yeah right" and "you wish"

 

Some VF jock then said, "Looks like #5 might not be so easy though, attack-boy"

 

'oh? why's that?'

 

"Because we are going to be upgrading to the A-4C '65 retro fit. We're basically getting some electronic warfare gadgets crammed in, but because of the lack of space and retro-fit nature, they are taking out a lot of cannon ammo to shoehorn it in."

 

'oh, cool. Should help us with the flak and SAM threats. Dropping iron on those commies is more important anyway, not pussy-footin' around, dancing with MiGs'

 

:drinks:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This is the one that got away -

 

Edited February 13, 2010 by UnknownPilot

[+Cliff7600 1,148]

3^rd mission

 

2Lt Sean Rosewood

 

87^th FIS, Wiesbaden-Erbenheim – F-106A Delta Dart

 

11/02/68

 

Take off : 07.19 – Landing : 07.51

 

Target : Geilenkirchen, intercept

 

2 IL-28 Beagle

 

Asp 11 : 2Lt Sean Rosewood

 

Asp 12 : 2Lt Norman Howerton

 

Report :

 

Roger hasn’t been rescued yet, I must stay to replace him and there will be further investigations later.

 

Today I will carry only radar guided weaponry, no IR. 3 AIM-4F and 2 AIM-26B.

 

With 2Lt Howerton we scramble to intercept enemy raid near Geilenkirchen. We must be fast so we climbed to level 10 and keep an average mach 1 speed using the burner.

 

Today the weather is sunny and that’s good news.

 

We soon jump on the bombers, they don’t have a chance.

 

My second launch was the good one and the AIM-26B destroyed the first Beagle.

 

The second one was harder to take out, my last AIM-4F did the job.

 

As I was looking the Beagle falling to the ground, I noticed that Asp 12 was just behind him and if I have launched an IR missile he may have been hit instead of the bandit. There something wrong, we cannot hunt the same prey using IR missile that way.

 

_

 

 

[Lt. James Cater 62]

1APR72

 

Turns out i was the fool today.

 

Took Heffernan on a strike today. It should have been strickly routine and the first half was. We had a long lazy flight to the target. We had flak supression from a pair of Marine A-4s and we made a hell of a drop on the camp.

 

The big error was on the way home. About 15 miles into our return trip a pair of 100mm guns reported by a Recce Phantom turned up near our flight path. I ordered Norm to go in and i would follow about 20 seconds later.

 

He made a run but something must have happened since he pulled up without firing. I was seconds from pulling the trigger when his plane was blown apart by a hit. He got out but there's no way he had a chance to run.

 

I did what i could. Got the guns and shot up some VC that were in the area.

 

My mistake, someone else pays the price.

 

 

BTW-Cliff. Don't worry too much about your pilot. I'm pretty sure EVERYONE here has scored an own goal a few times.

[UnknownPilot 33]

June 1965

 

Well, I did it. Aerial kill number 5. An attack pilot ace. But at what cost?

 

We were charged with taking out a rail bridge. This was not the first time. The last rail bridge I was tasked with remained standing. Even after 8 500lb Mk 82s were dropped on it. I was determined not to let that happen again.

 

I took four 750s this time. All of my drops are basically dead on or "close enough", even despite being dropped in water, the 500lb-ers just weren't getting the job done. I had contemplated 2 1000lb-ers, but instead gave that to my #2, Ens. Gary Wilbers.

 

As it turns out, the 750s were the trick. Apparently, with the timing and spread, even rippled 4 at once, the 500s just didn't have enough punch to take the bridges down. Now I know to what to haul whenever I have a rail bridge to deal with.

 

After taking out the bridge, I dropped my remaining 2 on a AAA emplacement, called Wilbers in on a second one, and told the second wing to bug out. Once Wilbers hit his target I tried to reel him in. He kept acknowledging, but never actually complied. I called out to Red Crown for a status check, and there were bandits to 9 o clock, less than 8 miles out. I saw several planes out that way, most were trailing heavy smoke and were light colored, I figured them to be Phantoms, but one, one was small, hard to really see, light colored, and not smoking. That had to be a MiG (it was either coming toward me and head on toward the Phantoms, or was smokeless, either way, I figured it to be the bandit).

 

Not willing to risk it being headed my way, I turned into it and slammed the throttle. Periodically I kept calling Wilbers in, and kept getting acknowledgments, but he never showed up. At one point I even heard him call "in hot" and then "target destroyed". I met the MiG 17 just after he dodged a Sparrow from a Phantom, I shot past the F-4, rolled in on the bandit, and began using a series of high yo-yos to close and get a shot on him. The Phantom apparently split the scene, had to be from that lack of a gun they suffer from. Glancing at my fuel guage, I saw that it had come off it's peg and I was just under 5000lbs. Plenty on hand, but it meant I didn't need my tank anymore, so I blew all the stores to clean up. We danced for what seemed like hours, and I lost him once in the overcast. He had pulled me down and back into his territory, over his AAA. At this point the fangs were too far out for me to let go. I wasn't even thinking about it being the Ace kill, just a bandit that had lured me into dangerous territory and done me the "insult" of not dying easily (lol).

 

Finally he tried hitting the brakes. This was the second time he did that, this time I was ready and willing to respond, I managed to just say behind him, and with a windscreen full of tail pipe, I let off a burst, blew off his wing and tail saw a flaming fireball drop like a brick.

 

At that point, I found Wilbers was way out of position and would have had to fly through too much to link up, so I sent him home.

 

This was an order he finally did comply with..... and was shot down by flak. He's now MIA.

 

I returned, landed, and was applauded as an Ace, but at what cost? A bit of a hollow achievement.

 

And on top of that, I was apparently injured, but never knew it. And now get to spend a few months in the hospital thinking about it all.

 

 

[the game actually said I was shot down, wtf? ]

[UnknownPilot 33]

Dang, it won't let me edit again, and I forgot the screen shot.

 

[Lt. James Cater 62]

Just a litle info...

 

Flew four missions today. I accidently closed the game once and it crashed on me twice.

 

If i ever come into a significant amount of money, i'm going to get the the most state of the art custom gaming rig i can find.

 

Hate to waste hours for no result.

Edited February 14, 2010 by Lt. James Cater

[UnknownPilot 33]

Lt, I thought you were going to say you were gonna build yourself a 100% authentic replica of a Skyraider.

 

 

 

Feb 66

 

7 months in the hospital for injuries I didn't even know I had. Ugh.

 

But the return mission was almost everything I could have asked for.

 

Tasked with taking out a power plant close enough that we didn't need drop tanks, I equipped myself with 4 CBUs, #2 with 1 CBU, and 3 and 4 with rockets, in place of drop tanks, and of course taking the standard load of 4 Mk 82s as well.

 

The initial approach looked dangerous - fly over a SAM site and population center just to reach the plant, then go home via a relatively safe route. Why.....?! I changed that to ingress and egress on the same side. And I'm glad I did. It was smooth sailing the entire way in. We never got shot at until we were dropping iron.

 

On the way in, I made note of a vehicle facility we flew over.

 

Unfortunately, I missed.... with all 4 Mk 82s, but #2, Ens Dennis Barkley, was able to save the mission for us. I then dropped on a 100mm AAA battery, and forgot that I was still set to a ripple of 2. I cursed myself for wasting a CBU, and then called in Barkley on another target. Then I spotted a boomerang shaped wing shoot by me, very close. A MiG 17.....

 

I switched to guns and went after it. We tangled briefly, but I figured it was futile with 2 CBUs still strapped underneath. I wanted to find something close to take out so that I could then better focus on this bandit. But there was nothing. Fortunately the bandit didn't seem to care about any of us too much.

 

However, once I saw that there were no close targets and that MiG was still around, I decided to go after it even with the extra load. And damn this ECM retro-fit..... 40 rounds just isn't enough. And by the time I got a perfect shot, I was out. I had to let him go.

 

At that point everyone else called in Winchester, so I sent them home..... and found myself heading right for a dock. I thought about using the CBUs there, but docks are scary places. I pulled hard to avoid over-flying it, but I woke up the gunners and was dealing with some real pucker factor, trying to skim the ground at over 550kts getting away from there, seeing grey puffs just ahead and to the sides.

 

But once I got clear, and the fire stopped, I started re-tracing my steps. I spotted the facility on my radar, and went in after it. Lined up a perfect run, length-wise on the truck park, and.... dropped nothing. I forgot to switch back to my CBUs. gah!

 

I looped around, selected the right ordnance, and dropped. Massive explosions. Picked up something like 15 ground kills there, plus the AAA earlier, plus the 3 buildings I did hit at the power plant (that were just the wrong buildings), and I came away with 22 ground kills on that mission.

 

Best of all, everyone made it home without a scratch, and there were no radar warnings and no SAM sites.

 

When I got back, I was met with a real surprise - 2 of them! A promotion, AND a CMH!

 

 

[UnknownPilot 33]

FAIL!

 

Tasked with taking out a Warehouse, practically in the heart of Hanoi itself, I planned out a round-a-bout, safe ingress, taking Barkley on my wing again, another Lt for #3 and a greenhorn for #4.

 

The ingress was quiet until we got close to the IP. Then all hell broke loose around us. The radio was already clogged with desperate cries about SAM launches and AAA, and as we crested a mountain, we became part of the target pool, and saw it unfolding before us.

 

It's a little creepy to hear the SAM launch calls and see the plume that lead to it, as it happens. There were about 4 sites in the area, and I'm willing to bet they were all linked too. In fact, the IP to OP route took us directly over a SAM site, so I dropped down to 400feet, throttled up, armed my bombs, and hoped for the best.

 

I set the ripple to drop everything this time, I was NOT sticking around for second pass. I needed to pop up though, so I did, rolled inverted, saw green tracers streak by the canopy, pulled down and rolled upright to drop on the target, but was just a bit off, and it was all happening at about 560kts indicated, and.... I missed. I called in Barkley, but he missed too. At this point I had no choice, I ordered everyone home.

 

I wasn't sure if I'd be getting out of there though. Staying low, and at full throttle, I headed for the next way point, which was taking me toward some hills. Unfortunately, it was right in the path of some heavy MG flak too. Screaming over the terrain at 577 knots indicated, at less than 200 feet, I'd occasionally have to stand on a wing and pull hard to break the aim. All the while I'm watching the ground, and my VSI (since there is no radar altimeter in this crate).

 

It was a nightmare, I was sweating bullets the entire time. But eventually I did reach the gulf. I climbed to a whole 300 feet, and kept the throttle wide open. I didn't want to show up on any SAM scopes.

 

 

 

 

Once I was about 40 miles out from the shore, I climbed up to 10,000 feet and throttled back to 70% rpm and cruised back to the boat, conserving what fuel I had left.

 

I felt sick to my stomach on the trip back to the boat, and didn't even want to land. Fresh from a promotion and winning the highest medal in the US Armed Services, and I fail the very next mission assigned to me - even if it did happen to be a strike in the middle of downtown hell itself.

[+Cliff7600 1,148]

4^th mission

 

2Lt Sean Rosewood

 

87^th FIS, Wiesbaden-Erbenheim – F-106A Delta Dart

 

11/03/68

 

Take off : 08.51 – Landing : 09.33

 

Target : Merseburg, Escort Trout flight (4 F-100D)

 

 

 

Olds 11 : 2Lt Sean Rosewood

 

Olds 12 : 2Lt Gerald Day

 

Report :

 

Today, it was a good flight. Good weather, good timing and we engaged the enemy.

 

But we cannot be proud of the result. We missed the rendez-vous with Trout flight, it seems the flight plan wasn’t appropriate, we respected it till the IP. Trout finally attacked from the north and we were coming from the south…

 

There were fighters everywhere and we tried to engage somebody. On the way back, a bandit came close to us, he was chasing another allied fighter. The visibility was very good and I engaged him, Olds 12 covering me. I came very close to him, it was a MiG-17 Fresco, he was so close. I launched my 2 AIM-4G and both went wide. I was too close to launch the AIM-26 or AIM-4F so I started to slow down to have the good fire range. Then I saw a missile coming from starboard heading to the MiG and hitting him. He was smoking, downed by another pilot who didn’t wait for me to take out the Fresco.

 

Too bad! We returned home and I was obviously too slow in every aspects of my flying today because Gerald overtook me as I was on final approach and landed just before me although I was number one, according to approach…

 

“One must be fast” seems to be the meaning of the day!

 

 

[xclusiv8 35]

FAIL!

 

 

Damn UP, hehe that sounded like alot of fun

[Lt. James Cater 62]

Hey UP,

 

congrats on the MOH!

 

I'm very familiar with the area from the Ca river to the DMZ. Ben Thuy for example, can be reached with ease via the Garden. As a matter of fact, a wide area to the northwest of the Arrowhead is a safe place for pilots. Upriver towards the hills and at the river mouth south of Vihn is where you have to keep alert. LOTs of flak at both locations.

[UnknownPilot 33]

Thanks Lt! I'm still a little shocked by it. lol

 

I'm not really sure what you mean by "the garden". Do you have a map image (jpg or some such) with these areas marked?

 

 

---

 

May '66

 

Some good news! Garry Wilber made it back! He had quite a story to tell too. Thankfully he's still in flying shape and is back on the official roster.

 

After the failure of the previous mission (and my second overall in my tour), they decided to give us an easy one. I guess to see if we were still worth keeping around maybe.

 

We had to take out an enemy HQ building, reasonably far south, and quite close. I saw this as an opportunity to make amends. Since it was so close, I dumped the standard drop tank loadout, and replaced mine with 4 CBUs, Barkley's with 1 CBU, and 3 and 4 with rockets.

 

We made our approach below 5000ft, and from the south, turned north west to the IP, then north east to the target. Very quiet flight. Once there, I told everyone to open up, let loose, and rain the hell down on them. Once again(!) I missed the target on my first pass and called Barkley in. Meanwhile 3 and 4 were just lighting the place up like a 4 alarm fire in a fireworks factory next to a saw mill in Arizona on the 4th of July. On my second pass, I got way too low, saw other explosion happen right where I was, and didn't know who caused them, pulled up HARD, blacked out, and wasn't sure if I was dead.

 

I let go and came to and the HQ was out of commission. I thought I got it on that pass. I started directing Barkley to other targets, while proceeding to drop CBUs on some myself. To my surprise I saw another vehicle facility, and wouldn't you know it, I had a CBU for them! And I soon heard the lovely sound of multiple bomblets causing even more multiple secondary explosions.

 

That seemed to stir up the hive though, as suddenly big blasts of AAA finally started appearing. I made one last CBU drop on a AAA battery, and missed. Then made a strafing pass, and missed with that too! gah!

 

I started to feel the temptation to keep going after it until either it was dead or I was totally Winchester, but then I realized that meant multiple runs down the barrel of a gun meant to shoot planes down. So I called everyone off (as the main target area was basically wiped out anyway), and we all went back to the boat.

 

Even though they headed home first, I got there as they were entering the pattern. I drove in past them all, popped the boards, pulled into a hard barrel roll, dropped flaps, gear, and hook even before I was totally right side up, and dove the deck, flaring it at the end, putting me almost right on the ball, and trapping a 2 wire. Over the radio I heard "you f***in' maniac!"

 

 

The CAG gave me another mean look and finger shake for my antics, but then delivered some really good, and once again surprising news..... I was being awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross!

 

 

 

[Lt. James Cater 62]

http://forum.combatace.com/topic/49956-the-double-ds/page__st__140

 

UP, this info can help some.

 

Since WOV Gold changed things, i have some new areas on my personal map now.

Edited February 15, 2010 by Lt. James Cater

[UnknownPilot 33]

Ran a couple of missions in a row, not too much to report, and I can only save the debrief of the last mission I play before I exit (as it's in the clipboard), but when I exit, the mission on deck goes away, and is replaced by something else randomly.

 

In my second to last mission, sadly, Ens Barkley was hit and killed near the target. Had be been following me down low, I think he may have survived, but my trusty wingman of many missions is now gone.

 

I reluctantly re-took my original wingman of Ens Wilber, who had been MIA but made it back. Reluctant because I didn't want to make him go through that ordeal all over again.

 

We were charged with taking out a warehouse building pretty much due west of the fleet. Very close, and fairly south, so I figured it to be a milk run, and one where we didn't need drop tanks.

 

Gave 3 and 4 rockets, Wilber got a CBU, and I changed it up a bit for me. I noticed the Walleye was available. So I thought I'd give it a go. Slung one of them in the middle for the building, and then 4 CBUs on the wings for whatever else may be around.

 

Ingress was quiet, as I expected. Until we got near the shore.... then many guns started opening up. We broke north, dropped down, and poured on the fuel to try to get away from those guns. Fortunately everyone stuck together.

 

After going around that threat, we got back on the flight path, hit the IP, and I switched to the Walleye, and while I was tuning in the targeting, I ordered Wilber to go after the same target, just in case. He acknowledged, and I was climbing and accelerating. About 1.6 miles out and 3,000 ft up, I dropped, and it started to track, then went dumb, and missed. Hit a few other things, but not the primary target. And Wilber missed as well. In desperation I tried dropping 2 CBUs on it, and as expected, they did nothing.

 

Just as I was about to give up, something grabbed my attention, catching me totally off guard -

 

The big boys had arrived!

 

 

 

And they totally obliterated the target area! Makes me wonder what we were even sent in for. lol However, thankfully, they saved out hides and resulted in a mission success for us.

 

I made a quick pass to see the results of their presence -

 

 

Really not much left. lol

 

After that surprise, we looked around, Anvil flight, another group of A-4s in the area, cleaned up a remaining gun, so I reeled Olds flight in and headed for home. Up ahead in the egress route I spotted some radar contacts and went after them. Managed to get another AAA or 2, as did #3 or 4 as well. After that I sent them home, checked with Red Crown for bandits but was clear, and then sped for home myself.

 

Once again, a surprise on arrival - a promotion!

 

[UnknownPilot 33]

No screen shots tonight, and just 2 quick missions.

 

March 31 '67, ran a SEAD mission to the west. Took 8 planes on that hop to split fire, and also pound out the AAA more quickly. Unfortunately, the "primary" targets wouldn't come up for some time, so there were lots of incidentals being taken out with no effect on the mission. Also, I tweaked the AI to fire rockets and bombs in 2s, but Wilber told me he was down to just guns, even though he never dropped any clusters. I wonder if having rockets in the centerline and CBUs on the wings had something to do with that.....?

 

Anyway, I got 3 of the primaries, and then Red Crown told me I was good to go, which is good because I was out of ammo and nobody else was doing much, so I ordered everyone home.

 

On the way out, Lt Jack Wood, Viper 21 was killed. Blown nearly apart, tail, one wing, canopy all gone and a big fireball in the sky as well. That sucked. No idea what hit him as it was relatively quiet otherwise.

 

 

Missed the month of the next mission, but I imagine it was late April or early May, sent after a thermal power plant to the far north. Surprisingly recon showed it to be relatively barren of guns.

 

I set us all up with 6 Mk82s in the center, and 600 gallons on the wings (300 per side). Gave us more range and more hitting power at the same time, but the little Skyhawk definitely was straining under the load.

 

As the map would not let me change the pre-IP waypoint, I had to put the IP waaaay out from the target to avoid population centers and take us over the mountains to the north, on a south western attack run to the target. Then once I was out a bit from the boat, I switched waypoints and went straight to the IP.

 

I also slowed us down some to let other flights get in there, but I think I overdid it, Anvil and Chevy flights were both already on their way out as we were just about 5 miles from the target, but there were still plenty of friendly fighters in the area, tangling with MiGs.

 

I set up the ripple for 6, had to pop up about 2 miles out, worried that I wouldn't get the nose back down in time, guestimated a drop (and a very low alt and high speed), and missed, though I think 1 hit, but the target was still intact. Prior to my run though, I sent Wilber in after it as well. I just beat him to the punch, but he followed soon behind and nailed it for us. Then since it was quiet, but we were sooo far north, I reeled everyone in, and headed for the egress point, taking us back right the way we came.

 

Once safely out over the gulf, I sent everyone home. 3 and 4 never dropped a single bomb this time, nobody got shot at, I didn't see a single puff of AAA, and all the enemy fighters were shot down. It was actually kind of eerie.

 

We were closer to the boat than I realized when I sent them all home though, so it ended up being a race. (I like to get there first, just in case one of them has damage and can't land, and so it's become habit - plus I still had 2 drop tanks with fuel that I didn't want to throw away).

 

Throttling up to 100%+, I shot past them about 5 miles out from the carrier on the final leg. I then chopped throttle, and waited, 4 miles..... 3 miles..... finally hit 400kts, popped the boards, but wasn't slowing down fast enough, so I pulled up into a near vertical dive. Once I dropped to 200kts, I went full dirty, flaps, gear and hook, and then started trying to get the nose back down, I watched the speedo spin counter clockwise, I pegged it, and decided to do a quick cheat and turn on the speedbar to look, by the time I did, I was doing 76 (and accelerating again, I suspect I dropped below 70kts), then turned it back off and focused on trying to lose 6,000 ft of altitude, just over a mile away from the carrier deck, with my flight coming in behind me, and I didn't want to wave off....

 

Going into a near vertical (down) barrel roll, buffeting the heck out of the plane, I managed to end up nearly at the right altitude at the right distance away, but was a touch fast and a bit too far to the right. I plowed ahead with it anyway, brakes still out, still at idle, seeing 200kts and worrying just a bit, I was at about a 45* bank trying to line it up enough that I didn't fall over the side while stopping.

 

At the last second, I uprighted it, and flaired just a bit to get he hook down and trapped, was nearly at the bow by the time I stopped.

 

Someone snapped a pic of some of the greenhorns watching me land for the first time, was a sea of

 

 

 

Oh god, they would SOOOO strip me of my wings for this stuff. lol But without a meatball and LSO and with the impatience inherent in a computer game on limited time per night (or day), well..... I guess I'm a bit of a maniac. hehe

Edited February 16, 2010 by UnknownPilot

[Lt. James Cater 62]

3APR72

 

Got called in to support an ARVN push and we delivered. Decided to take three flights onstead of one and it paid off.

 

Was a long routine flight as usual until we got word from the FAC that they had contact. We got there about 10 minutes later and being the first in, i drew ground fire and was hit a number of times. I had to break off my attack but being a target for the guns let the boys come in unopposed and they went to town in the target area. Checking up on my plane's condition, i found all was well and joined in the fun. We had so many napalm and cluster bombs striking Charlie that we didn't even have to switch to guns.

 

The FAC was happy, the ARVNs were happy, we were happy and so home we went.

 

Now i got an idea about where the enemy is placing heavy machine guns amongst their ground troops. Next time i have something in mind to drop in without getting shot up.

[Lt. James Cater 62]

5APR72

 

This mission was something different.

 

Apparently, we were taked with taking out some infantry at a North Vietnamese arty site. Whatever, it seemed to be damn important considering all the strikes going into the area. I mean everything from six B-52s to F-4s, Marine Skyhawks to you get the picture. All of it was going to the same place.

 

I thought about going with a second flight but decided against it due to the hassles involved if forming up wasn't spot on.

 

So it was me

 

2LT Karl Atterbery

 

CAPT Leigh Autry

 

2LT Klaus Broughton.

 

Visibility was fine, no clouds and only a slight haze.

 

The flight was the usual routine, the only worry was flying over AA sites over Laos. The timings were also important and by the time we turned near Uborn, i knew we were behind a bit. I wasn't that concerned as we flew along serenely at 10,000ft. Flights were checking in frequently and everything was in motion.

 

At 30 miles out, the first calls came in. flak supression flight hit every AA site within ten miles of the target and someone fired an anti radiation missle. I knew there was a SAM site somewhere in RP1 and i suspected it was taken care off when radar alert calls dropped off.

 

We could tell that the flak was intense due to a Navy A-7 being daowned and others calling out that they were hit. At 20 miles out we went to attack speed and then enjoyed the sight of a shower of bombs from the BUFFs walking across their target. Their aim was dead on since every few seconds, secondary explosions went off and one knew when the arty site was hit when a series of blasts went off that reminded me of a CBU drop.

 

Finally it was our turn. Everyone else was turning away except for a Navy guy in a A-7 (wingman to the the guy who got shot down) and as he turned away we went in. Everyone hit the guns and i'll take out the primary. I dropped down, swung a hard S-turn to let the guys in first and went for it.

 

Everything went perfect except for one thing.

 

I must have gotten some kind of buck fever since i let loose with all my CBUs and MISSED! DAMNIT!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

I just kept on going , jinking like mad now seeing as a bunch of tracers were reaching for me. Boy was i upset and i sure didn't want to try it again. You see, we had the advantage of surprise and a downhill foothil slope attack. Even the guns were in the wrong place to defend against us effectivly.

 

About two and a half miles out the decision was made. Turn around and do it.

 

The boys were doing a good job of keeping the enemies' heads down a bit, even if the ground fire was still rather intense.

 

As i bore in, the tracers came for me again. I jinked as best i could, but i knew i had to get it on this pass. The plane was carrying ten napalm canisters and i was set to drop them ALL on this one pass.

 

Everything was going my way until i had to straighten out for the napalm. Then a series of flashes and noises told me the aircraft was taking hits but it was too late. Ordnance was on it's way and so i slammed the throttle and pulled into a brutally tight turn to get away from the guns.

As i streaked away i was ready to call the boys together when lo and behold, i flew over two SAM launchers. Talk about a Find! I quickly switched to guns and circled back.

 

This area was really something before today. If every mission was like this we would have never had a single problem winning this war outright. By the time we were finished everything was blown away. The SAMs, the Arty, and our target.

 

We still don't know who those guys were that we dropped on. My guess is that they were either the SAM personel or probaly some North Vietnamese top brass. Either way, they were(well)done with that napalm.

 

Thank God for Dow Chemical Corporation.

Edited February 17, 2010 by Lt. James Cater

[Lt. James Cater 62]

7APR72

 

Pretty much a milk run.

 

Did a recce mission right after a B-52 strike. Between the flak supression and the BUFFs, there was nothing worth wasting ordnance on so we went home.

 

Only hassle came when we were inbound. Just into Laos, some triple A opened up on us. We dodged the fire easily and continued with the mission.

[+Cliff7600 1,148]

F-106 Vs MiG-17

 

5^th mission

 

2Lt Sean Rosewood

 

87^th FIS, Wiesbaden-Erbenheim – F-106A Delta Dart

 

11/04/68

 

Take off : 09.33 – Landing : 10.22

 

Target : Osnabrück, Sweep

 

2 MiG-17 Fresco, 1 MiG-19 Farmer

 

Zebra 11 : 2Lt Sean Rosewood

 

Zebra 12 : 2Lt Billy Pickett

 

Zebra 13 : Capt Clifton Massen

 

Zebra 14 : 1Lt Fred Sumner

 

Report :

 

Sweep over Osnabrück today. I know that we have to engage enemy fighters but the point is to fight the most important threat and not to be left aside of the main fight.

 

We joined Osnabrück and there were few dogfights here and there. Who to engage?

 

We left a MiG-19 with a F-4 on his tail. And we finally met some Su-15. I engaged one of them and launched 2 AIM-4G which didn’t hit the target. Zebra 13 and 14 engaged MiG-17 and MiG-21 and were in a big mess. So Billy and I went to help them. We arrived too late, 1Lt Sumner had been shot down before. I managed to get a lock on one of the Fresco but I was too close and wasn’t able to fire neither a AIM-4F or a AIM-26B. So I decided to break up.

 

But before RTB, I had to be sure that none of my wingmen would be shot at while returning. I went to rescue Zebra 13 and this time I was far enough to fire a Falcon. The AIM-4F took out the Fresco after I carefully checked that I was aiming a bandit and not a F-106. But I saw flashing yellow lights reflecting on my canopy, “Someone is firing at me, I must escape now!” and I went to the deck, full burner, making a wide turn to gain some speed. I thought it was a Fresco so it wouldn’t be able to follow if I reach max speed. As a fact , Capt Massen told me my six was ok and we set a course to the south.

 

There was a spot on the scope, right ahead, and it wasn’t identified as a friend. I locked on him and fired the remaining AIM-4F and AIM-26. The first one was the good and I had my second victory of the day. Nothing to fight ahead we kept a low altitude as we were still above enemies positions. Zebra 12 was followed by two bandits but they didn’t caught him up and gave up.

 

Same difficulty as usual to make a decent approach but everything went alright, the weather was shinny.

 

Capt Massen have had a MiG-19 but we don’t know what happened to 1Lt Sumner…

[UnknownPilot 33]

Davan is out of commision for the moment.

 

Thursday night I flew a mission to destroy an enemy fuel tank. It was a great mission with good results. I was, however, racing the clock, trying to wrap it up before 10pm EST so that I could watch Bullrun on Speed.

 

Because the mission and the results were so good, I decided to take a screen shot of the debrief and post it here. However, Bullrun had come on, so I was trying to watch that and type up my post. I had taken to working on the post during commercial breaks. One commercial break I returned to my PC, moved the mouse and nothing happened. So I hit some keys, nothing happened. Tried the caps lock and num lock (to check the lights), nothing happened. I haven't experienced a hard-lock this severe in a long time.

 

With nothing left to do, I reluctantly hit the power button. Then, once it shut down, the HDD and power lights started flashing with some noise coming through the stereo speakers in sync, at a high rate of speed. That scared me, I had no idea what was going on. I reached around back and turned off the toggle switch on the power supply.

 

Once I turned that back on, I heard a high pitched whine from the PSU. Hit the power button on the front and the noise when away, fans kicked on and things started to come to life, but no video, no POST.... no boot.

 

I have since brought it in to work, put another PSU on it and found it doing the same thing. Even when stripped of RAM, Video, and drives. I can only conclude that the motherboard took a dump on me. Or worse, maybe the processor.

 

I say "worse", because it's a P4 3.2GHz chip, well, I found another system at work that I can borrow for now, it's a P4 3.0. So I am losing 200MHz, and I am already struggling with a slide show when things get really busy. This new box has a slightly better video card and a SATA drive, which should be faster, but I had to transfer my RAM, so that remains the same. Ultimately, I fear a further frame rate drop. Which is not good. Not good at ALL. I am very tempted to swap chips. But the last thing I want to do is to either go through all that hassle for a dead chip, or worse, have the bad chip screw this other motherboard (have seen it happen when I worked as a tech for CompUSA).

 

I hate being so damned broke. :( (but of course, I don't qualify for any mortgage relief, because I'm the... well, the wrong "type" of person - AND I have a job and pay my bills, so any "hope" is right out the window for me)

 

At any rate, once I get this new box built (installing XP from scratch) I'll fire up SF2:V and see how it goes. At least I'll try posting that mission report I had written. And hopefully I'll be able to continue the mission.

 

I actually made it something like 14 combat missions (plus 1 carrier trap which I used as a "qualification", and is included as a 'combat mission'), starting at the very beginning of Rolling Thunder, and am now up to June of '67. Just a little over a year to go before I complete the campaign.

[Lt. James Cater 62]

9APR72

 

Sometimes i wonder why we make it unscathed in areas that have wall to wall guns but lose people on missions which should be a walk in the park.

 

Took two flights to hit a minor league base that was actually a glorified truck park. Everything was going just fine on the approach to the target, we were all coming in hard and the North Vietnamese only had a single 100mm gun firing at us. The anticipation of making a single pass and back to the O club was dashed when Capt Leigh Autry's aircraft took a direct hit just before weapons release.

 

We made the enemy pay for getting Autry but the target was not worth his death.

 

BTW-Cliff...Really want to put the foe at a disadvantage? If at all possible, try to lure the enemy to between 35-40,000ft and watch their performance degrade. Get them to chase you and you'll be able to open up the range enough to allow easy head shots or back shoot them when they turn away.

 

UP-Damn, sounds like the motherboard got fried. I' ve been thinking of a new comp for some time because my E-Machines has a bad reputaion for PSU burnout.

 

Hope you get back in the cockpit soon.

[Lt. James Cater 62]

10APR72 Mission 40!

 

Another mik run

 

LT Hill and i had it easy today. No ground fire and all our bombs fell within the area of a football field.

 

Seems like the enemy is breaking.

Edited February 21, 2010 by Lt. James Cater

[Slartibartfast 153]

Well Flt Lt Andrews is now looking at nearly the same amount of Kills as The Red Baron...

 

Its Grim Up north they say bloomin too right 2 Tornado's for an Intercept when we should have gone 4 or even 8 ship but thems the breaks ho hum...

 

2 Tornado's Full weapons no Tanks...

 

Well we went out to the old Stomping ground that is Fulda to keep the red's off our tanks and boy was it interesting 2 Mig-27's to sort out which we duly did so and then all hell broke loose... didn't notice the flight of Mig-23's and Mig-29's escorting them anyway we got stuck into both and came out without a scratch and I still don't know how I did it...

 

Kills

2 Mig-27's 1 Sidewinder 1 gun

2 Mig-23's 2 Skyflash

2 Mig-29's 1 Sidewinder 1 gun

 

Went home after this and flamed out on finals managed to deadstick the landing though as I was only a mile out... note to self dont use burner too much...

[UnknownPilot 33]

note to self dont use burner too much...

 

And of course.... don't forget your towel.

 

 

Lt, It's looking that way (MoBo). But I still worry about the processor. Crazy, just out of nowhere like that. God it sucks. But thanks for the kind words.

[Slartibartfast 153]

Good luck with the PC Unk but at least you have narrowed it down to what it is... as to the Towel I never travel without one... good for use as an Emergency Parachute...