Southernap

Look up the USS Coral Sea decommissioning fiasco in Baltimore and you will see all sorts of issues. The company that was actually doing the scrapping actually went under with OSHA violations, EPA violations and a slew of other issues. So for the Navy to finally sell the Forestall class of ships after 20 years of them being out of service (all four are actual up for plans to be scrapped) it only makes sense that the US Navy would try and maintain positive control via a cheap sales price so if it goes south, they can regain the ship prior to the news media making a Pulitzer prize winning story about it becoming another fiasco (the Baltimore Sun did so in the 1990s, google it).

It is an interesting seed of a thesis. I just wish he used more than one source and would have integrated the idea of the COIN aircraft development (which lead to the OV-10) and how that fit into his idea that CAS is a mission not a platform. Also it would have been interesting to see him talk more about the development of Army and USAAF interoperation doctrine beyond a few paragraphs. It would have also been interesting to have seen the author attempt to compare and contrast how the other two services view the mission role and how their airpower and doctrine evolved. Also, it appears to be heavily biased against the army and this "poisoned pen" approach will instantly turn anyone else off from reading this all the way through. He seriously needs to work on this to sell the idea better. Now that he doesn't have an interesting idea, but it is weakly supported, depending on one other source for historical research, and appears to use anecdotal evidence instead of hard factual evidence to support his points.

Long time lurker here. I see a zombie thread with mis-information. I know some people that were on the Staff at higher HQs in the region when this all happened and gave me the basic run down of this incident, without breaking confidence. This happened post Op Prarie Fire and El Drado Canyon and just a few weeks after Libya had shot at SCUD at a USCG LORAN Station on an Italian Island near Malta. So tensions in the region were still high. Add in that around the same time a pair of US Navy ships were rammed by the Soviets while trying to enter the Black Sea in that same year. So let us add that in. Also as part of the increases in 6th Fleet (the US Navy command responsible for the Med) and 2nd Fleet (the Atlantic and Norwegian sea area of operations) participation in Airland Battle 2000 as part of new rules the Navy and USAF were working hard on getting increase interoperability going on. So on this fateful day a RF-4C was tasked to find a carrier in the med. After it took pretty pictures of the carrier, while simulating a TU-16R Recon Badger or a TU-95D Recon Bear. The plan was this specific F-14 pilot was supposed to intercept and treat this aircraft just like a Soviet Naval Aviation (AKA SNA) recon asset at the same time the Anti-Air Warfare commander was later supposed to get training in since the plan was also that this RF-4C was going to simulate an ASCM with another RF-4C acting like a SNA bomber with a cruise missile. The USAF bubbas were briefed these mission profiles. The US Navy got the message and only briefed the F-14s on was the intercept and escort the RF-4C into and out of the carrier bubble of controlled air space after a successful intercept. Later on, it was found during the hearing for a court-martial that the squadron was also trying to get in some Dis-similar Air Combat Maneuvering with the Phantoms if they had the gas for it. All the AAW screen was briefed on was that a USAF asset would be coming in briefed as a RECON asset and the intercept controllers would direct this specific CAP asset towards interception and then escort after a few photos for the crowds the Phantom would break off and simulate an Soviet ASCM asset so they can get some live training in. Everyone onboard with the story so far? We have two different missions briefed for and a side mission that would be ad hoc. Okay so two RF-4Cs were planned for and one deck aborted at their home base due to a maintenance issue. The other guy kept with pressing the mission and passed word to AF Command to pass word that they only had one player for the games. Which meant the AAW screen commander was not going to get his drill time in, just the air borne intercept was supposed to go on. Due to issues with messages being passed, the word that only one RF-4C coming out was not passed on to the Carrier Group. So everyone was still thinking that there were players were going to be two. The RF-4C half way through the flight discovers a maintenance issue with his own ECM system and another mission critical system (word was that a couple of the cameras were down). By rules of the games established early on this should have been a divert back home, the USAF guys pushed the issue since they had checked out of 4th Allied TacAF command control with the word and they passed all they were going to do was a photo of the carrier and go home. Nothing else and again word was supposed to be passed but failed to reach all the required ears in time. On the other side the Navy F-14 pilots involved were only supposed to be flying a CAP mission and then escorting for pretty pictures a RF-4C over the carrier while someone else with a Nikon took a shot of a Navy F-14 banking with a USAF Phantom over a carrier so some civilian can have a cool picture in a book someplace or on their wall. There were supposed to be a couple of other players from the same squadron that were going to get the intercept practice and then practice trying to get ASCM (sorry I forgot to define this earlier, Anti-ship cruise missile) leaker practice in as well. The screen commander (ie the guy in charge of all the small ships that are to protect the carrier) was told the RF-4C was going to fly over get some pictures and then simulate an attack missile after zooming out and coming back in. Mis-communication at the battle group staff level lead to two different missions being briefed at the same time. It comes time for launch and the two players that weren't going to have live missiles deck abort due to issues. The mishap crew in question are coming home and given a chance to do the escort and that is all they are told by the squadron rep in carrier air traffic control. That they are only going out to intercept an RF-4C and escort him across the battle group for pictures of the carrier. So for those that have studied the idea of "Swiss cheese model" of safety intervention all the holes are aligning here. The primary issue was mis-communication. So now we have the intercept go on and bam over the battle group radio channel for something called "RED CROWN" (the primary for air defense commander) the interception controller starts to give directions to the F-14 crew and they fly with in range. At which (and confusion still reigns supreme here) someone else comes up and shouts the coded word to live fire. The pilot queried twice to verify and both times the correct word of the day was given to shot. So without thinking he shot. Only after the missile left his rail that the pilot realized what happened when the explosion and ejection beeper occurred. He was instructed to land immediately. Mishap board convenes and all sorts of big wigs come get involved from SACEUR, NAVEURCOM, USAFE, 6th Fleet, various safety centers. The pilot's father did not, I repeat, did not get involved beyond getting his son the best JAG lawyer that was out there. Otherwise he didn't want to see undue command influence get involved since the father was the commanding officer of Pacific Command at the time. Lawyers look at it all and come up with a deal that would avoid prison and avoid a major scandal since it seems others at 1-star and higher failed their duties in this mishap. So the plan was that this crew would receive a letter of reprimand and the pilot would loose thier wings and transfer to the reserves. This guy was a decent pilot, but a little dangerous and according to a family friend that was on the chop chain for review almost your quintessential "Maverick" style pilot; just needed some seasoning to understand that the flying he was doing was dangerous. The idea was that a LT in the Naval Reserves without his wings would get tired of whatever desk job given and resign or would hide away until it was time for mando-retirement at 30yrs and he would be stuck at LCDR/O-4, at least that was the hope. Instead this guy went back to school and got his law degree and did well as a reserve JAG lawyer to rise up in the ranks. It was only after there was a chance that he was going to screen as Admiral that all this about his past came to light and people started to ask questions again. Add in that the Global War on Terror and the clearing out of leadership that knew this guy's background post 'Hook '91 lead to this guy slipping through the cracks.

http://www.atacusa.com/mk_58_hawk_hunter.html ATAC home based out of WIlliamsburg Intl has a couple of Mk58 Hunter in thier collection. They use it primarly as an MiG-15/17/19/J-6 simulator or as a ASCM simulator (for the ground based air defense types to pratice against).

The seperate vertical stabs comes from the studying that the Northup Engineers way back in the 60's (yes the Hornet design is that old) based on what was needed to give the most manuverabilty and the most "flex" of the control surfaces at high angles of manuver and high speeds. The angles on the vertical stabs also are supposed to help aid in directional control if you loose an engine as well, at least according to an engineer I talked to once while dealing with the EA-18Gs, that at the angles placed the torque applied by the other engine and asymetrical effects of that lose of power on that side will lead to Remember the F-18A thru F was based on the YF-17 which was a direct competitor of the YF-16 for the lightweight fighter program for the USAF in the early 70's. If you honestly look at the segements of the YF-17 and F-18 you will see that it is born all the way back with the F-5A Freedom Fighter. The nose was rounded out, the engines spaced further apart to give better survivablity in case of a weapon strike based on lessons from Vietnam, the LEX's give better lift and better manuvering at higher angles of attack, better "digital" components in the cockpit (I say "digital" in this sense because in that era digital electronics were anything based on an intergrated chip, so a B-52 had digital electronics compared to the B-36 and B-47 it replaced, ditto with the F-4 vs the F-100 or even the F-101; and yet the YF-17 and the YF-16 has better digital electronics because they were using LSI or even some early VLSI IC electronics in thier systems vs just basic IC chips in some of the electronics suites. Oh you are still talking analog if your are using tubes still), better cockpit arrangements, etc. There were all sorts of design changes from internal Northup designs to increase the F-5 series capabilties into the future. Some of those same features were carried over in creating the F-20 Tigershark and again if you compare some things in the F-20 vs the F-17 and even the F-18 you will see some of the same characteristics carried over amongst all of the airframes.

Not completely true either. Some aircraft in the US Navy and USMC aircraft operate in blocks as part of thier offical designation. For example the EA-6B ICAP II has had four different blocks (82,86, 89, 89A) and are referred to as such in offical documentation.

The Kfir's are probably owned by a civilian aggressor company called ATAC, linky, who are home based out of Newport News-Williamsburg International Airport in Newport News, VA. They fly both the Kfir and the J-35 Draken. They have standing contracts to provide aggressor threats to any USN/USMC and USAF unit on the Eastern Seaboard. There is a Military Operations Area of the eastern seaboard of the USA titled the VACAPES. It streaches from the Chesapeke Bay down to around Charleston, SC. They also will show up from time to time at Fallon to provide additional DACM training. As to the Mi-35 and the Euro Tigers flying around, the best that I could think off whole be from some NATO allies who brought thier helicopters over for additional training in some of our military ranges. As to the Su-33 it was reported in Ukraine news papers that the US bought a pair of Su-27 Flanker A's for study and DACM.

COBRAAAAAA!

Did you check and make sure the sounds assoicated to that bomb are saved in the "sounds" directory? Same thing with the effects, they should be saved down in the effects directory if my memory serves me right.

SAGE or Semi-Automated Ground Enviroment was a system developed by NORAD to basically datalink all the various radar sites to a central location and have the operators control the intercept of Soviet Bombers via both a radar and voice comms to an intercept. DIANE was an attempt to intergrate both the navigation and bombing computers together via a databus system so that the trigometery of dropping a bomb from a jet aircraft to hit a target was computed with minimal input from the operator. It was also designed to allow the operator to blind bomb heads down looking only at the displays inside the cockpit and not depend on outside references outside. It sounds very much what your describing is attacking via a radar becon. Which is a pretty interesting system. Basically a ground force has a radio transmitter and transmits in a certain frequency which if the aircraft has a special radio tuned into the freq it will present on the radar scope as a target or it will display on the ILS system and all the pilot needs to do is fly to that point (either the target or to center up the ILS needles) and as soon as the plane is in range then the operator on the ground will give some final steering cues before telling them when to drop the bombs.

So when are we going to get the EB-2C and the EB-52I as well?

My bad. I thought that none of the Clark AFB units deployed to the Pennusila during the Gulf War.

The only USAF unit that was still flying F-4E's around the time of Desert Storm was the 3rd Tactical Fighter Squadron. They were home based at Clark AFB in the Republic of the Philippines Islands. This would of been the last unit to convert to either the F-16 or the F-15 at the time, however the change was canceled because of closing of Clark AFB. The 3rd TFS did not deploy to the Saudi Peninsula. As part of our coalition partners the Turkish AF and Egyptian AF did deploy to the region and they both did fly F-4E's at the time. However, I don't believe they deployed F-4E's near the active combat zones. Instead most of their support came from flying helicopters and transport aircraft.

Wait something new to be scared of? I thought I was supposed to be scared of the man-made disasters with the stolen Soviet suit case nuclear bomb that was going to be detonated along a fault line which is going to case the big earthquake which will cause everything west of Denver to fall into the ocean which is going to cause the massive tsunami which will cause everything east of Memphis to fall under the ocean. All of which will help to speed up global warming disaster killing not only the children of the world, but also the polar bears. Or was it the massive meteor the size of Africa hitting the planet that is going to kill us all? Or is it the threat of being rick rolled? I am so confused. I need to keep watching the news to keep being afraid.