Wingman at War by Matt "Boz" Beals

Author:Matt "Boz" Beals [Beals, Matt "Boz"]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2021-12-12T00:00:00+00:00

“Whatever we learn to do, we learn by actually doing it. People come to be builders, for instance, by building, and harp players, by playing the harp. In the same way, by doing just acts we come to be just. By doing self-controlled acts, we come to be self-controlled, and by doing brave acts, we become brave.”

Aristotle

2 February 1991.

Sector Operations 3 Bunker (SOC 3), Deployed F-15 Operations, Incirlik AB, Turkey.

The night schedule continues to be unforgiving. Almost the same plan as last night, the B-52s on this mission were launching from RAF Fairford in England.

Far, far, away.

It is simply amazing to me that our USAF bombers launch from so far away, fly some 3000 miles down here, without ever hearing a word out of them; maybe or maybe not even seeing them on RADAR, perhaps just a “paint” (M4 friendly interrogation reply) among many and then, at the exact second of the briefed time on target (TOT), all hell is unleashed from the sky out of their bomb bay doors. Then quietly into the dead of night they vanish and fly further than the distance from Los Angeles to New York City, back to their base. See you, fellas, back here, same time, same place tomorrow, I am sure. The weather tonight was terrible, especially in Turkey, and caused serious spatial disorientation for some pilots in the air refueling tracks.

Once in Iraq, we found more clear airspace above 15,000-20,000 feet with an undercast below. There is an eerie orange glow from the bombs and fires burning below the undercast all over Iraq. AAA was still heavy, although not as noticeable tonight due to the inclement weather. I had two SA-7, or 14 missiles launched at me tonight, over the high mountainous terrain of northern Iraq on ingress. The SAMs were amazingly fast and erratic in their flight path, like bottle-rockets on the 4th of July, but never a real threat at our altitude.

Formation, formation, formation.

Tonight, I flew just about every different type of formation available. Departure and recovery were flown in two nautical miles (nm) RADAR trail formation. Portions were flown in close fingertip weather formation (inside of 5–10-foot wingtip clearance) on and off the tankers. Once out of the weather, I was cleared into one nautical mile line-abreast tactical formation, using only formation strip lighting for a visual reference as we pushed on-time across the FLOT into Iraq. At other times, I flew in a 3-5 nm offset trail formation, which is the night standard formation that we practice back home. This formation is the most comfortable for me, as I can track the “paints”, or specific friendly reply of the air-to-air interrogator (AAI), of my flight lead in search on the RADAR while continuing to focus in my area of responsibility (AOR) adhering to the RADAR search plan. We even flexed at times into night two-ship counter-rotating CAPs, with 10-15 nm legs, so one fighter was always looking downrange hot to the threat.

The further the distance in formation

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