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Gulf of Sidra 1989 Audio
- Thread starter DanMa1156
- Start date
DanMav1156 said:
Both AIM-7s fired by lead aircraft (RIO fired both) missed; wingman then fired and scored on his bogey. Lead converted to rear aspect on surviving Flogger and fired a Sidewinder from dead six.
By then, AIM-7 was plenty accurate when fired within parameters and lock is maintained...you can hear a comment about getting lock back.
Thanks for the audio. I never knew all the details, nor do I know the crews involved. However…
These guys sounded like – aside from being good - were obviously very well trained. It is not every day one finds himself - if ever in his career - firing missiles in anger, in a life and death situation. From the audio, these guys knew what they were doing. That only comes from good training. I have heard practice, canned missile-shoots against a drone off the coast of California with a lot more confusion and mistakes. Good, realistic training makes all the difference in the world. And these guys had it.
I thought the RIO commentary was excellent. He had it all - spatial awareness, command and control (and obviously wasn't afraid to fire). And he apparently knew the ROE (rules of engagement) and was giving strong hints to tip the scales. I'd fly with that guy, any day.
The "no sidewinder tone" was a common mistake/problem. Not having the stick-mounted 3-position switch in the "SW" position meant you couldn't hear a tone, even if your sidewinder missile could. Switching it from SP ((or Guns) to SW, and bingo, you suddenly get a "tone" and can then fire (of course, I never had that problem
).
Regarding the AIM-7 Sparrow missile: It was a complex missile for its time. It unfortunately had a long history of reliability problems. Over the years, many/most of those problems were overcome. But it did have a long history of missing a lot. And its parameters were complex for firing. Thus, it never came close to having the confidence of an AIM-9 Sidewinder.
These guys sounded like – aside from being good - were obviously very well trained. It is not every day one finds himself - if ever in his career - firing missiles in anger, in a life and death situation. From the audio, these guys knew what they were doing. That only comes from good training. I have heard practice, canned missile-shoots against a drone off the coast of California with a lot more confusion and mistakes. Good, realistic training makes all the difference in the world. And these guys had it.
I thought the RIO commentary was excellent. He had it all - spatial awareness, command and control (and obviously wasn't afraid to fire). And he apparently knew the ROE (rules of engagement) and was giving strong hints to tip the scales. I'd fly with that guy, any day.
The "no sidewinder tone" was a common mistake/problem. Not having the stick-mounted 3-position switch in the "SW" position meant you couldn't hear a tone, even if your sidewinder missile could. Switching it from SP ((or Guns) to SW, and bingo, you suddenly get a "tone" and can then fire (of course, I never had that problem
).Regarding the AIM-7 Sparrow missile: It was a complex missile for its time. It unfortunately had a long history of reliability problems. Over the years, many/most of those problems were overcome. But it did have a long history of missing a lot. And its parameters were complex for firing. Thus, it never came close to having the confidence of an AIM-9 Sidewinder.
Brett327 said:
They were second set of Tomcat crews to get air-to-air victories, but, true, technically first to get MiGs as first encounter was against Su-22 Fitters. First set were in August 1981 and the aircrews were very popular. Due to terrorist activity and the threat to CO of Vincennes and his family, the VF-32 aircrews elected not to do any press conferences and the victory markings were removed from the aircraft for the fly-in even though JFK proudly had them emblazoned on the island. In fall of 1989, we put them on our CAG and CO jets even though the aircrews had left the squadron by then.
Interestingly and ironically, during the same timeframe, 81 to 89, the Iranian Tomcats were racking up successes routinely against the Iraqis with over 100 total victories claimed and many aces (some with 8-9 kills) if you go by the reporting by Tom Cooper on ACIG.org website and in his 2 books on the subject.
Gents-
Let me play 'Devil's Advocate' on this one, because I guess I'm missing something on this engagement. (Not a first for me by the way.)
If the ROE was 'yellow/tight', what action met the PHID criteria? The fact that the Floggers were trying to consummate the same intercept? 'Hostile Intent' is a very nebulous thing here. And, the fact that they were carring 'live missiles' was not unusual for Libyan crews in those days.
Believe that anyone who has studied ROE at any length will tell you that "shooting first, then asking questions" is a very slippy slope.
Any more intel on any of this? FYI- the pilot of dash two was a former skipper of mine here in Dallas but he was always very reluctant to discuss the engagement (sort of odd for a MiG killer in my experience).
My two cents......
Let me play 'Devil's Advocate' on this one, because I guess I'm missing something on this engagement. (Not a first for me by the way.)
If the ROE was 'yellow/tight', what action met the PHID criteria? The fact that the Floggers were trying to consummate the same intercept? 'Hostile Intent' is a very nebulous thing here. And, the fact that they were carring 'live missiles' was not unusual for Libyan crews in those days.
Believe that anyone who has studied ROE at any length will tell you that "shooting first, then asking questions" is a very slippy slope.
Any more intel on any of this? FYI- the pilot of dash two was a former skipper of mine here in Dallas but he was always very reluctant to discuss the engagement (sort of odd for a MiG killer in my experience).
My two cents......
B
Blutonski816
Guest
FA-18 Mousse said:
I believe there was some good deal of time spent analyzing the TCS footage along with the rest of the available data to remove any doubt about the Libyans' intents.
FA-18 Mousse said:
While researching this incident, I found it has been said that the engagement was authorized due to the fact that generally, the Tomcats AWG-9 would lock onto the Libyans and this was and had been enough to always turn them back, but most importantly,the E-2 crews were always able to hear Libyan ground controllers telling them to just sort of mess around with Navy crews, but this time overheard them telling them to intercept, and after 5 times, firing was authorized.