Oops. This Can't Be Good for the Resume...

[Tripp]

quote:Russian Warplanes Buzz US Carrier
Aero-News.net
11/17/2000

There was some scrambling shipboard, and some embarrassment among US brass, as the USS Kitty Hawk (CV-63) suddenly spotted a pair of Russian airplanes, which buzzed the carrier, having approached unnoticed, below radar coverage.

A Russian Air Force official said the Overflight had been "a planned operation," and said the airmen will be given rewards.

Twice, on October 17, and again November 7, the big flattop was surprised -- and photographed at close range, apparently by Sukhoi 24MR photo-recon planes, and Su-27 fighters. Reports are that, after the second buzz job, the Navy was able to put a chase plane into the air.

Two days after the second flyover, the Kitty Hawk started participating in the huge "Operation Keen Sword" joint exercises with Japan, which are now winding down.

Izvestia was gleefully reporting, "If these had been planes on a war mission, the aircraft carrier would have been sunk." [As it is, only the career of its commander -- Capt. Allen G. Myers, who describes the ship as, "...a strategically flexible, combat ready national asset" -- is sunk. --ed.]

 

[Steve Wilkins]

Where's a good Cruiser when you need one? Only reason those jet guys did that to the carrier was because they knew their [the carrier's] air search radar doesn't even compare to that of an Aeigis Cruiser or DDG. The SPY-1 radar would have seen them coming in well over 200 miles away (specific numbers not necessary here), regardless of how low they were flying. And if these two MIG's would have pulled a stunt like that on us, we would have had another Vincennes incident. ESPECIALLY after something like what happened to the Cole. Man, that just gives me chills thinking about that. Take care, and always remember the Cruiser motto...."If it flies, it dies." This is especially targeted at low flying P-3's with nuggets inside.

 

[webmaster]

Interesting email I got regarding this...

quote:Subject: Prowler Saves the Day

Here's a very interesting story that should convince people that we're not all one big happy family. The fly bys occurred at the same time as a couple similar events in the Med. The author is the MO of an F/A-18 squadron in Atsugi. I got this yesterday.

Flying Shit :

- Cruise was pretty easy and very interesting: 54 days at sea, 40 traps, and 45 hours in the month of October alone! Yes, we flew our asses off! Since I'm one of 3 department heads with all my quals I fly a lot.

- Here's an interesting story (this is a no shitter). I was on the bridge in line to "drive the ship" as there are a bunch of O-5's and a few O-4's earning our "Conning alongside" qual. It's gay shoe boy shit where you give commands to the helm and lee helm (that's the throttle dude) and you our actually "flying formation" on the replenishment ship during UNREPS. You do this under the close supervision of the Captain of the ship and the CDO (Command Duty Officer-an O-5 usually the Navigator or ANAV). Anyways, I'm sitting there bullshitting with my XO who is also getting his qual and we hear on the CO's squawk box a call from CIC (Combat Info Ctr). They said,"Sir, we are getting indications of Russian fighter activity." His first response was,"launch the alert fighters." Combat told him the highest alerts were Alert 30's. The Captain got pissed and said "launch everything we got ASAP!" I ran to the Navigators phone and called the SDO. Our squadron didn't have alert duty that day, bummer, so I told him to find out who did and to get their ass moving up to the flight deck (only alert 7's are you actually sitting on the flight deck ready to go, alert 30's means you are in the ready room).

Anyways, 40 min after the CO called away the alerts, a Russian Su-27 Flanker and Su-24 Fencer made a 500 knot, 200 foot pass directly over the tower...it was just like in Top Gun, shoes on the bridge spilled coffee and everyone said,"Holllllllly shitttt!".

I looked at the captain at this point and his face was red. He looked like he just walked in on his wife getting boned by a Marine. The Sukoi's made 2 more high speed, low altitude passes before we finally launched the first aircraft off the deck...an EA-6B Prowler!

That's right. We launched a fucking Prowler and he ended up in a 1 v 1 with a Flanker just in front of the ship. The Flanker was all over his ass (kind of like a bear batting around a little bunny right before he eats it). He was screaming for help when finally a Hornet from our sister squadron (I use this term in its literal sense because they looked like a bunch of fucking girls playing with the Sukoi's they way they did) got of the deck and made the intercept.



It was too late. The entire crew watched overhead as the Russians made a mockery of our feeble attempt of intercepting them albeit totally OBE. The funny part of the story was the Admiral and the CAG were in there morning meeting in the War Room and they were interupted by the thundering roar of the Russians buzzing the tower. A CAG staff dude told me they looked at each other and looked at our Airplan, noticed we didn't have flights scheduled until a few hours from now, and said,"what was that?"

Four days later the Russian intelligence agency emailed the CO of the Kitty Hawk and enclosed pictures they had taken of dudes scrambling around the flight deck frantically trying to get airborne. I'm quite sure the fucking loser shoe boy in charge of our battle group's air defense was fired. It's also ironic that the Admiral change of command occurred just a few weeks prior to this incident. Anyways, the Russians tried to come out a few other times and we were more than ready. I personally intercepted an IL-38 May and shoved my wingtip in front of his windscreen to prevent him from turning towards the ship (yeah yeah...were friends now...blow me). In typical Navy Senior Officer Knee jerk fashion our entire airwing stood alerts around the clock as if WW III was going to break out any time. I got vectored and was instructed to intercept, VID and escort several "contacts of interest". One of them was an Aeroflot A320. There were a few more that were even less threatening. It was ridiculous.

This story, was plastered all over Russian and Japanese newpapers yesterday. The Russians even awarded their aircrew medals for their achievement. What fucking shame! I felt like I was on the Bad News Bears and we got our assess kicked and I didn't even get off the bench to help the team.