In western most time zone.....tapping fingers on desk top.
OK,OK, I"m back.
So, we are at Tyndall AFB for our annual "shot the nuke" Qualification Event. Every year the F-106 had to shoot an inert Genie and get withing scoreable hit distance. Sounds easy, eh? Well, that's a whole other story. We scheduled for two weeks, usually during the winter months so us norther tier boys could get warmed up and sunburned. All the jets were usually qualified in the first week. So, we had DACT scheduled for the second week. This one year we had a bunch of Tomcats from Oceana as I recall.
Its going really well and all concerned were having a blast with the Kitties. The first day we briefed FOX 1,2, and 3 simulated weapons availability but, no Phoenix for the Tomcats. That would be cheating. Fox 1 was a radar missile, Fox 2 was a heat seeker, and Fox 3 was the gun in the F-14. In the F-106, Fox 3 was the NUKE but, they were unaware of that and we surely weren't going to tell them that. So, the first day was a 4V4. We launched early and set up on the opposite side of the area and had presorted the Kitty that each of us would lock on to and shoot. When they checked into the area, we were already line abreast 4-6,000 feet apart. "Fights on" was called and we simultaneously called FOX 3 and executed our nuke escape maneuver. Of course the Tomcat guys thought we had lost our minds shooting the gun that far out and calling kills on all of them. They continued running us down but, GCI called a Knock it Off and explained that they had just been nuked. The rest of the week it was heaters and guns only. The Six or Iron Triangle as we called it was capable of extremely high end speed and accelerated quickly. It could do one hard bat turn and them it was nose down and full burner to regain the speed that had just been burned off in the turn. To say the least, getting in the phone booth with the Tomcat was a load of fun and humbling.
Later that week, I launched in two ship and my lead had a mechanical requiring immediate RTB. So, I arrived in the airspace early as a single ship and waited for the two ship of Kitties to arrive. The Six had a UHF Data Link receive only unit. So, I dialed up the Tomcat discrete frequency and heard them check in with GCI. When they came up on the common freq, I started making two sets of radio calls using my best ventriloquist voice to simulate my missing wingman. The Tomcat guys were in a panic because they could only find one target, me. Again, we were heaters and guns only. So, it was going to be a phone booth fight. I locked onto the lead, selected full AB, and went straight at him. With a visual on both, I rolled inverted, supersonic and made a canopy to canopy pass with lead. We then transitioned into the phone booth. They spanked me without mercy.
Which reminds me of the Tomcat dual engine flameout, the Bomarc Missile shoot, and the Six low altitude supersonic intercept stories. But, I'll get onto the F-4 story. I know Columbo is waiting impatiently.
As I mentioned earlier, the F-4E was very maneuverable in high the AOA, low speed environment. One of the old head instructors at my squadron in Korea taught me to be ready when chasing a guy uphill in burner. The trick was to park right behind and under his tail in full AB and be the first to crack a notch of flaps. This would allow the chaser just enough control authority to outlast the chasee as gravity took over the high AOA/low to no airspeed indication. By staying buried in his close deep six, he would eventual roll just a little to see where I was. This would cause gravity to take over and him pitch straight down in max AB trying to regain speed. Since I was first with the flaps out, there was just enough control authority to rudder the nose over, point at him, and FOX 2 (heat seeker) him with a full steady growl in the headset from the seeker head on the missile. When we RTBed and parked the crew chiefs were irritated because the tail of the jet had black soot all over the tail from doing somewhat of a tail slide and wrapping the burner plume around the tail. They would, of course, have to do extra work and get a stand and clean their jet and make it look presentable. I learned early on in my flying career that I was only borrowing the Crew Chief's jet, not flying my jet.
Then there was the time North Korean SAM site lit up our RHAW hear when we were playing in the ACMI area.
And the time of the near dual PC failure.
And live firing the new AIM-7 in the Phillipines.....and the AIM-9.
