Free 4. Vietnam II by C. R. Ryder Page A

run had begun.
    "RCD connected, light's on" The radar navigator said indicating that the final arming step was complete.
    "30 seconds"
    "Stepping out to my final offset" The Radar Navigator was making his final corrections and adjusting his aim point.  He was running the show.
    "20 seconds…climb!"
    It was time to climb to 1000 feet.  With a cold sense of dread I eased back on the yoke and we got up there in seconds.  Everyone was really uncomfortable.
    "10 seconds,” The navigator said.  “Doors!”
    The bomb doors opened.
    "5, 4, 3...”  The navigator began the final countdown, “2, 1 bombs away"
    The bombs rippled off the aircraft.  The plane felt lighter already and began to accelerate on its own.  The navigator closed the bomb doors at the same time I pushed the throttles up.  It was a lot of smash and I kept feeding in trim to keep the nose down.  In addition the plane wanted to turn right.  It was either bent or mistrimmed.  Either way I spent the escape route putting a lot of push into the rudder pedal to keep the bomber on course.  I almost had to put my foot through the floor of the flight deck.
    We descended back down to the deck all while gunfire started coming from every direction.  Some of the flashes were big enough to be 37 millimeter so we started maneuvering.  We reached 450 knots just as we hit our assigned altitude.
    I had really fucked up.  I had put in too much smash and the plane started to Mach tuck, the nose started going down and picked up speed which led to the nose going down more and picking up even more speed.  This would have kept going on if not corrected all the way to the crash site.  We were really close to the ground to begin with.  I forgot about the anti-aircraft for a minute and concentrated on trimming the plane nose up so we don’t die in a smoking hole.
    Finally we were climbing out of there.  While we ascended back up to altitude the whole time I fought with the bomber.  It was a good feeling to be back up high again.
    I got the plane trimmed up and we were flying right again.  We retrograded, which basically means we were headed home.  The navigator had us turned toward a retrograde heading when something big and ugly flew right past the nose of the bomber.
    I banked left to avoid this asshole.
    “Was that the damn Navy?”  I asked the copilot.
    “That was a bandit.”  He told me flatly.
    We were no longer alone in the air.
     
     
     
     
    AIR TO AIR

Lieutenant Colonel Carol Madison
    Air Force Intelligence Officer
     
    The first reports of air to air engagements were starting to come in.  The Air Boss and his Generals all wanted minute by minute reports.  Unfortunately the satellite feed was busted.  It was a new system and the Comm/Computer guys were working it, but they did not seem very hopeful.
    “We need updates.”  The Air Boss told me over the phone.  The Four Star sounded unhappy and I wished I had not picked the phone up when it rang.  It wasn’t even my phone.
    “I don’t know how we are going to do that without the satellite link.  We have no visuals.”  I explained.
    “Figure it out.”  He said followed by a click as he hung up.
    It took less than an hour to tackle that little problem.  To get through the night we had a phone patch through Andersen to the AWACs.  A guy standing right by the Mission Crew Commander would relay information in real time throughout the night.
    So began the fight between the US Navy and US Air Force versus the Vietnam People’s Air Force for the airspace over Vietnam.
    Winner take all.
     

17 JANUARY 1991
     
    AIR ENGAGEMENT #1
    USAF F-15C vs. VPAF MiG-21
     
    Senior Airman William Lydecker
    E-3 SENTRY Weapons Director
     
    I was a scope dope.  It involves running blue air against red air onboard the AWACs.  Of course it’s more complicated than that.  We have a saying that AWACs tell the fighters where to go.  We fly on this big Boeing 707 airliner with a giant radar dish on the top