F-15 Rescue Mission.

luvflyin

luvflyin

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It says the Weapons Officer was a Colonel. That seems pretty high up the food chain to still be flying combat missions.
 
More details in the A-10 thread.
 
luvflyin said:
It says the Weapons Officer was a Colonel. That seems pretty high up the food chain to still be flying combat missions.
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Two things come to mind.

First, being at ~20 years of service, this may be the only shootin' war the colonel has had the opportunity to participate in.

Second, the colonel may believe in leading from the front.

I can respect either reason.

Ron Wanttaja
 
Im waiting for the movie.
 
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wanttaja said:
Two things come to mind.

First, being at ~20 years of service, this may be the only shootin' war the colonel has had the opportunity to participate in.

Second, the colonel may believe in leading from the front.

I can respect either reason.

Ron Wanttaja
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So maybe he wanted an Air Force Combat Action Medal. Got that and a Purple Heart to boot.
 
luvflyin said:
So maybe he wanted an Air Force Combat Action Medal. Got that and a Purple Heart to boot.
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If he's an O-6, he's certainly looking to improve his prospects for getting his first star. Combat Action Medal would certainly help. Even an O-5 may have been looking ahead.

We don't know how strong a driver that was for him going into combat, but in this case, he certainly earned it. Not knowing the guy, I'd give him the benefit of the doubt.

There's a long history of staff officers (especially those with political ambitions) "exposing" themselves to combat to gain a medal to help their promotion or election prospects. During WWII, brass would cadge rides on bomber raids and get awarded an Air Medal on their return. The Navy did something similar; note how Lyndon Johnson got a Silver Star.

Ron Wanttaja
 
luvflyin said:
It says the Weapons Officer was a Colonel. That seems pretty high up the food chain to still be flying combat missions.
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At least in the Navy our Air Wing Commanders (who are 0-6s as well) routinely fly in peace and war. My experience in flying joint ops with the USAF for Northern and Southern watch was similar but I can't say if it's the norm for them. Wing Commanders are among the few 0-6 jobs where you get to still fly much.
 
Older and higher ranking officers flying combat missions way back in WWII was not unusual. Hollywood and politics had multiple examples.

My Father's B-24 bombing squadron had former South Dakota Governor turned presidential candidate (then lifelong diplomat) George McGovern as member, who was later featured in news journalist Tom Brokaw's "Greatest Generation" book and subsequent promotional publicity tours.

Another member of the group was a significantly older pilot. During my attendance at some of the later group's reunions learned that anybody over the age of 23 or so was considered "old". This older officer was a West Point grad, with rank. During an early combat orientation mission he returned from a bad one with casualties on board. Upon exiting the plane he freaked out while counting holes in the aircraft, and was taken off flight status and soon departed the squadron. It was tough for newly arrived crew to see damaged aircraft return, then hear about what happened well before they were signed off to fly their first missions.

This operation in Iran is probably not much different, just on a smaller and more advanced scale than WWII, including participation by older ranking pilots flying combat for whatever personal reasons they may have.
 
I used to get paired with our brigade commander (O6) a lot in Afghanistan. He was an Apache guy so basically I just let him wiggle sticks. His flights were just to attend meetings in the AO and weren’t like air assaults or anything. Now our battalion commander (O5) was trying volunteer for anything because he wanted an Air Medal with V. Didn’t work out for him but I don’t think it would have made a difference in promotion either.

Had another O6 in Iraq who flew like maybe 3-4 times. This was one of them. Whack! Had glass all over his lap.
IMG_3249.jpeg
 
Is this photo showing small arms fire, captured by the glass? And the resultant spalling ending up on his lap? Or something else? Lucky guy.

Our airport has a fully restored Huey (still flying) that flew many of its combat missions over Cambodia and Laos. Lots of little aluminum skin patches riveted throughout the skin covering up all the small arms holes.
 
Rick A said:
Is this photo showing small arms fire, captured by the glass? And the resultant spalling ending up on his lap? Or something else? Lucky guy.

Our airport has a fully restored Huey (still flying) that flew many of its combat missions over Cambodia and Laos. Lots of little aluminum skin patches riveted throughout the skin covering up all the small arms holes.
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Bird Strike. I had probably half dozen in Iraq because we flew at 50 ft everywhere. Took one to the center screen one day and cracked it. The remains hit the ALQ-144 “disco ball” up top and failed it because it block the IR beams. Birds, rocks and sand were brutal on windscreens there.
 
Speaking of altitude. Couldn’t help but notice how high the HH-60s were flying. Few hundred feet up is prime engagement for both small arms / MANPADs. Refueling I get but I’d be in the weeds on exfil.
 
Pugs said:
At least in the Navy our Air Wing Commanders (who are 0-6s as well) routinely fly in peace and war. My experience in flying joint ops with the USAF for Northern and Southern watch was similar but I can't say if it's the norm for them. Wing Commanders are among the few 0-6 jobs where you get to still fly much.
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Ok. I was around Marine and Navy aviation for 12 years. Saw a lot of Jet Jocks walking around and they were mostly Lieutenants/Captains(marine) and Lieutenants(navy) with an occasional Major/Lt Commander. Did see a Navy Captain once and I was talking with him after his flight. He was out getting his skins in an A-4 at Lemoore. I was a Civilian Controller there. He was behind the plane and effed things up. Got where he wasn’t supposed to be and caused ACLS to lock on him instead of the plane it should have.
 
Velocity173 said:
Speaking of altitude. Couldn’t help but notice how high the HH-60s were flying. Few hundred feet up is prime engagement for both small arms / MANPADs. Refueling I get but I’d be in the weeds on exfil.
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That's so obvious I wonder if it was a high-stakes ruse.
 
Piperonca said:
That's so obvious I wonder if it was a high-stakes ruse.
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Well it’s always about balancing the possibility of CFIT vs enemy threat. In Iraq we started with no hard deck then people started balling up aircraft so they bumped it to 50 ft. By the time I left, it was 200 ft.

It’s strange, one day I was leaving Baghdad hoping over high tension lines and I see some 101st 60s out my left climbing to altitude. We believed our biggest threat was SA-7s/SA-14s. Low and fast is your friend. Their philosophy was most likely that small arms was the real threat. In that case, go several thousand feet up and you’re outside that envelope. Either way has its pro and cons. Having seen the shoot-down reports prior to us getting in theater, and one (Senator Tammy Duckworth) in particular, I’m a fan of low and fast.
 
I used to go out on raids as a staff O5 in Iraq. It had nothing to do with promotions or medals. If you spend your life preparing for war, the last thing you are going to do is pass up a chance to get in on the action. Plus you can't do your job if you don't understand conditions. Any commander worth a damn feels that way.
 
ah yes, that combat vet thing again. Two things can be true at the same time, chat.

People want to do their jobs yes, and Ego/vanity projects also abound, at least in the usafr/ang side. We got them aplenty during 9/11 AFG. The senior guys who "missed" desert storm in active duty bumped the young guys out of the rotation to go get into the turkey shoot. Then the second the airline pay was one nickle more (specifically when their airline stopped doing the delta thing and pay matching 1:1, once the rah rah about 9/11 died down), or the action itself died down (pretty quickly in my prior community, given the perma-permissive nature to the airplane in question), it was back to "being a dot". Leaving the young guys the non-flying IA shaft assignments and other misallocations of manpower endemic to the military after the first 4 weeks of... well anything.

There was even a time where they had to non-vol people into weapons school, because the cat was out of the bag that once you got that "honor" bestowed upon you, your life was now relegated to being mission planning cell bee aye tee cee aich. That's right, non-vol'd...to.weapons.school. Shark meet jump. Even as late as this year I've been picking up multi-million dollar IPs from 5th gen fighters at the pinnacle of their career, clamoring to come do the "scutwork" of teaching intermediate flight training to neophytes, complete with the non-combat drudgery some of the usual suspects feel should be done by civilian piston CFIs on their way to a gear slinging job.
 
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wanttaja said:
If he's an O-6, he's certainly looking to improve his prospects for getting his first star. Combat Action Medal would certainly help. Even an O-5 may have been looking ahead.

We don't know how strong a driver that was for him going into combat, but in this case, he certainly earned it. Not knowing the guy, I'd give him the benefit of the doubt.

There's a long history of staff officers (especially those with political ambitions) "exposing" themselves to combat to gain a medal to help their promotion or election prospects. During WWII, brass would cadge rides on bomber raids and get awarded an Air Medal on their return. The Navy did something similar; note how Lyndon Johnson got a Silver Star.

Ron Wanttaja
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So Lyndon gets the Silver Star as a passenger. Do we know what the crew got?
 
wanttaja said:
If he's an O-6, he's certainly looking to improve his prospects for getting his first star. Combat Action Medal would certainly help. Even an O-5 may have been looking ahead.

We don't know how strong a driver that was for him going into combat, but in this case, he certainly earned it. Not knowing the guy, I'd give him the benefit of the doubt.

There's a long history of staff officers (especially those with political ambitions) "exposing" themselves to combat to gain a medal to help their promotion or election prospects. During WWII, brass would cadge rides on bomber raids and get awarded an Air Medal on their return. The Navy did something similar; note how Lyndon Johnson got a Silver Star.

Ron Wanttaja
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Some Vets didn’t care to much about their medals.

 
Ventucky Red said:
Oakleaf maybe... full bird hard to say leaning to doubtful. Wasn't "Killer Chick" a Lt. Colonel?
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Believe she was a captain at the time of the "bring it back in manual" incident. Taught at the AF academy later on, among other things, and retired a full colonel.

Funny story is that I recommended two leadership books to a friend at work, and one of the books was Campbell's. My friend laughed and said "yeah, she's my cousin." So I ended up with a signed book card.
 
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Pugs said:
At least in the Navy our Air Wing Commanders (who are 0-6s as well) routinely fly in peace and war. My experience in flying joint ops with the USAF for Northern and Southern watch was similar but I can't say if it's the norm for them. Wing Commanders are among the few 0-6 jobs where you get to still fly much.
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Same deal for AF. O5s fly the line as squadron Ops Os and Commanders, I’ve had O-6 Ops Group and Wing Commanders fly weekly. Attached staff also fly routinely; all these guys are combat mission ready qualified in their platform, so it’s not like this dude was some deployed support group O5/O-6 getting a glorified fam flight.


Dude ejected, evaded, and actively participated in his own rescue. Good on him.
 
TCABM said:
Same deal for AF. O5s fly the line as squadron Ops Os and Commanders, I’ve had O-6 Ops Group and Wing Commanders fly weekly. Attached staff also fly routinely; all these guys are combat mission ready qualified in their platform, so it’s not like this dude was some deployed support group O5/O-6 getting a glorified fam flight.


Dude ejected, evaded, and actively participated in his own rescue. Good on him.
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That’s tough to do and maintain flight proficiency while in a command slot. Never saw regular staffers fly in the Army in theater. They just don’t have the time.

I’d go flying with my battalion commander (O5) in OEF and he just wasn't as proficient as those of us flying 6 days a week. He knew it too. He also had to juggle his admin schedule to get on the flying schedule. We’d come back from flying all day and for me, 10 minute debrief and I’m on the way to the dfac for steak & lobster. He still had hours of paperwork / putting out fires from stuff he missed while out flying. Don’t envy the staff / command guys. Some were agressive and could juggle the non flying tasks and still get on the schedule. Others just didn’t have the time and were relegated to “flying a desk.”
 
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Velocity173 said:
That’s tough to do and maintain flight proficiency while in a command slot.
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It is, which is why those dudes normally fly as a wingman. Leads, mission commanders, package commanders are going to be senior O-3s and O-4s.
 
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