Tuesday 26th May 2020

[Flyco]

A few more, considered, thoughts about last night's sortie. Phil set himself a mega-task, which seemed popular. I will be candid in my comments, any overly-kind debrief is a waste of time, but Phil, please don't take offence.

Firstly, I understand the need to keep wraps on a sortie so as not to foil the fun (If only you knew how boring I find my own sorties, having flown them several dozen times beforehand). However, more info must be available - at a minimum friendly and enemy forces and units - particularly airfields. My own problem was compounded by the absence of any weapons on my ac, plus no apparent route or target area. (The latter may have been finger-trouble on my behalf, I have not used the F-18s weapons and nav systems for a month or more). I loaded Snake-eyes - in retrospect, with there being no AD at the target, that was a questionable decision, but I knew that weapon profile fairly well and it is an easy delivery - if you ignore the cannon-fire coming up at you.

I "cheated" by going to the F10 map to get a distance and bearing from my T/O to the target, and was planning to map-crawl to target. Once airborne, my nav system fell-over, and even the moving map stopped working (I forgot about the Kneepad maps - so I don't know how that would have worked out). In the event Jack, flying top-cover, helped with the nav and we got to the target OK. My CCIP set-up was all to pot - probably as a result of my nav system not working - and I could not get a useable CCIP aim-marker. Consequently, I pickled by eye - if I had thought about it more I would have increased my bomb spacing to compensate - as it was, I dropped too early and only got one Mista - the tail ender. But Jack took out at least one more with his GBUs, and I got around 300 hits with my cannon - without causing any apparent damage! I was also surprised to see fire coming back, since I had not realised that the Mista has any gun capable of Anti-Air defence.

I then set off for home, again using DR (i.e. HSI and clock), and calling for steers as I got close. My fuel was low, but I had left on my planned Bingo and thought I could make it. Unfortunately, I calculated without any allowance to avoid SAMs and evade the Mig-29s that locked me up 2 or 3 times (Jack had left by then). Thankfully they did not fire - whether that was because I was zig-zagging at < 100ft I do not know - perhaps they though I would kill myself - I certainly did. I was tempted as I saw Nalchik go past, but did not know whether it was Blue or Red so unwisely pressed on. My tanks emptied just as I saw Beslan, but I was unable to reach it. I landed safely in a large field, with gear and flap down - so that time doing approaches was not totally wasted! See piccy below, my ac with Beslan just 4.8 nm beyond it!

I enjoyed the mission, even though I was soaked in sweat by the end of it. However, I am a planning man rather than a 'kick the tyres and light the fires" sort (maybe that's why I never made it on the Hunter), and I really would have liked a fuller background brief, and time to plan.

Finally, a sad note - It does look to me as though we are not going to see the F-18 OCU rejoin us and I suggest that if we want to keep flying the F-18 - and I do - we must set up a slightly larger F-18 group within the main body.

Sorry to have gone on so but I did need to explain my wish for more planning, and fuller and better briefs.

[Neil Willis]

I agree we need to make provision for F-18s outside the OCU to enable people to join in on missions.

I suspect we need to create a Fleet Air Arm Squadron to bring carriers into the picture more effectively too.

[john (scooby)]

Yeah the f18s are in somewhat short supply nowadays with ocu appatantly diverging from rafair somewhat.
I never thought I'd see the day where we regularly get more f14s in the air than f18s!

[Father Cool]

What is the reasoning behind the OCU not joining us for mission nights?

It seems an awful lot of wasted effort to put the work in to become crack FA-18 pilots and then never fly the missions?

[john (scooby)]

What is the reasoning behind the OCU not joining us for mission nights?

It seems an awful lot of wasted effort to put the work in to become crack FA-18 pilots and then never fly the missions?

Not sure if politics are in play or they're just busy training full time

[Neil Willis]

I think they are just concentrating entirely on training as it is a long detailed process. They have different priorities right now, that is all.

I think 3 Squadron also want to prioritise in the same way, so missionplanners just have to tailor their requirements accordingly.

[Father Cool]

It's all fine by me, I just thought it was a shame that we didn't all get together for some mission fun each week.

[Flyco]

Phil, I flew this sortie again as a singleton. Aircraft and nav system OK, but definitely no weapons, and really needs a CL tank to make it comfortable. Turn on to target a bit sharp (150 degrees at a range of about 2-3 nm). Even shot a chopper down on the way home

[maggsy]

I think 3 Squadron also want to prioritise in the same way, so missionplanners just have to tailor their requirements accordingly.

I have every intention of throwing 3(F) back into Tuesday nights RAF Air missions, We looked at how long it would take us to get every pilot through the basic EFT element of Viper School and anywhere between 6 to 8 weeks seemed to be a conservative estimate, we will not be far off that.
Once I have the complete roster EFT qualified. we can then resume a more acxtive role within the RAF Air group.