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F-4E Story
Here is the start of my book on my life as a fighter pilot, engineer,
astronaut instructor, and involuntary lockup in a psych ward. Tell me what you think. Danny Deger My god, I couldn't believe it. Captain John "Lips" Fraley had just turned his F-4E Phantom II in front of me and gave me his six. Santa Claus had come early and had given me the best present ever. As Lips had briefed, we had started off with him having the offensive advantage and in two turns I had made it a neutral fight. We were passing beak-to-beak and I was preparing for a successful separation - unload, full burner, maybe a couple of check turns to add a few of angles without bleeding off my own speed. Piece of cake. Doing a good separation was about as easy as it gets in this business. And, just getting away without getting shot was going to **** Lips off - after all he had the advantage at the start. As I said we were passing beak-to-beak with him to my left. Before the merge he turns hard right. Big mistake Lips. Big, big mistake. I am going to make him pay with his life. I pull hard left and get behind him. This is great -- almost better than sex. I am lined up for a heat missile. "Fox 2", I call. Lips is flailing around. He continues turning desperately to his right. I follow. Time for another heater, "Fox 2", I call again. By the rules of engagement I had a valid kill and could call "knock it off", but I am having way too much fun. I have the advantage. I want a guns kill. Lips is about out of airspeed and ideas. I move into the saddle. I have a radar lock, my gun site is active and accurate. Pull some more on the stick and a little bit of right rudder to move the pipper to the middle of his cockpit and hold it for a second or two. Now pull the trigger, "Guns, Guns, Guns. Tracking, Tracking, Tracking. Eagle flight knock-it off." All the trigger did was turn on the gun camera and film the event. In real combat, 20 millimeter cannon shells would have come out of the M-61 Vulcan cannon in the nose of my F-4 at the rate of 100 rounds a second. Each shell has the explosive destruction of half a hand grenade and bit of incinerary to make sure what is left catches on fire. The cockpit under my pipper that contained Captain John "Lips" Fraley and his Weapon Systems Officer would simply have ceased to exists. After we landed, I couldn't wait for the debrief. Usually the fight is close and the lead can win the fight in the debrief. After all he is running the debrief and can say what he wants. But I knew Lips was toast with this one. Two valid heaters and a stable guns tracking solution was too much to turn around by spin in the debriefing room. I stopped by the beer machine and got two cold Buds. This was going to be a two beer debrief and I was going to love every minute. I was wrong. I met a furious and humiliated Lips in the hall. "This debrief is over," he fumed. "But why. Don't you want to know what you did wrong. You turned in front of me" "I didn't turn in front of you I led turned you." I was starting to realize what had happened. Lips was so ****ed that I was going to separate from a fight that he started out offensive, his mind melted down and he couldn't tell the difference between turning in front of an opponent and lead turn for a kill. His ego was so hurt by my upcoming separation, he made a mistake - a big mistake. This goes to show you the first rule of air-to-air combat. You aren't fighting another airplane, you are fighting another human. Get into their head and make them **** up. It is much easier to win this way that with a few angles hear and a few feet closer there. I didn't get the satisfaction of sipping two beers in a long debrief where we went through the flight one step at a time. Lips stomped off without having a clue what his mistake was. His loss. I went to the squadron bar and sat down to gloat. I was proud of myself. I didn't tell a soul I had just guns tracked the famous Captain Lips. But one advantage of a two seat airplane is there are WSOs (pronounced Whiss-ohs) in addition to the pilots. I knew these two guys would get the word out. I must say really enjoyed those two cold Buds. |
#2
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F-4E Story
In a previous article, "Danny Deger" said:
Here is the start of my book on my life as a fighter pilot, engineer, astronaut instructor, and involuntary lockup in a psych ward. Tell me what you think. Learn how to spell "gun sight". Otherwise, fine stuff. -- Paul Tomblin http://blog.xcski.com/ "Usenet is like a herd of performing elephants with diarrhea -- massive, difficult to redirect, awe-inspiring, entertaining, and a source of mind- boggling amounts of excrement when you least expect it." - spaf (1992) |
#3
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F-4E Story
"Paul Tomblin" wrote in message ... In a previous article, "Danny Deger" said: Here is the start of my book on my life as a fighter pilot, engineer, astronaut instructor, and involuntary lockup in a psych ward. Tell me what you think. Learn how to spell "gun sight". Otherwise, fine stuff. Thanks for the head up. The fix is alreay in. Danny Deger |
#4
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F-4E Story
"Paul Tomblin" wrote in message ... : In a previous article, "Danny Deger" said: : Here is the start of my book on my life as a fighter pilot, engineer, : astronaut instructor, and involuntary lockup in a psych ward. Tell me what : you think. : : Learn how to spell "gun sight". Otherwise, fine stuff. : : I thought he meant that was where his guns were located.... And, too bad it was a bud... ;-) |
#5
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F-4E Story
Please provide the URL, Danny
On Feb 26, 5:35 pm, "Danny Deger" wrote: "Paul Tomblin" wrote in message ... In a previous article, "Danny Deger" said: Here is the start of my book on my life as a fighter pilot, engineer, astronaut instructor, and involuntary lockup in a psych ward. Tell me what you think. Learn how to spell "gun sight". Otherwise, fine stuff. Thanks for the head up. The fix is alreay in. Danny Deger |
#6
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F-4E Story
"Danny Deger" wrote Here is the start of my book on my life as a fighter pilot, engineer, astronaut instructor, and involuntary lockup in a psych ward. Tell me what you think. First, try to take this all as my attempt at constructive criticisim, and not flaming, in any way. Be carefull, that your writing is not so "lingo correct" that the only ones that can read it are people that are in the field. That would limit your audience, quite a bit. g As you tell your story, you can explain the lingo, in plain language as part of the story, so that once it is explained, the lingo becomes understood, and learned. We were passing beak-to-beak I have some ideas wht that means, but I'm really not positive, and would just be guessing. and I was preparing for a successful separation What is a sucessfull separation; how do you know when you have one, and why is that an important thing? - unload, full burner, maybe a couple of check turns to Check turns? To check where he is? add a few of angles I think the angles is angels? as in altitude? "I didn't turn in front of you I led turned you." HuH? I like hearing stuff like this, but I would definitely be thinking that I had missed half of the story. Like I said, make explaining the terms part of to story, and part of the color of the story telling. Good luck! That is an ambitious project. -- Jim in NC |
#7
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F-4E Story
"Tony" wrote in message ups.com... Please provide the URL, Danny What URL are you refering to. Danny Deger |
#8
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F-4E Story
"Morgans" wrote in message ... "Danny Deger" wrote Here is the start of my book on my life as a fighter pilot, engineer, astronaut instructor, and involuntary lockup in a psych ward. Tell me what you think. First, try to take this all as my attempt at constructive criticisim, and not flaming, in any way. Be carefull, that your writing is not so "lingo correct" that the only ones that can read it are people that are in the field. That would limit your audience, quite a bit. g Thanks for the feedback, I agree. It turns out this opening sequence is full of lingo, but I find the next several pages slacking off a lot. I think this might be OK in the long run. Time will tell. My goal was and is a strong opening followed by a story told at a more modest pace. Danny Deger snip |
#9
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F-4E Story
On Feb 26, 10:34 pm, "Danny Deger" wrote:
"Tony" wrote in message ups.com... Please provide the URL, Danny What URL are you refering to. Danny Deger I had not found the story, Danny, can you direct me to it? I'm very interesteed in your experience since I also have what I'm hoping is a good story in process. |
#10
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F-4E Story
In a previous article, "Danny Deger" said:
"Morgans" wrote in message ... Be carefull, that your writing is not so "lingo correct" that the only ones that can read it are people that are in the field. That would limit your audience, quite a bit. g Thanks for the feedback, I agree. It turns out this opening sequence is full of lingo, but I find the next several pages slacking off a lot. I think this might be OK in the long run. Time will tell. My goal was and is a strong opening followed by a story told at a more modest pace. I agree with both of you - you can have too much lingo and confuse people, but you need enough to give us a "you are there" sensation. It has to feel real, and you do that by talking across to us rather than down, but not using terminology we don't know. Ed Raismus who posts mostly in rec.aviation.military wrote a couple of books about his Viet Nam experiences - I read the first one, and I'm going to be ordering the second one because he does a really good job of striking the right balance. -- Paul Tomblin http://blog.xcski.com/ "Many of the places I've worked had RAID 666. If a disk crashed, everything went to Hell." - Stephan Zielinski |
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