Falcon 4: Mission Report 5

Takeoff: Day 1, 09:48

This mission is an escort. A flight of F-15E's are attacking an airfield just behind the front-line. Again, same as the last mission, I don't expect too much opposition, so I sacrifice 2 AMRAAM's for the sake of 2 AGM-88 HARM missiles (I leave the rest of my flight with 4 AMRAAM's and 2 Sidewinders).

The flight is very straight forward. After making the turn at waypoint 2, the closest enemy aircraft is 50 miles away to the North-East, and AWAC's can't see any threats. As we approach waypoint 3, I call up my HARM's, hoping to see a radar belonging to a missile system, but there is nothing apart from search radars. I send one missile at the radar on the airfield the F-15E's will be attacking, and another at a search radar nearby. No sooner have I done this than AWAC's declares a pair of SU-17's 30 miles away. I send the second element after them. We get a bit of AAA over the target airfield, so I turn on my jammer, jink and turn away South, towards the next waypoint.

After landing, I see that I killed 1 radar and a runway (my missile to the airfield's radar must have missed the radar but hit the runway instead - oh well, it still counts as a kill!). One of the SU-17's must have either got away, or killed by someone else, as our flight just gets credited with 1 air-to-air kill.

I suppose the most important thing about the mission was that the F-15E's survived and hit the airfield - hard. The results from the debrief say "East Incheon has been completely shut down and will be unable to launch any sorties in the near future."

Falcon 4: Mission Report 4

Takeoff: Day 1, 09:48


We have been assigned yet another sweep mission, but this time further North. There are again 4 of us and we have 4 AMRAAMS and 2 Sidewinders each. Bearing in mind the last couple of missions - how we seem to have achieved air superiority round the front-line, I decide to leave my 2 Sidewinders behind and take along 4 cluster bombs. There are some T-62 tanks between waypoints 3 and 4, so I'll see if I can take a few of them out.

After take-off, AWAC's declares all clear. By the time we get to waypoint 3, there are some enemy aircraft, but nothing that AWAC's thinks is a threat. I call up my air-to-ground radar and find some targets. AWAC's confirms they are enemy. I line up on them and drop all 4 CBU's. Meanwhile, we are closing in on some enemy aircraft (I think they are transport-types). We all pick and engage targets. We have already over-shot waypoint 4 and are supposed to be starting to head back South. The closest enemy aircraft are about 40 miles away now, so we head back.

At the debriefing, I am credited with1 air-to-air kill, as are numbers two and three. Number four gets 2 air to air-to-air kills, so that's 5 between us. The big news is, is that I got 19 air-to-ground kills! For that, I was awarded the Air Force Cross!