Viper Pilot_ A Memoi..

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weapons pylons under the wings. The picture was taken by a friend from inside the air-refueling tanker. Air refueling is absolutely essential for fighter combat operations, as we burn up fuel very quickly. With my favorite SAM-killing weapon—the cluster bomb. This one is personalized for my wife and daughter; it killed an anti-aircraft artillery nest.
Baghdad reeling from Shock and Awe, 2003. A map of the known SAM sites around Baghdad in the early days of the second Iraq War. There were at least as many “unlocated” sites. In any event, it was our job to kill them all.
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VIPER PILOT A MEMOIR OF AIR COMBAT
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Epigraph There are only two types o
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Author’s Note I WROTE THIS BOOK M
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Simple. Or not. The Second Gulf War
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But men were dying. Our men. I stra
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I was now truly on my own. But my w
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“CHIEFTAIN . . . ROMAN 75 is off
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ground every aircraft on the contin
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missions, though puny by modern sta
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extract ourselves from Vietnam, and
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LESS THAN TWO WEEKS AFTER FOBAIR AN
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In November 1965, the first five Wi
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many cases, from lives lost. With t
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2 Cold War and Hot Times “IF THE
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IT WORKED LIKE THIS. The first two
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loathed most FAIPs. So, Daddy Rabbi
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conjunction with some properly embe
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At least long enough for me to star
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We were taught the basics of our va
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Southeast Asia within the past twen
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typical Type-A FNG, I wanted to mak
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listen to a few seconds of the audi
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LEARNING THE STRENGTHS AND WEAKNESS
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search-and-rescue in the event a je
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I nodded, now an expert on all Span
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of passage and a tradition. So, dur
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eathing matched my heart rate as th
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Clouds of white-feathered brown dus
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Euphrates River was almost turquois
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Suddenly a thin, pole-shaped object
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firing solution and a visual on the
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As I watched the jets spiral down a
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ackup targets, weapons, and timing.
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“I—” “C’mon boy . . . spi
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clueless non-fighter type (male, th
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pilot who spoke up was called “Li
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“Well, he happens to be correct.
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nice quarters had to go to the tran
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extra flying time with no brief or
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the flight controls working. Everyt
Page 83 and 84: was still up, which was bad. Pullin
Page 85 and 86: Mubarak was very definitely in powe
Page 87 and 88: shaking their heads. I thought it w
Page 89 and 90: around. In fact, there was a wrecke
Page 91 and 92: disconnected. But he couldn’t get
Page 93 and 94: family with brains—and weapons. I
Page 95 and 96: “Sir” “Look at the fucking gr
Page 97 and 98: 5 Patchwearer FIGHTER SQUADRONS, LI
Page 99 and 100: currencies, and upgrades, must also
Page 101 and 102: Where the commander is the personal
Page 103 and 104: weapons. In this case, barring a mi
Page 105 and 106: The point is, as a Target Arm, you
Page 107 and 108: 6 Intermission SINCE I WAS ONE OF T
Page 109 and 110: societies. Restrictions upon these
Page 111 and 112: attlefield thinking, and they insti
Page 113 and 114: until the building shook and I sudd
Page 115 and 116: one of the rooftop sentries could d
Page 117 and 118: any event, neither worked out very
Page 119 and 120: looming when the Twin Towers came d
Page 121 and 122: iver side . . . and the point of im
Page 123 and 124: face. Hijackers are cowards. In my
Page 125 and 126: took off the next day for the bleak
Page 127 and 128: Photo Section Undergraduate Pilot T
Page 129 and 130: Inbound SCUD missile being destroye
Page 131 and 132: Self-portrait during a surface-to-a
Page 133: Beni Suef, Egypt, 1992. A shot of m
Page 137 and 138: 77th Fighter Squadron “Gamblers
Page 139 and 140: Like father, like son . . . Me and
Page 141 and 142: 7 Shock and Awe March 19, 2003 0530
Page 143 and 144: wingman on a two-mile string, allow
Page 145 and 146: Even as I watched, the fiery plume
Page 147 and 148: could fly through the green world o
Page 149 and 150: problematic. And irrelevant. I coul
Page 151 and 152: 17,000 feet, panting hard. The RWR
Page 153 and 154: 8 Sandstorm SOUTH OF NASIRIYAH, I P
Page 155 and 156: “Loud and clear, ROMAN . . . we
Page 157 and 158: “None of us have ever seen the bu
Page 159 and 160: uneasiness poked up through my bell
Page 161 and 162: tell him my heading, altitude, airs
Page 163 and 164: “Ali Tower, ROMAN 75.” No reply
Page 165 and 166: There. I’d just created an instru
Page 167 and 168: “Five copies.” “Seven copies.
Page 169 and 170: There! White painted runway marking
Page 171 and 172: and burned bread—but it smelled h
Page 173 and 174: particular day he happened to be to
Page 175 and 176: no mass uprising of the people to t
Page 177 and 178: “WICKED 23, this is RAMROD.” Th
Page 179 and 180: Taking a deep breath, I pushed the
Page 181 and 182: SAMs or big stuff, I couldn’t tel
Page 183 and 184: own villages lined the banks and I
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This went on for a few minutes whil
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10 SAMbush April 6, 2003 1104 local
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and— “BEEP . . . BEEP . . . BEE
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ombs. These things are terrific Wea
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the main canal and everything down
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SA-6s, so we’d give it a wide ber
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well, which rarely happens, when th
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tracers cut through the sky. “ELI
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on the way out.” I turned down th
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the boy. He didn’t have any HARMs
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I sent a data-link, turned hard to
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11 ELI 33 April 7, 2003 1046 local
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obviously tracking and others just
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The second missile had disappeared,
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clear of downtown. Sixty-one hundre
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6.1 miles. I leaned back and center
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the Gs that pressed me into the sea
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His reply was instantaneous. “ELI
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12 Endgame IT LOOKED LIKE A GIRAFFE
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us, we accounted for seven tanks an
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were two big runways that came toge
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moments. When they did open up, the
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morning Hunter Killer mission. We w
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“Affirmative. Clear all friendlie
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and stared down at the intersection
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eneath me, I stared across the pond
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as he hung in perfect formation off
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Epilogue SEVEN MONTHS AFTER THE GAM
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July parade. Her son, a young Marin
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Acknowledgments NO ONE WRITES A BOO
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FOX ONE/TWO/THREE: Air-to-air missi
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VUL: Short for “Vulnerability”
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Map of Iraq
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warriors in, 306 washing out of, 37
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Basra (Iraq), 145, 179 Battle Damag
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CONAN (Desert Storm call sign), 68,
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Eisenhower, Dwight D., 155 electro-
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F-117 jets, 179 FABLE (Iraq War cal
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generation gaps, among pilots, 47-4
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statue of, 285 U.S. attempts to kil
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Jackson, Mike, 155 jamming in Deser
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iefings about, 83 Desert Storm and,
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offensive jamming pods, 18 Office o
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Kosovo and, 155 low-altitude flying
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Sheikh Isa Air Field (Bahrain), 193
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U.S. invasion of Iraq as act of, 18
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U.S. casualties in, 27 U.S. pullout
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About the Author U.S. Air Force Lie
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Copyright VIPER PILOT. Copyright ©
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*For help along the way with acrony
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