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The first Wild Weasel squadron was the 354th Tactical Fighter Squadron based at Takhli Royal Thai Air Base, Thailand. After 45 days of operations against North Vietnamese targets, the 354th had one airplane left and of the 16 aircrew members, four had been killed, two were prisoners of war, three had been wounded and two had quit.
No wonder their unofficial motto was YGBSM (You've Gotta Be Shitting Me)
Thanks Gunny Was not aware of that but it makes perfect sense. The Hun was a good airframe for that. I imagine it would be armed Shrikes and cluster bombs for that mission?
Shrikes and CBUs didn't come till the 105s
These guys used 2.75 rockets and 20mm cannons
The first Wild Weasel squadron was the 354th Tactical Fighter Squadron based at Takhli Royal Thai Air Base, Thailand. After 45 days of operations against North Vietnamese targets, the 354th had one airplane left and of the 16 aircrew members, four had been killed, two were prisoners of war, three had been wounded and two had quit.
No wonder their unofficial motto was YGBSM (You've Gotta Be Shitting Me)
someone may have researched this for a future Wild Weasel aircraft build
Thanks Gunny Was not aware of that but it makes perfect sense. The Hun was a good airframe for that. I imagine it would be armed Shrikes and cluster bombs for that mission?
Iron Hand was a joint USAF/USN. I knew an O-6/A-4 driver who flew one of the early missions. The first ones were carried out with A-4's & 6. Yes the USAF was not very far behind..
Should have clarified they were first USAF Iron Hand aircraft.
This mission would eventually pass to F-4s for the Gulf War with the A-6 for the Navy. The HARM was a real game changer eneabling standard aircraft to fulfill the roll.
Love the Thud...and they were the first Iran Hand aircraft as well.
A great book on their use is Thud Ridge.
Iron Hand was a joint USAF/USN. I knew an O-6/A-4 driver who flew one of the early missions. The first ones were carried out with A-4's & 6. Yes the USAF was not very far behind..
Took a deeper look at their collection and noticed no F-100 Super Sabre or F-104 Starfighter. Those two planes along with the F-86 Sabre were some of the very first models I built starting back in 1960.
I didn't miss any planes, photographed each and every last one. Some photos, especially of bombers, are partial, as their weren't good vantage points to capture the entire plane in one photo.
The F-117 was a real treat. I wasn't sure what all would be inside, but I wasn't expecting that to be there. Clearly it's been sanded down to remove the classified radar absorbing/scattering paint. There was a guy working on it in the restoration hangar, which is roped off but has the doors open for viewing, you can see him under the wing. I imagine they're going to repaint it, and maybe even hang it in the museum lobby alongside the SR-71.
edit: looks like I did miss the F-105. Either it must have been off to the side of one of the hangars not immediately visible from the entrance/parking lots, or maybe removed from display as it wasn't listed at all on the guide in the lobby of the museum.
This is a photo of it from the SAC Museum website. At some point it was on display outside. Not sure where it was or is.
Was the Thud missed or they didn't have one? This is an interesting one as there is supposedly no flying F-105s but here this was at Moffett Field back in 2004 where most everything else flew in. While I like military planes I have always had an attraction to the P-47, A-1, F-105, F-4, and F-14
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