Alright, it's been a while since we've had any new stories. I'll try another one.
"The day we pi$$ed on France"
Scenario - late 1980's, REFORGER in full swing. We are based at CAFB
Lahr, near the border of France, and our task was (of course) to defend NATO assets in the event of a Soviet invasion. Our base was positioned about as far from the predicted fighting as was possible... which was smart. Any attackers would have to overfly all of West Germany, dodging AD assets the whole way.
Our deployment was a LOT of fun, to say the least.
We were given authorization to take a four-ship cross-country to
Zaragoza, Spain. We thought the flight planning would be a piece of cake... get authorization, overfly France, land in Spain. Not having the fuel to get there any other way, we were forced to deal with the French. It took 2 days of negotiation, and
hours of haggling over the telephone, dozens of numbers dialed, "We'll get back to you" comments, and the like. For a while, it looked like they'd deny overflight of our evil NATO warplanes. Ultimately, we got permission, but we were all extremely miffed. "They're supposed to be our allies, right?"
We launch as "Hoser" flight, and climb to the mid 40's. With a formation, it is nice to get a block altitude, and the controller gave us 46,000' on up, meaning we could be anywhere at or above 46,000'. Settling down to cruise, it became very quiet, as we were on little-used UHF frequencies. Then, we get a call from ATC.
Hozerrr, vuld ew lak flrech faghters tew intersept yeww?
We talk on the #2 radio. "What is she saying?" We finally got it.
Hoser, would you like French fighters to intercept you?
Send 'em up!
Lead gives the rest of us a hand signal, "Push it up", meaning increase speed. We also begin to climb, topping at 49,000' +. The ROE of this setup dictates no maneuvering. We were to stay on our flight-planned routing. It was up to the French to find us and solve for a valid intercept. We power up our AI radars, and begin a standard 4-ship search.
I looked at my HUD, and I remember seeing 0.9999 mach or thereabouts. Supersonic was NOT authorized, and would have gotten us into hot water. Still, without going into a lot of technical stuff, a mach 1 target at 50,000' is a very challenging intercept. Everything has to be executed perfectly for success. The "high/fast flyer" scenario came about from the threat of Soviet Foxbats at 60,000' and mach 2+, attempting to kill our AWACs and other HV assets. Exceptionally tricky back then, not so bad now with Patriot and AIM-120.
We watched our radars. Within 10 minutes, we saw one of their alert barns launch, desperately climb, only to fall off the scope to one side. Attempt one failed. Much laughter and mocking on the #2 radio.
30 minutes later, we see another alert barn launch, a pair of Mirage jets clawing for altitude and speed. We could tell from the geometry of their climb that they too would choke, and they did.
With the border approaching, one final attempt was made, and once again, the Mirage alert aircraft fluttered helplessly off profile 20,000' below us, ending up in a hopeless tailchase. :biggrin: All three launch attempts failed miserably, and it would have been even uglier if we had been allowed supersonic.
Our flight overflew the entire nation of France completely unchallenged, at least as far as intercepts. We hit Zaragoza hard, running the "tubes", which is a series of dive bars in a particular area, where they serve weird seafood and Tinto wine, which is supposedly the dregs of a red wine cask, very powerful stuff.
My memory of Zaragoza is a bit hazy to this day...
