Yes at Holloman, but on the AT-38B '84-'88, and the F-15 A/B '88-'90. Worked for DynCorp on those 38s at Holloman after I got out from '90-'94. Raytheon was operating that F-10 Skyknight. Not sure why. I think they also operated the A-3 while I was there. Flight Systems towed target darts with some beautiful F-86s. You're right about that F-102! They shot down an awful lot of old jets while I was there (QF-100, QF-102, QF-106, and getting the QF-4 ready). The "New" QF-16 now makes me feel old.... Worked there at Holloman when they brought in the F-117. They used "Our" hangar while they were building new ones on the old F-15 ramp. They didn't clean up very well in that hangar before we got it back - lots of little RAM fragments left in the grounding points on the floor, which responded in an interesting way to magnets. No, I didn't keep any...
Nice- in the 70s & 80s my little community had good airshows. I have ridden in both Ford and Stinson Trimotors. Also did a stunt ride in a Waco. Bob Hoovet in P51 and his other show plane were highlights with CAF planes and "bombings"
Airshows were the shit up until about 1989 after the Italians ran two together at Rammstein and killed quite a few in the crowd. Then soon after, budget considerations (understandably) put paid to the endless bomb runs that were fueled by a 5 gallon mix of kerosine and diesel detonations as the fighter-bomber types fly by at the local airshow. Back then, the squadron used to launch 12-16 jets to do a simulated LFO.* Basically, every airplane that was code 2 or better went up. They’d fly north to the actual bombing range for routine training (as you would on a regular duty weekend) and then fly what seemed like endless mock bomb runs in front of the crowd between the runway and crowd line before landing back at the airshow. You could feel that heat. Just jet after jet, boom after boom for at least 40 minutes. It was awesome. We’d pick up the flyers in the crew truck, in which there’d be cold beer, something that NEVER happened after a regular flight. In fact, I don’t think anyone debriefed, either. We’d stop the crew van somewhere in the crowd and drop some of the pilots off, beer in hand - and they’d eventually wander back to the squadron building doing the publicity/autograph thing along the way. And when you’d head out to the jets on day two of the airshow, the entire field would be charred, making it easy to see the newly planted explosives for day two of the show. *LFO - Large Force Engagement. A training exercise in which a lot of jets go up and try (not) to run into each other, all the while creating a lot of extra work for air traffic control.
Spent a few weeks at Aviano - home base for the Frecce Tricolori. They practiced every day, which was fun/hair-raising to watch. That's one of them buzzing the TAB-V. They mid-aired a few months later, if I remember right. Almost as much fun was having the Germans simulate low level attacks with F-104s during exercises - they had a different definition of "Low level" than most. PS: Sorry for the grainy shots - they were taken with a Pentax Auto 110 - fit great in the field jacket pocket, but....
The Paveway II kits use what is known as “bang bang” guidance. Basically the fins go full deflection at every correction. The weapon ends up overshooting the desired flightpath so is constantly correcting. I’ve never been on the receiving end to hear it though! Even from the jet you can certainly feel when the GBU-10 hits!
This is super cool stuff, thanks for sharing. Some real legends of engineering and history have gone the way of the scrap heap or died gloriously as target drones. Those F-86's are still my favorite, I have a plan to fly one and a MIG 15 one day, but right now I have too many hobbies sucking at my wallet. Thanks for serving and making it so the rest of us can goof off racing! PS I flew with a guy (now retired) who flew the F-117 out of the Nevada desert all the way to Iraq and back. When the program was top secret. Cool stories, he was a pretty big deal in the Air Force. Cool guy, but damn if he wasn't the most Alpha personality I've ever met. He makes some of the top racers look like wussies.
Looks like one of Ivan’s Flankers had a case of premature ejaculation. Could’ve hardly happened to a more expensive jet.
The Europeans, in general, had a different definition to low-level than their US counterparts. Guys would always come back from TDY in Italy, Germany, England saying "those guys are crazy." And to do that in the '104 (aka Flying Coffin) with such small wings/high wing load and a demand for airspeed over altitude, yeah - those guys are crazy. That airframe became an ace pretty early on during its service. "From 1961 onwards, Germany acquired 916 Lockheed F-104 Starfighters, of which 292 aircraft crashed and 116 pilots lost their lives."
