On Sun, 18 Jan 2004 10:05:27 -0500, "Jim Carriere"
wrote:

2.75FFAR-

I've heard them called "Mickey Mouse" rockets. Not sure if that ever caught
on in naval aviation though...

I carried them fairly often in the USAF, but never heard a nickname
other than "2.75's" or simply rockets.

What did a salvo launch look like? Was it a tight pattern, or were there a
few strays?

Typically we carried them in the LAU-3 pod which held 19 rockets.
There was an intervelometer that spaced the firing, but all 19 were
released in one pass. The interval was very short, but insured
nose/tail clearance and minimized fratricide between the rockets.

One load for the F-105 used a C/L tank and four LAU-3 pods--one on
each wing pylon. Impressive to fire all four in one pass.

We also used 2.75s with willy-pete warheads fired from the LAU-32, a
7-rocket pod. They fired singles and were quite accurate. The secret
of accuracy is to know the delivery parameters and keep any post-burn
trajectory to a minimum.

Occasionally a rocket fin would fail to deploy and then you'd see a
corkscrew exhaust trail. In qualification on a controlled range,
typically a practice bomb dispenser carried two or four 2.75s, fired
singly for score. A "wild rocket" call would negate the unscorable
from your records if you got a bad fin.

Qualification criteria were less than for dive bomb. Don't recall
exactly what it was--I'm thinking around 40 feet CEA.


Ed Rasimus
Fighter Pilot (USAF-Ret)
"When Thunder Rolled"
Smithsonian Institution Press
ISBN #1-58834-103-8