At least they finally gave you guys a gun pod. If I remember right, the
first issue on that damn thing was a cold eye bore sight with no radar
ranging at all (just a WAG for gravity drop, trajectory shift and target
aspect angle. Later on in SEA, didn't you get a linked pod to the sight
for a better tracking solution? I think a few of your guys managed to
nail a few Mig 21's and 17's with that pod. Damn good shooting I'd say,
even if they did have to drive on in and sit in the 6 to get the shot.
:-)
Probably long to medium range shooting I would imagine. The Mig 21 could
drag an F4 down below corner in a turn faster than crap :-))
I'll give the book a shot, but I just had Cataract surgery and am
waiting for new glasses. Right now I'm a bit blind as a bat for reading.
Dudley Henriques

Danny Deger wrote:
"Dudley Henriques" wrote in message
...


Danny Deger wrote:

"Dudley Henriques" wrote in message
...


Danny Deger wrote:

snip
I'm not a Naval Aviator but I've done quite a lot of energy
maneuverability research with them flying T38's and have a few hours
in the F14 doing ACM.
Section is the common term used in the Navy for an element pair
whether in fighting wing or double attack spread formation which is
the old loose deuce section. The section in DA can be split between
lead and the wing as to who is engaged at any instant in time.

Is DA line abreast about 6,000 feet apart? We called this "tactical"
formation in the Air Force and we used it 99% of the time when
egaging an enemy. Like you said, number 2 is just as likely as
number 1 to become the primary offensive guy post merge.

Nuke strike was single ship, so we didn't have to worry about all
that formation stuff on that mission.

Danny Deger

P.S. Did you get any stick time doing ACM in the F-14?



Double attack is just another name for loose deuce. Formation changes
between the engaged and free fighter are common and position is
usually held by yo yo'ing high or low on the call into or away from
lead. Your AF counterpart would be fluid two or fluid four.
Never flown the F4, but the lateral separation sounds about right.
It's usually a consideration of turn radius and lead would usually
have the section a little above corner to account for snatch factor in
a switch.
Double Attack I think works much better for the wingman than fighting
wing where if lead suddenly pulls max allowable g the trailer can be
sucked in trail. In double attack, the trailer yo yo's and either goes
high or low maintaining position.

Sounds like you were definitely working with 100% air-to-air guys. We
were air-to-ground and got to fly our 6 air-to-air sorties a half and
not much more. We were tail only in a close fight, because the Air
Force would not buy the Navy version of the all aspect AIM-9 with the
bottle in the missile and wouldn't mod our pylons to put the bottle in
the pylons. Tail only in a F-4 really sucks when doing DACM against an
all aspect F-14, 15, or 16 :-) We could throw a couple of AIM-7s in
before the merge, but were seriously outclassed in the close-in turning
fight. I developed a tactic custom made for tail only fighting. It
worked well, but I couldn't get other F-4 drivers interested in it.
Download a free copy of my book from my web site and you can read about
it in detail. I would like your opinion of it. www.dannydeger.net

Danny Deger