No Kill Like A Guns Kill

Now, this is no ****! Towards the end of the AIM/ACE — EVAL, things had heated up between the Eagle and Turkey pilots. At the Nellis O’club many innuendoes and challenges had been thrown out as a result of the high profile dog fights between the Tomcat/Eagle Blue Force and the F-5Es. The Blue Force F-15 drivers were threatened with a court martial, flying rubber dog **** outta Hong Kong and having their birthday taken away if they even thought about locking horns with ACEVAL Tomcats. When the test sorties were finally over, a couple of F-15 instructors in the 415th training squadron took the bait. “Turk” Pentecost and I were a section. Turk was not nearly as cocky, arrogant and boisterous as D-Hose, but just as aggressive, smart, devious and just as good a stick. We briefed a very wide hook, an altitude split of 10k ft. and a radar sort @ 25nm by Bill “Hill Billy” Hill and “Fearless” Frank Schumacher. All pre-merge heat and radar missiles didn’t count. It was GUNS only at the merge. The wide hook enabled Turk and D-Hose to split the fight into (2)1v1’s, with one Turkey high, one low and lots of lateral separation. As Hill Billy and D-hose closed for a 250ft, guns kill on their Eagle, the comm went like this: D-hose: “Where are you Turk?” Fearless: “Right above you Hoser” D-hose: “We got two cons! Who’s out front?” Turk (mildly offended): “Who do ya think?” Both Eagles were gunned, “knock it off” was called, and the Tomcats RTB’d with a 500 knot, 6.5g, half second break at Nellis…cuz that was our salute and tribute to our fine VX-4 maintenance personnel.

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HT/Jeff H