Warbird Information Exchange

During a Desert Storm combat sortie, one of my USAF pilot training classmates who was a Spanghdalem based F-4G WSO did a controlled ejection over an abandoned Saudi airfield after he and his pilot ran out of fuel. He blamed it on a screw-up by the tanker guys. They both made it, but did sustain minor injuries when they made their parachute landings on the hard tarmac or runway.

Interesting that they didn't just land at the abandoned airfield, or was the runway cratered?

They had a AK or AA round to the fuel tank on centreline, they tried mulitply approach but the FOG of all things wiped the airport out and they had to ditch the poor girl and they stepped outside....

Oddly enough - I was there.
I was the flight surgeon for the 81st FS from Spang which had been chopped to the 35th Wing from George at beautiful Shaikh Isa, Bahrain.
Best as I remember:

While I was there (Dec - June) the High rollers flew the Birmingham planes (BH tail) as they had much more modern equipment, in particular a special kind of camera. I always thought it was funny as many were lawyers. I did fly one sortie with them with a then congressman, who later I am told went on to become Governor. They were a fine bunch of guys. I also remember they got really pissed as someone in Riyadh decided to take their A/A missiles away as they would be tempted to use them and not do the Recce thing. One of several amazing dumb things that flowed down from HQ, as I guess they do in all wars. While I was there, we lost no Recces.

During my stay, I remember losing two planes - one was the aforementioned out of gas plane. The Spang Sqn commander and I went to pick them up when the crew came home. I remember them saying they kept shooting approach after approach, and punched out pretty much as the plane flamed out on an approach. After, the punched, the plane crashed and then skidded down the runway with out burning - it was bone dry! I still have pictures of them hoisting that plane off of the runway where it crashed somewhere.

The other loss I remember was in the spring when one plane caught on fire over the gulf and the guys both got out. Was written off as a combat loss, which was good which meant only an abbreviated investigation (yea!).

So, duing the war and after until June, the good Lord smiled on us and we lost no crews.

I have a million stories, and am happy to share over a beer.
best
rt

I recall our A-6 guys wanting AIM-9 on the Intruders. A big NO
to that has stations 1 & 5 were needed for far more important things plus on a 6 the Sidewinder becomes a point and shoot weapon.

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Don't touch my junk!!

There were quite a lot of politics going on over who was going to get to shoot what. The AC-130 gunships were briefed they could shoot anything on the ground, but if it lifted off, it was off limits & they were to run away & call someone.

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Daddy always said, "If yer gonna be dumb, you gotta be tough" and I'm one tough sonofagun!

+1
Same with the Weasels. The Eagle guys were they to shoot down planes, and I remember for for a F4G weasel to get permission to engage air-to-air was a real process.
By the way, for the most part, there are no braver or better guys anywhere than the F4 guys I knew.