From the OppoArchives: Sortie Saturday
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Spangdahlem Airbase (partially seen below the aircraft in the 1989 photo above) was one of the smallest USAFE bases in post-WWII Germany with perhaps the most important tactical mission - ‘Radar Suppression’ as part of the overarching Suppression of Enemy Air Defenses (SEAD) mission. “First in, last out !” was the motto of the Wild Weasels... The airbase has grown and expanded significantly over the past 25 years - I hardly recognized it when I visited in 2018. Inconceivably, the current administration is planning to shutter this very important forward asset.'Spang' (as it is endearingly referred to by Airmen stationed there) is nestled in the Eifel Region of Germany which has lush agriculture and beautiful geography. It's location - adjacent to the Mosel River Valley, also lends itself to some picturesque air-to-air photography of their aircraft flying sorties locally.
Wild Weasels from my old stompin’ grounds, shown below in full training sortie configuration with Captive Carry Training Munitions. AIM-9L/M Sidewinders, AGM-45 Shrikes and drop tanks adorn the F-16C Viper weapon stations. The F-4G Phantom II is carrying HARM-88's and drop tanks only.
The photo below depicts a typical busy flightline scene at Spang in the early 1990's. Cold, wet, raining, and aircraft being generated for training sorties at all hours of the day and night !
The TTP for Wild Weasel missions was to fly in pairs. One aircraft (typically the F-4G) flies lower and ‘slower’ to bait the SAM radar sites. Once they turn on their radar, the wingman (usually and F-16C flying higher and faster) would lock on and prosecute the target. Within seconds, the radar site would go offline as the fragmentation warhead rendered the radar site useless.
In the Vietnam Era, the WW mission utilized the AGM-45 Shrike missile... We still had these in the inventory in the early 1990's with Dates of Manufacture from the late 1960's !!! Thankfully, Saddam gave us a reason to deplete this inventory during Operation Desert Shield. The replacement for the AGM-45 Shrike was the AGM-88 or ‘HARM’ which stood for “High-Speed Anti-Radiation Missile”. The HARM had onboard GPS with “fire and forget” capability. This was a keen capability to have when you were flying high exposure missions with SAM sites popping up out in the woods - or desert. The HARM-88's GPS-based F&F capability meant that it could prosecute the designated target even after the radar site had realized they were identified and cut power to their radars. Game over for the bad guys.
The WW aircraft carried other weapons as well. Besides the 20mm gun on the F-16, they carried AIM-9 L/M, AIM-7, AGM-65, and had the ability to employ all manner of guided and unguided MK-82 and MK-84 bomb configurations. The old AIM-9 L/M sidewinder was accompanied by the AIM-120 AMRAAM and the old inventory of AIM-7 Sparrows we had were shipped out for demilitarization... It was a great place to work in the Precision Guided Munitions Maintenance Shop... IYAAYAS! The image below shows Spangdahlem F-4's in 1984 with a unique hybrid frag for what looks like air-intercept and SEAD sorties. AIM-9's, AIM-7's, HARM-88's, Mk-82's, ECM-pods, and more - oh my !
The Viper below is 'racked and stacked': AIM-120 AMRAAM, AIM-9 Sidewinder, and AGM-88 HARM. Drops tanks are fitted for long-haul sorties. A speedy death awaits the bad guys that cross this Viper.
Shortly after I left Spangdahlem, Bitburg Airbase closed and one of the squadrons in the 52nd FW picked up some of their F-15's. Later, Spangdahlem gained a squadron of A-10's, rounding out the full Close Air Support (CAS) deck of cards.... There was no bad-guy that could hide from the 52nd FW. The photo below shows all of the aircraft in service at Spang in 1997.
[Images compliments of wikimedia and wikipedia]
***This post originally appeared on KinjOppo 2015.1.21 @ 23:59 hrs KST as "Warbird Wednesday @ 2359 hrs KST - LAST CALL !" Edited and updated on 2020.11.14 for your enjoyment on 'The Hyphen' !
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I've always liked the Phantom...I've got a pretty detailed model of one around here somewhere! The way the engines come out under the tail was always pretty cool to me
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@doodon2whls The F-4 grew out of the F3H, and you can certainly see the lineage:
The Phantom got its characteristic upturned wingtips because they discovered that the whole wing really needed to be tipped up for stability, but they didn't want to completely redesign the wing box. They found they could get the same results by just raising the wingtips.
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@rallydarkstrike See my reply to @doodon2whls. I meant to reply to you.
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@ttyymmnn Interesting.. Those were the days when you didn't discover elemental (and many times critical) platform design errors until you put something in the tunnel or fly it... Nuts !
https://www.nas.nasa.gov/SC17/gallery.html#prettyPhoto[aero]/14/
Mind: Blown.
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@doodon2whls All of that computer modeling has made the test pilot business much safer, but also less interesting.
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@ttyymmnn There is something to be said for building something as good as you can with the tools available and then throwing caution to the wind (pun intended) like the Wright brothers, and just flying the damn thing.
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@doodon2whls That's exactly why I love the era of the immediate postwar through the 60s.
"Hey, we've got this idea for a plane."
"Okay, here's a bucket of Cold War cash, now go build it and find somebody brave enough to fly it."
I seem to remember reading about the Bell X-5, America's first variable geometry aircraft. The thing was a beast to fly, and one test pilot died. One test pilot flew it, landed, and then refused to ever fly it again. Smart guy.
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And look at some of the airframes that came out of that era that are still in service around the world:
Military:
B-52 Stratofortress
F-4 Phantom (not with USAF, though)
SR-71 Blackbird : Supposedly not in service. Neither is the F-117, right?
CH-47 Chinook
AV-8B Harrier IICivil:
B747
Cessna 172
Beechcraft BonanzaAll amazing achievements originally designed with slide-rules and protractors !!! Insanity.
