SPLASH ONE

[Music] I made two f8 cruises in the Western Pacific Vietnam and I've been with the F14 since almost Inception I've only been in the fleet for a year previous to that I was just going through student training to learn how to be a backseater in the F14 I've always been into fighter aircraft since finishing Flight Training i31 and we deployed to Vietnam during the height of the war we were fortunate enough to bag a make over there basically it was in an ACM environment first question you may have is what is a fleet fighter ACM Readiness program it's a 3-we highly concentrated aerial combat maneuvering training environment designed to expose you to what we deem to be the Potential Threat that you might face in an actual combat situation for the purposes of simulation we're going to be looking at two airplanes the f5e which is a supersonic highly maneuverable aircraft which we feel simulates a Potential Threat we're also going to be using the a4e which is a subsonic also very highly maneuverable airplane we're going to fly the majority of our hops on the East Coast air combat maneuvering range which is located about 60 Mi off the coast southeast of Oceana the air combat maneuvering range employs instrumentation so we can track in real-time simulation up to eight airplanes simultaneously and also employ the weapon systems the missiles and the guns that you would have on board your F14 [Music] airplanes I'm Commander ET Smith commanding officer of Fighter Squadron 43 at NES ocean I started flying when I was 13 years old and to me the only way to go of course was to be a fighter pilot I got him right at Fighter Squadron 43 is probably the most challenging Squadron in the Navy 14s that'll be you your purpose will be to defend that carrier there is a good deal of instruction that we bring to the squadrons with whom we fly but I like to think of it as being done on an equal to equal basis rather than God to people which will be simulated by RFS will penetrate this Corridor and attempt to sink your carrier your objective then will be to inter we work the whole squadron from the co to the boot Enon who just graduated from the replacement training Squad which is most important in that you're trying to stop the advance of the enemy toward your defended point the net result of all this will determine your tactics I'm Lieutenant Commander fols my tpal call sign is the Indian my lecture this morning is 1V one fighter Maneuvers the reason I give this lecture is good the most important thing in our utilization of non Navy fighter aircraft is to make the Fleet air Crews identify compete with combat and hopefully beat airplanes with markedly different performance characteristics from their own above and behind the bogey now you can reack from the advantage position being above the bogey our graduation exercise is going to be a 4 versus 4 exercise where we're going to utilize the maximum capabilities of the acmr with four f14s in the sky two F5s and two a4s we've got a scenario that we devise specifically for that mission cap station so we'll be running individual cap station we won't be running in section we'll split it up I'll take over on the uh left then we'll go middle Mike and on the right John like you down overhead the ship at 145 at 80 you're going to be the cleanup man don't know what type of formation they're going to come in but I expect that they come in in some type of uh flight of four with the fi's providing escort to him that's what we'd hope the first guy to get the vector if he's a middleman would pick him up go back in then we'll have the other two giv them with a pincher unless they come from the flank position in here the first guy that comes through goes ahead blows through makes him turn if he can or gets a good shot if he can if he can't he goes ahead does a good vid on them winds up so that the two and three men that coming into the fight be able to get a good aim seven shot all right this afternoon on the 4v4 versus the jollies we can count on them having four up Jets up Radars and aggressive tactics our experience with them has been that they come to fight we want to complicate their problem this afternoon as much as possible what I want to do is to run in two sections with A4 in the lead about a 5m trail with F5s low outboard looking through the A4 trying to find the f-14s the F5 has a primary job of finding engaging and tying up the f14s a4s hall chili let's go for it all set to go [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] he VA your nearest threat 128 at 13 Victory one from your station I'm sh 4 21 now that's that's lead still heading over to the [Music] [Music] eastory okay he's dead [Music] duck you going to have to ch3 call that's a good killer and I went straightened out going for the a4s over there and uh just never saw you back there as you shot me I saw the F5 behind uh the St up me and I didn't have the 84 and the other F5 in sight so I pitched back then I realized that you were on Mike and it was too late to counter counter your attack on sorry Mike once we got a B on the A4 we took a fox one then continued to tail of a section and got a fox two that pitched back into where the F5s thought were coming from did you see me Doug no I didn't have you until you got into a lethal range I knew that I was dead once I picked you up won you call me back and by then it was too late the Temptation was to try to come up into the fight but we stayed overhead ship ACC to the game plan and and it worked you accomplished your mission you killed both the bombers in general and exceptionally fine [Music] engagement the F5 makes a I think a terrific adversary the best way to Train You Learn by your mistakes but in this case you got your mistakes right on tape so you can see them we all come out of this knowing the capabilities of everybody else we feel conf confident in flying with our wingmen or with our leads I came out of with strong feelings that we don't get enough of it we need more of it it teaches you enough to save your life