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| Iraq |
| Iraqi Air Force: good pilots...[who] flew in an air force owned by an a$$hole |
| 2008-04-16 |
| Interesting discussion by some milbloggers who are involved in training Iraqi pilots. One good Gulf War story: [names and units redacted] flew fighter-bombers in Iran-v-Iraq and both had their bacon saved by the US Navy. The Aegis picket ships (who painted everything within 500 miles or so) would often give egressing Iraqi aircraft notice of bandits closing on their locations. When DS kicked off, most of the Iran-v-Iraq vets decided they weren't going to shoot up people who'd previously saved their asses -- but if they'd flat out refused to fly, they would have been shot; if they flew to Syria, they thought they'd be shot down by the Iraqi ADA ring oriented on Israel; they couldn't go to Turkey because Turkey was a Coalition partner. So, they went to Iran, got thrown in jail and beaten up for a while, and then were released at the end of hostilities. Most of the non-flying done in OIF was due to the Saddam's Got Control of the Situation Syndrome, but a bit of it was Iran-v-Iraq vets -- fixed- and rotary-wing -- hot-starting engines on purpose and frying them to ground the aircraft. How much is true and how much is eyewash for the old gringo? Dunno, but both Su-7s on display here have slag for engine guts. |
| Posted by:Mike |
| #2 ...On at least two occasions I know of, we came damn close in the mid and late 80s to deploying to save the Iraqis from the Iranians, and combat pilots have long memories, so this doesn't seem impossible. Mike |
| Posted by: Mike Kozlowski 2008-04-16 12:06 |
| #1 Geeze, Capt. Succorso, that was a nice manoeuvre. Too bad ya slagged the jump drive... |
| Posted by: M. Murcek 2008-04-16 10:55 |