Zone 6

[Schmidtfire]

Found this very interesting part in The Hoser Chronicles book. They did a fair amount of experimenting back then, trying to find tactics and techniques to face an opponent armed with all-aspect IR missiles (Aim-9L was new at the time). This is one of those stories from the book, will be fun to see if this is possible to do with Heatblurs F-14A :)

 

"Because the Turkey is humongous and was @ a distinct disadvantage in the visual arena against all-aspect heater packing F-5s, certain techniques evolved which were driven by survival (and not wanting to look bad). Note: At the top of the Fighter Pilot's list of priorities is "not looking bad!" Henche adage "It's better to die than look bad!" Since flares were not avalible, hiding behind the Rosemont from 25 nm and going cold by 8 nm were considerations.

"Also, when it was necessary to beat a hasty bug from the phone booth, "Zone 6" was spawned along with the 'zero g' unload and beating the wings. Zone 6: On command, the RIO would go to standby on the AWG-9 as the pilot would punch "Air Source Off". This produced between 850 to 1125 pounds of additional thrusties: cutting off the TF-30 16th stage bleed air used for AWG-9 cooling, pressurization and a/c. Simultaneously, the pilot would unload, roll in the droops and manually sweep the wings to 68 degrees. Why wait to let the wings blow back (drag) and the lifties were certainly not needed. And of course, since the task at hand was getting the hell out of Dodge post haste and getting on the deck (thereby shrinking the 9L envelope), the radar was not in the equation since it did not look aft. "Turk" Pentecost and I discussed these these unique Turkey procedures with Monroe "Hawk" Smith (then CO of TOPGUN) and it was mutually decided that although it works, we should keep it close to vest on a "need to know" level". (Hoser)

Edited August 2, 2018 by Schmidtfire

[Top Jockey]

Very good.

 

The iconic Tomcat never ceases to disclose many secrets.

[KiraTheCat]

Was that the book titled Hoser Here... Shoot!?

 

 

That's a wonderful book.