Page 16 - DFCS News Magazine Winter 2015

Spectre cont’d
detect the trucks. The Pilot would y the aircra towards the target following the ight direc onal informa on generated by the sensor. As soon as we got close enough for the IR sensor to pick up the target, that sensor signal would be selected by the FCO and we would con nue to y towards the target un l I was able to pick up the target with the NOD or the LLTV. The Pilot would con nue to y towards the target un l it was directly under his le wing, at which me he would bank the aircra into a 30-degree le turn. From this point on it was the Pilot’s ball game. He would maneuver the air- cra to superimpose the movable re cule generat- ed by the sensor input signal over the computer generated xed re cule. During this me he was looking over his le shoulder, at a small Plexiglas onto which the re cules were re ected. During this por on of the ight the Co-pilot maintained al tude and airspeed and looked out for other air- cra .
The Pilot could re
the selected pair
of guns once he
got the re cules
close to each oth-
er. During this me I had to maintain the target over my sensor’s re cule. We red the 40 mm from 10,000 feet above ground level (AGL) and the 20 mm 8,000 feet. We were avoiding AAA all this me, so frequently we would have to break-o and then reacquire the target. A good mission would be one where we would locate a truck con- voy. The largest convoy we interdicted was 27 hos le supply vehicles and the second largest was 26. We also were given credit for numerous sec- ondary res. The technique used was to destroy or stop the leading truck then go to the last and do the same. We would then damage or destroy the in-between trucks. Our ba le damage instruc ons were that a target had to explode or burn to classi- fy it as destroyed. If we shot it up but it didn’t burn then it was classi ed as damaged. Both the video and audio images on the console screens were recorded on tape. All tapes were sent to In- telligence a er each mission. Our crew was award- ed a DFC for each of the two missions, as well as other awards and decora ons for all our successful
missions.
We had two F-4 Fighters as escorts in every mis- sion. Our escorts were assigned to the 555th (Triple Nickel) Fighter Squadron. Their primary mission was to suppress the AAA ring at us. One ew 2,000 feet above us and the second ew at 4,000 feet. We had a funneled light on top of our fuselage, which they used to iden fy and track us. Their secondary mission was to drop laser guided bombs on selected targets. I would energize the laser and aim the beam at a target such as a bridge. The escort Pilot needed to get into his drop win- dow to have the bomb pick up the beam a er re- leasing it. When the AAA gunners got trigger hap- py, our escort friends would y a stra ng pa ern, following one another, or one at a me. Our escort Pilot had to keep his eye on the target from which the tracers were origina ng. It was no problem as long as the trigger-happy Vietcong kept ring, but they got smart. They would re in short bursts. Many mes that was when the second escort would get lucky, as he would quiet the AAA.
I keep thanking our good Lord that we were never hit un l our very last mission, and we were lucky enough to return to base. We were on our way out to the target area, when a 35mm AAA hit us. The round pierced the wing’s leading edge between engines one and two. A few more inches a , it would have hit the fuel cell, and God only knows what could have resulted from that. Our ini al re- ac on, based on our survival ins nct and training, was to ghten our parachute harness which we always wore. A er evalua ng our situa on our Pi- lot and Flight Engineer decided we were in fairly good shape, and we would make it back to the base. Our Pilot made a wide 180-degree turn, mak- ing sure we had crossed the Mekong River, since we had to y past the river to get credit for a com- bat mission. We made it back to the base without further incident. Our squadron had a tradi on where the ground crew would greet the crew with a re hose upon exi ng the aircra a er their nal mission. Since we were not expected to arrive as early as we did, the ground crew was not present to greet us, so we took it upon ourselves to follow the tradi on. While we were ea ng our hot dogs in the dining room, we squirted mustard, ketchup and whatever we had on the table, at each other!
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