Thanks for the detail, sir. And amazing airmanship, courage, and determination on that mission. Thanks for getting Boots out. Beers on me if you're ever in Annapolis.

Seems like this comment should be pinned!

@@JustinLong1977 Great idea. Done.

Here comes the roosters.

My brother Maj Ed Ashley was commanding the AWACS on a rescue mission that was written up in Readers Digest....not sure if this was his mission or another rescue. I think on his mission they rescued the crew...he called in strikes against Republican Guard coming after the Crew.

Dock. I most remember you saying "pilot, tail, up 5, we're kicking up dust" so we climbed from about 15 to 20 feet

👊💪

I'd like to nominate this for a pinned comment as well, Mooch.

@@thomastrask1230 Sounds like the UK Buccaneer crews at Red Flag. "OK Gentlemen, final attack run, no lower than leader."

@dokken440 awesome pic of the Sikorsky MH-53M Pave Low IV!!

Dave McGhee, that’s a GR8 personal interest memory- Bringing the News to proud parents! Noticed yer Esty shop offerings - will be in touch 🔜 ! Gummit P’day💰 only comes 1 🦅 drop / month LoL 😝

Yeah I bet he did lol

did you see Ratsy again after he was released?

@@pontiacGXPfan I saw Rat one more time after we got back before he transferred.

@@pmurray0511 you were with the Sluggers when all this happened right? was the skipper Bluto(James McFillin)or Santa(Don Santapaola)?

@@pontiacGXPfan Santa

@@pmurray0511 then Brian(Rocky) Fitzpatrick WAS the Sluggers' XO. He was interviewed in the Robert Wilcox book Wings of Fury

5

@spyone4828 another good reason they aren't worth shit and looked upon as a crybaby medal more often than not lol

I had a Stratotanker buddy of mine that said on more than one occasion the tankers flew further north than directed to help a plane low on fuel. Thanks guys!, lots of people appreciate it more than you think.

@@jamesfuria3939 when I flew KC-135’s in Afghanistan we would refuel Special Ops AC-130’s and MC-130’s. Due to the differences in performance envelopes we had to descend with them from 10k’. We took it to 1500’ AGL in the Hindu Kush mountains several nights, and then call disconnect. Got our asses chewed for leaning forwards in trying to get gas to the ass kickers.

@@jamesesenwein5152 That took some professional stones. Good on ya and your entire crew, for just doing it and taking the heat later. I'm sure that the crews looking back up at you through their windshields are still grateful.

The single-seat fighter version of the F-15 has a perfect record against the enemy (one got oopsied by his wingman), the Mudhen ... well, it's a low-level medium bomber, they get shot down rather often by ground fire.

That ancient SA-2 missile must be bad ass, shooting down an F-15 and 2 U-2s in the 60s, many B-52,s in Nam.

SOMETIMES?!?!

That 'simulation' got a giggle out of me too

Ultimate training aid!

Umm....that's real footage

It's amazing how realistic these simulations are these days ;)

Thats awesome. My dad was CINC of 23AF, ARRS in the late 1980s. Pavelows rule the night.

"PAVELOW Leads"!

Yes, I totally agree, such attention to detail.

Did you know you were in the area which had a more significant incident? The killings on November 19, 2005, in which a group of United States Marines killed 24 unarmed Iraqi civilians?

@@ahmedvawda1282 that’s not what the video is about is it

@@ahmedvawda1282 shall we discuss how many innocent Iraqis were killed by other Iraqis?

@@dandychiggins8329 yes I know. After the 20 year anniversary of the war of mass DECEPTION I want people to remember the 1.2M Iraqi victims also.

@@ahmedvawda1282 no you don’t, you are trying to push an idea that the US went to war to kill Iraqis. And btw General Odierno was told by Saddams top generals that there were nuclear weapons in Iraq prior to the invasion. So unless your some deep cover intel agent maybe just comment as to the facts of this video which took place in 1991. Also those Marines you spoke of were charge with war crimes.

Read a book written by an A10 pilot. His squadron flew all the way to Iraq non stop. A gruelling ordeal in a plane that flies as slow as a WW2 prop plane. Even sketchier when the refuel probe starts leaking fuel into the cockpit ! Nothings easy in aviation. Especially in wartime.

Thanks , I was just about to ask if Search and Rescue always uses the call sign "Sandy".

My Father was a WW2 marine bomber pilot deployed to Pacific Theater. Flew a modified Mitchell bomber (PBH-1 modified with 3 canons and rocket rails?) No real action. Mostly guarding shipping lanes. His last flight was to deliver one of their bombers to a museum in Oklahoma. He took a Marine buddy on the flight who had never flown before. The windshield blew out, fortunately at low altitude. He managed to land and was told a replacement windshield would be installed the next day. My Dad said I have been flying these things for 4 years and my final flight almost got me. You can get some one else to fly this to the museum and he walked off. That was the end of his service. Pretty sure his buddy never went up again after that. Told to me by one of Dads squadron . I thought it was kind of funny.

I still have vivid memories of the Sara's hangarbay laid out with the survivors of the ferry boat. And the casualties layed out on the flight deck. Real bad way to spend Christmas.

Thanks, Doc!

@@WardCarroll Thank you, Ward! It was my pleasure.

Hey doc thank you for your service and welcome home!

@@1-501Infantry Thank you, it was my honor to serve!

Doc , you're a WAR CRIMINAL . 500,000 Iraqi kids killed . Do you think the price was worth it ???? Your honor to serve rotten WAR CRIMINALS politicians

Certainly a better one than 'Behind Enemy Lines'!

Movie yes, but not Hollywood-like.

Along the lines of the movie BAT21

William, I write for a living. First, I must agree with you about Ward. He is a great writer, more important, he is a great story teller...two different talents.

You couldn't have said it better. Gifted and intelligent.

We did the same thing when I was in VF-102 flying over B-H in '95.

Roof of the Sara?

@@rolltidelbc2832 Bah, I wasn't clear… I was on the flight deck of the Saratoga. Some don't know what roof is and, of course, some wouldn't know it was the Saratoga. Thank you. I was in a hurry.

@@ut000bs I was crash crew on Sara at that time.

@@rolltidelbc2832 I was with VAQ-132.

@@ut000bs Sparky here, the OPS O in 132. TP was the CO I'm still in contact with Panic the pilot in the story

One of my side jobs as a 67U in the Army was ALSE and the Prick 90's were just plain amazing equipment for the time. Batteries were the only thing about them that I had to monitor/test closely/often. Once I got on flight status I turned my cage over to another 67U. The equipment was very simple but, there was a lot of it and every piece very useful with at least two purposes for each Item. I was glad to have gotten the experience with the gear before I went to survival training.

@@wretchedexcess1654 Yes on those battery mx checks, and really frustrating that we couldn't provide more, expedient shop-level repair for the internal PRC problems. It was great that you had that familiarity when you showed at survival training -- huge advantage. By the time I retired in 2016, we were getting so much new gear, so fast, that I felt like an impostor for all of the stuff I did not know. Thank God for all of those sharp, great kids I had to carry the load and blast through the new iPad tech orders! I hope your flight status years were good ones. Thank you for showing up, every day.

Be like... Go tell the Master Sgt. your looking for a PRC E8

I definitely sent a few PV2’s to see the Prick E7!

to my knowledge the PRC-112 never passed the Standard Navy Water Immersion Test no matter what they did to it

I absolutely love that they stuck around with our downed crew and told the approaching trucks "not today son..."

Capt. Paul Johnson (PJ) was known as likely the best A-10 pilot at the time. another great story is when PJ got hit by a SAM during Desert Storm and had a hole in his wing big enough to crawl through, and was down to flying the plane with just cable and pulley, and flew that plane home. you can see it in this video kzfaq.info/get/bejne/q9J9gZVj2Lerh58.html (BTW I'm a Desert Shield and Desert Storm Army Vet)

what REALLY went on behind the scenes compared to the "Official release stories . Empire of Chaos , Death & Destruction killed millions people , sent a country back to stone age , open the sectarian pandora box .Time for the fallen decay country Send ALL its WAR CRIMINALS to the ICC

@@freegedankenzurbaukunst5613 you mean the illegal invasion of Kuwait by Saddam Hussein back in 1990 which led to Desert Storm in 1991?

@@michaeldavenport5034 That idiot got trapped like a rat by the Empire of Death , Chaos & Destruction . It was used by the Empire of Death , Chaos & Destruction to destroy Iran ( Google WAR CRIMINAL Rumsfeld shaking hand with Saddam Hussein ) . Koweit was the promised gift to do it . And that idiot felt on the booby trap . PS / When will USA send their WAR CRIMINALS to the ICC ??? I know the answer . Never . But karma is the bitch . At the end , you will get what you deserve . Clio never ever forgets

Me too, I actually have a 1985 Datsun king cab four-wheel-drive. I could’ve been working for the bad guys!

It was riveting. Very determined Air Force crew. They didn’t have to do it, it was just navy guys!

And Hogs too!

@@terryboyer1342 Definitely!

Only the best on my channel. 😜

See my reply on this very topic! The short answer is yes! Semper Fi

VXE-6 Navs were issued hand-held GPS's. We used to tape a wired antenna to the outside of the plane, it was fed through the copilots side window. The GPS's worked well in parts of Antarctica. Part of the testing was to find the GPS blind spots. 94 - 96 time frame.

@@vxe6vxe6 I flew with VR-53 in the late 90s. Had a few members who flew served with VXE-6, load master flight engineer AM McMurtry rings a bell

James, I can offer you this background on 'non-ejection' sequences for beacons, although I'm pretty sure the fighter crew had them somewhere in their harnesses too, as once they separated from the seat, everything was hanging on the risers and within reach. Hope to hear details from the huge wealth of combat experience vets who know what worked -- desert flats, versus the Alaska terrain that my wing's crews operated in normally. For the bailout (non-ejection) BA-18/-22 chutes: the AN/URT-33 beacons had a either/or "continuous" or "timed" mode selector, on the bottom -- you couldn't get to it while the rig was packed -- we normally set them 'continuous,' unless directed toward hostile environment ops. The beacon pocket sits high in the pack interior, and an activation plug (simply interrupts the "cocked," pre-armed & set signal circuit) lanyard is looped to the chute's folded/stowed risers. As the chute opens/deploys, the risers snap taught and the lanyard yanks the plug out... ELT "yelp" signal begins. Also, re the hostile area choices of an active signal (not encrypted on the ELTs), there was a pull tab on the side of the chute pack, integral to that plug-activation lanyard loop, that simply loosened the loop and prevented it from yanking the plug out during riser extension -- you intentionally did NOT to have an automatic beacon, then once on the deck and out of your harness, you pulled the beacon and could yank the plug and turn it on/off. The aerial antenna (one for the URT-33, and two for the later AN/URT-44, 406MHz beacon) ran from the top of the stowed beacon and up a narrow sleeve through the folded riser -- when the riser snapped taught, the tip of the antenna peeked out of the top, near the suspension line connectors... best, possible chance for a clean signal, as you came down. You wanted as much of it up high and clear, especially if you went into the drink. Unless you were left hanging high up somewhere, by your harness, you'd want to quick-release/un-ass yourself from being dragged or drowned. Non-ejection flotation was/still is the unwieldy, old LPU-10/P pair of under-arm cells, with a cumbersome, pain-in-the-ass wrap-around harness which interferes with a lot of your other flight suit/armor/mission-wear gear. Fighter/ ejection seat flotation rigs are a variety of "horse collar" LPUs, integral to your harness, which snaps into the seat-installed chute risers. (Our PJs use "PECI" flotation cells -- beer can size, clip-on cells with sturdy, yank-down activation lanyards, which you can move and adjust to fit whatever other gear your wearing...I really wished we could have gone to those --for everybody.) Our manual bailout chutes had standard (cam-over snaps and ring-pull) riser/canopy releases -- leaving you wearing just the harness and pack, containing your beacon, small pocket survival kit, MD-1 (ten minutes) O2 cylinder, Scot aneroid auto ripcord release system (14,000' release, plus-or-minus 1,000'), and your PLD (personnel lowering device) 150' nylon webbing line -- which was s-folded into a large pad/pocket, between you and the chute pack (kinda heavy & bulky) and could be removed for theater ops in areas without significant high terrain... like the desert. The canopies in aircrew egress rigs are almost all the classic, 28' C-9 multi-colored canopy, of which there are a ton of modifications for specific desires. Most fighter/ejection seat rigs have SEAWARS (sea water-activated release system) riser/canopy releases, which disconnect you upon immersion -- keeping you from being immediately dragged under by a windblown canopy... and buddy, you get yanked under fast, being dragged backwards by that big kite. I cannot recall if there is a similar system to activate the horse collar LPUs, especially if you're badly injured or unconscious. I know of an F-15 pilot who ejected at very high speed; I believe that hellish opening slipstream even shredded his mouth, so he could not later orally inflate part of his one-man raft (the main cell is CO2, but the tent-like spray shield and floor are oral). One of my (ex-fighter world) buddies knew him, and the gent later gave very credible been-there lectures. We began installing the (UHF) AN/URT-44 406MHz beacons in our (176WG Alaska ANG) chutes around 2012. As much as I was really glad and expecting greater reliability for aircrew survival -- especially in our high latitude/terrain daily ops world, where the older -33 beacon's signal was really degraded & the -44 beacon's pin-point GPS was acquired damn fast & accurately -- I watched a long, cascading shitshow of premature, rush-to-comply, often contradictory command guidance directives over fielding & installing these new beacons. The 'real world' failure events -- and too goddamn quick (AF) blame pointed at maintainers -- started coming fast and frequently. Wonderful, life-saving potential aside, it needed serious shake-down, but they flooded us way before they were proven. I really hope that the beacons have since evolved and work well. I had about 130 of them to install and maintain, and the Achilles Heel, weak components and unending battery & antenna failures had us in the middle of serious, up-chain complaints with the vendors. I loved the SARSAT/COSPAS immediate access database of who owned each beacon (especially a yelping one)... but my cold war upbringing and prior mil years still has me tight-jawed over sharing part of our E&E asset reliability/visibility with the Russians -- COSPAS is the Cyrillic half of the worldwide SARSAT thing. At Elmendorf AFB, the Rescue Coordination Center called the active duty aircrew flight equipment shop (2016) and advised that a beacon was active near them. A civilian supervisor sarcastically called me (inference being that it was the "dickhead air guard people") and claimed it "had to be one" of ours. I opened up the SARSAT site -- he had not -- and there was the active duty shop's chute number, yelping away for all to see... right next to the monthly report of how many OTHER false alarms they had been sustaining all along. I was, and still am, damn proud of my shop's good housekeeping history of having had only ONE inadvertent beacon in our history with the -44s.

There's little difference between the A and B models of the F-14 with regards to the cockpit. They have the same avionics setup. The basic differences in the cockpit would be the engine readings for the GE engines in the B-model and a new radio for the B as well. The ejection seats are the same in the A's and B's, and so were the HUD's for the majority of the B model's service in fleet. A number of B-models got a new separate HUD unit in the early 2000s. I believe it was called the Hawk HUD. The original HUD was actually part of the flat combiner/glass windscreen in front of the pilot. It had terrible maintenance issues and didn't read well in harsh light. The D-model from the beginning always had a separate HUD; they got away from the combiner HUD the A's and early B's had. There's not much to recommend in the D-model cockpit honestly. They call it a "glass cockpit" but it's a mid-1970s version of a "glass cockpit"; in other words, they kept the changes minimal to keep the upgrade costs lower. No LCD that I'm aware of! [The Germans did a similar thing with their F-4 ICE upgrade. They installed APG-65 radars with HUDs in their refits BUT they made the original radar scopes compatible with the APG-65!] I think the big changes in the D-model were in the RIO's slot (new tactical information display, LANTIRN controls, and upgraded radar scopes/tubes) but you have to look for them. You can barely notice the changes. I'm sure the Tomcat aircrews got used to the differences between the A/B and D-model cockpits within a few weeks if not days. Oh, and the F-14D also had new ejection seats that had a broader operation envelope. A basic safety upgrade (besides the F110 engines and later digital flight control upgrade) ALL the Tomcats should have ideally gotten. Had they gone forward with Tomcat 21, probably the ASF-14 version, they would have revamped the cockpit entirely. It would have been at least equal to mid-1990s F-18 cockpit layout if not further advanced with LCD screens; remember the F-22 was in test and it had LCD screens already. The Navy and Grumman would have done what they could have afforded with more money. The main problem with the F-14 through most of the program life was funding -- never enough money, and the alloted money always got snatched out of the program at the last moment like Lucy's football whenever the contractor proposed sensible safety and equipment upgrades! The D-model was originally slated for service entry in 1987 but it didn't reach the fleet until AFTER Desert Storm! They would have also gotten rid of the flat forward pane glass with the ASF-14/21 and installed a full wraparound forward canopy section like they did for a few F-4E's and G's. The biggest criticism you could charge the F-14 cockpit with (aside from being way too analog and having circuit breakers in inconvenient positions) is reduced forward visibility of the pilot. The F-15, F-16, and F-18 have better forward visibility. To the side and rear, the F-14's visibility out the canopy is excellent. They adopted a lot of features from earlier aircraft to reduce development costs on the F-14. A lot of the ducting and maybe the landing gear were adapted from the A-6. The forward glass pane and canopy in the F-14 look suspiciously influenced from the F-4. The reasoning behind flat plane glass is that it distorts images less I believe. (What good that does you with a plane designed to snipe from BVR I don't know! Flat plane glass makes more sense for a low-level attack plane like I'll explain later.) The problem with round glass is spherical aberration -- image distortion. The funny thing with a flat forward plane that's heavily framed like the F-4 and F-14 is that you lose part of your forward vision because of the heavy frame around that center glass section!!! With the F-14, I'm amazed they kept that heavy frame. It's a plane honestly designed to have better handling than the F-4 and was a dogfighter (contrary to popular belief and misinformation from groupies of other planes) from the beginning. I'm sure some pilot somewhere told Grumman to put in a wraparound canopy from the beginning but the contractor probably just didn't have the money to develop a higher-viz front canopy! The F-15 was the first American fighter in a LONG time to have a wrap-around front canopy (which had its issues with a frame design that caused canopy weakening and wear long-term; they changed the canopy frame design for the E-model) although the F-14 was the first fighter plane (probably from anywhere) to reintroduce a bubble canopy since the 1950s! As soon as they stopped building F-86s, they got rid of bubble canopies (for the most part). The bubbles caused drag and manufacturers needed to eliminate as much drag as possible so that planes with weak engines could go supersonic! That design mentality is why the F-4 became what it is -- fast plane, terrible visibility by modern-day standards. The P-38 had a bubble canopy, too, -- WAY before the P-47, P-51, and F4U Corsair did -- but the way it was built and framed led to more vision issues to the front, side, and rear; it was far worse than the F-14 canopy design! The bubble canopies in the revised P-47, P-51, and F4U were far better than the P-38 system. The F-14, btw, wasn't the only plane built in the 1970s and 1980s with a flat plane like this. The Panavia Tornado also had a similar flat plane. Their reasoning was to guard the aircrew against birdstrikes because most Tornados were built as low-level attack aircraft. Flat plane glass is easier to build thicker than rounded glass (which is actually a plastic plexiglass product; it's not "true" glass like in your home windows). I think the flat plane glass is probably the same stuff as the round bubble glass but just thicker. Possibly more heat resistant, too. A lot of planes designed in the 1950s and 1960s had that flat plane glass feature. A-6, F-4, Tornado, the Lighting I believe, and probably MiGs, too (Mig-21/-23/-25/-27) as well as Sukhois of the era (I don't know those numbers don't ask me! LOL).

Speicher's remains were recovered in 2009. kzfaq.info/get/bejne/mN-hhJiGvp24ZJ8.html

@@AA-xo9uw Thanks for the correction, don't know how I missed that one... Good to know he was recovered and his family has closure. I was only 12 years late.

Sir, I served under the RIO callsign Rat. He made it a full career in 2007 I was in his retirement ceremony. He recounted his experience twice in my remembrance. Both times it came with heavy emotions. I personally moved on and was deployed in 2012 to Afghanistan where I personally had a event where I too still am effected by it to this day. Everyone handles PTSD in there own ways. Some better than others, the best thing we can do is acknowledge its existence and ruthlessness.