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One of the most exciting engagements of Operation Desert Storm
The third day of Operation Desert Storm (Jan. 19, 1991) saw one of the most exciting engagements of the entire war fought out over the skies of Iraq. Part of a four F-15C ship, Eagle pilots Capt Cesar ‘Rico’ Rodriguez and his wingman Capt Craig ‘Mole’ Underhill of the 58th TFS/33rd TFW were conducting a fighter sweep ahead of a strike force of F-16s and F-4Gs when they were vectored by an AWACS controller towards a single pop-up threat.
Discussing the sequence of events in the Key Publishing Bookazine Inside The F-15 Eagle, Cesar said: “I sent three and four to the tanker and then on the CAP followed by one and two to the tanker who then joined the strike package. Another four-ship of F-15s was out front in the pre-strike role and we were the post- strike sweep. The four-ship of F-15s up front encountered a series of MiG-29s and Mirage F1s and ended up scoring three air-to-air kills. In that engagement, they jettisoned their fuel tanks and didn’t have enough gas to make it all the way to the designated target area.
“The strike mission commander decided to continue with the mission and asked us to fly out front as the pre-strike sweep. Once out in front the radar picture showed enemy fighters to the west and northwest of the target, and more to the northeast of the target. The eastern group were the closest to the target area. We weren’t sure if the western group were committed to our spot, so I asked the AWACS controller to monitor them.
F-15 Vs MiG-29
“We headed to the eastern group. We couldn’t break out their close formation until a 15-mile range. They executed a perfect beam manoeuvre followed by a drag manoeuvre. When they went into the beam, our radars had a problem keeping up with it. Once they started dragging back toward their home base, we picked them up again. Unbeknownst to us, they had set us up for a SAM trap.
“We were 12 miles directly behind them at 35.000 feet. If we’d have taken an AIM-7 shot we could have shot them, but of course an AIM-7 requires you to hold the missile all the way till impact. That would have pulled us into Baghdad. At that time, the AWACS controller called to notify us of some pop-up contacts off my left wing. I couldn’t see them on my radar, it was locked into the formation. My attention was grabbed when the formation was just eight miles away which made us very nervous, so when I broke lock, I hit the jettison button for my tanks and rolled my aeroplane to 330, I got an auto gun lock on the first target which was exactly eight miles off my wing.
“I started to go through the ID matrix with four or five steps left before I could take a shot. At about six miles the MiG locked me up, so I started to defend, and did a split S from 35,000 feet. My goal was to get below the MiG’s altitude and release a bunch of chaff to try to decoy my aeroplane. Then I handed off the information to my wingman who found the same MiG and started to go through the ID matrix, then he got another confirmation from a Rivet Joint on our frequency.
‘Splash one’
“Descending from 35,000 feet, I got down to just below 1,000 feet, my wingman completed the ID matrix, called Fox 1, and took an AIM-7 Sparrow shot against the MiG, I saw the missile come off his aeroplane, cut across my tails and around to my high five o’clock position, at which point the missile stopped smoking. As I levelled off, I followed the smoke trail to about my right three o’clock. That was the first time I saw the MiG at a range of three miles. I rolled out trying to do a defensive beam manoeuvre on his aeroplane, then my wingman’s missile hit the MiG-29 and it exploded right in front of me.
“I called ‘splash one’ for my wingman’s air- to-air kill. Then the AWACS controller called us again to notify us of a second group of MiGs. I directed the formation north. I’m at low altitude, my wingman’s at 25,000 feet. We both locked onto the second group and started the ID matrix, I showed hostile in my jet, my wingman showed friendly in his jet. We redid a second ID matrix we got the same results, neither of us carried a spike, so I conducted a visual intercept on the MiG, started a low-to-high conversion, put the MiG in my target detection box inside the HUD field of view looked to see if I could tell anything about the target, it looked like a western fighter.
The only real dogfight of Operation Desert Storm
“I committed to the intercept and ended up passing about 500 feet off the MiG’s left wing That’s when I confirmed it was a brown and green camouflage MiG-29 with an Iraqi flag on the tail. In a classic two circle fight, I pulled towards his tail, my team was jamming his GCI frequency, a couple seconds later, he started a left turn, by which time I climbed into the vertical, went over on my back, started my turn to the inside of his circle, and then started to drive a position to set me up behind his three-nine line [the invisible line that runs from one wing to the other].
“My biggest challenge was to control my speed and secure my three-nine position. After about a turn and a half, I was perched behind his three-nine line, and on the outside of his turn, both in a left-hand turn descending. As I passed through 1,000 feet above the desert floor, I pulled to the inside to put a radar lock on him. He was at about 600 feet, decided to roll inverted, started a Split S without his afterburners lit, he tried to get his nose above the horizon but hit the desert floor.”
Rodriguez concluded;
“The strike package headed south. there are no other MiGs in the area, so we headed south back to Tabuk.”
Inside The F-15 Eagle is published by Key Publishing and is available to order here.
Photo credit: U.S. Air Force and Iraqi Air Force
