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Cozumel, Mexico

Feb 04, 2012

Cozumel Aero Show 2012

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Stars & Stripes Air Show Spectacular

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Featured Blog

EAA Announces Changes, Job Losses

By Glenn Pew, Contributing Editor, Video Editor AVWEB

EAA Thursday announced that a reshaping of the organization will result in the termination of roughly 30 employees, but because other jobs will be added, the net reduction in workforce will be less dramatic. The change will "align our resources with our priorities," EAA spokesman **** Knapinski told AVweb The net effect should be closer to 15 jobs lost. The changes were not, he said, a reaction to immediate financial concerns. In the words of EAA president Rod Hightower,"This will strengthen our organization in several key areas to more effectively meet the needs of our members, donors and aviators."

As part of the changes, Jeff Skiles (co-pilot of the "Miracle on the Hudson" flight) has been named vice president, Chapters and Youth Education. He keeps his role as co-chairman of Young Eagles. Chad Jensen will serve as manager of EAA's homebuilders Community. Heidi Strand will lead EAA marketing while EAA seeks a long-term vice president of marketing. There will also be a vice president, AirVenture -- to lead the annual trade and airshow -- and that position has yet to be filled.

Deploying

I am deploying again. my unit had our contracted 24 months+ off since our last tour in Afghanistan. I head out later this month for a while. We do combat rescue/medevac/casevac and Personnel Recover for the Air Force and Joint Forces commander. This will be my 4th trip to the 'stan and the hottest of them all. I'm a bit nervous. I'm one of the senior guys now and have different responsibilities: have to look out for the young bucks hackin' the mish. I hope to pass along some pics and stories as they become "declassified". If I can even access ASB from there. Cheers, ya'll!

Operation Bolo - 02 January 1967

OPERATION BOLO - 02 January 1967

In late 1966, a new threat was appearing to our Airmen serving in Vietnam with the North's introduction of the then state-of-the-art Soviet MiG-21 Fishbed.

The MiG's had used slash and run attacks, to which they were well suited, to avoid the air-to-air armed Phantom fighters and to press their attacks against the heavily bomb-laden F-105's. They scored their first kill in October of 1966 and in December had shot down two attacking F-105 Thunderchiefs. More importantly though, the small number of MiG's, being able to carefully pick their battles, and operating from the safety of airfields that the US military was not allowed to attack, caused 20% of all strike sorties to jettison their weapons prior to attacking their targets.

What could be done against this new threat that had the serious potential to change the air war over the North? The 8th Tactical Fighter Wing Commander, then-Colonel Robin Olds had an idea...

What if the North Vietnamese could be fooled into attacking a flight of Thunderchiefs, that turned out not to be heavy strike aircraft, but air-to-air armed Phantoms - ready and waiting?

Olds assigned the planning of Operation Bolo to a quartet of veteran junior officers in his wing: the wing tactics officer Capt. John B. Stone, 1st Lt. Joseph Hicks, 1st Lt. Ralph F. Wetterhahn, and Maj. James D. Covington.

An enormous amount of planning went into the mission, all at the utmost levels of secrecy. Multiple flights of fighters were arranged to pose as strike aircraft - using Thunderchief flight patterns and airspeeds, and the then F-105 specific ECM (electronic countermeasures) pods. Separate flights were planned to seal the North's airspace and not allow any MiG's "caught in the trap" to evade by fleeing into China as well as aircraft to cover the North Vietnamese airfields so the notoriously "short legged" Fishbeds could not return home when they ran low on fuel.

The operation plan was presented to Gen. William Momyer on December 22, 1966. He approved the plan, which was assigned the code name "Bolo", after the cane-cutting machete which doubled as a Filipino martial arts weapon. Sharp and deadly, the Filipino bolo does not appear to be a weapon until the opponent is drawn in too close to evade. This was the intent of the plan — to draw the MiGs into the Phantoms' killing zone and strike while the North Vietnamese were still expecting to find the less-dangerous F-105s.

After a day of bad weather on the 1st, Operation Bolo was set to go forward on 02 January, 1967 - the only thing still needed was the MiG's. Would the North Vietnamese fall into the trap?

______________________________________

"Fight's on!"

The first attack came as the second flight of F-4s was also entering the area. Olds flight immediately dropped fuel tanks and lit afterburners to engage three MiGs that, although apparently emerging at random, actually had been directed to have the first appear at the flight's "six" (rear) and the next two moments later at its "ten" (left front), presenting one MiG with a tail-shooting solution and tactical surprise. All three flights that engaged MiGs later reporting encountering this tactic.

Olds 02, flown by mission planner Ralph Wetterhahn, scored the first kill by shooting the MiG with an AIM-7 Sparrow as Olds 01, flown by Col. Olds, fired three missiles that failed either to launch or guide.

Olds stated:

[quote]"The battle started when the MiGs began to get out of the cloud cover. Unfortunately for me, the first one appeared in my ‘six o’clock’. I think it was more an accident than a planned tactic. As a matter of fact, in the next few minutes many other MiGs started to exit from the clouds from different positions."

"I was lucky. The flight behind me saw the MiGs and tried to divert its attention. I broke to the left, sharply enough to get away of his line of fire, hoping that my wingman would take care of him. Meanwhile another MiG came out of the clouds, turning widely about my ’11 o’clock’ at a distance of 2,000 yards. He went into the clouds again and I tried to follow."

"A third enemy plane appeared in my ‘10 o’clock’, from the right to the left: in simple words, almost in the opposite direction. The first MiG zoomed away and I engaged the afterburner to get in an attack position against this new enemy. I reared up my aircraft in a 45 degree angle, inside his turn. He was turning to the left, so I pulled the stick and barrel-rolled to the right. Thanks to this maneuver, I found myself above him, half upside down. I held it until the MiG finished his turn, calculating the time so that, if I could keep on turning behind him, I would get on his tail, with a deflection angle of 20 degrees, at a distance of 1,500 yards. That was exactly what happened. He never saw me. Behind and lower than him, I could clearly see his silhouette against the sun when I launched two Sidewinders. One of them impacted and tore apart his right wing."[/quote]

Ford flight, led by 8th TFW Vice Commander Colonel Daniel "Chappie" James, Jr. entered the target area at 1505, just as the MiGs began to engage, and James radioed a warning to Olds. Though he did not score a victory himself, James witnessed the victory made by his wingman, Captain Everett T. Raspberry:

[quote]"At 15:04 my flight was attacked by three MiGs, two from the ‘10 o’clock’ and one from the ´6 o’clock´. Initially I didn’t see this last one because I had been concentrating on those approaching head-on. My WSO excitedly warned me about this rapidly approaching MiG, which was within firing range of my #3 and #4. I hesitated a while before interrupting my attack against the two MiGs in front, because I had seen the ‘Olds’ flight passing below us a few seconds before. I thought that the plane seen by my WSO could be one of them. Despite that, I suddenly turned left and then right, and caught sight of the third MiG. I ordered to my numbers 3 and 4 to break right. As they did so, the MiG broke left for some mysterious reason and for a split second we were side by side. We were so close that, besides the red stars in his wings, I could clearly see the pilot’s face. I began a horizontal barrel roll to get away from him and into an attack position, once in position, I launched a Sidewinder. The missile missed because the evading MiG broke left at full throttle. But when he did it, he put himself in the line of fire of my number 2, Captain Everett T. Raspberry. I ordered him to follow the prey, because the two aircraft that I initially saw had been placed in my forward sector. I was in an advantageous position, so I fired two AIM-9s against them in a quick sequence, and I turned to place myself as wingman of my #2, Captain Raspberry. I kept on descending besides Captain Raspberry and I remember that I thought that he was still out of the optimal launching envelope. But he performed a barrel roll that placed him in a perfect position again and he launched an AIM-9 which hit against the tail section of the MiG-21. It was shaken violently and later fell in a slow, almost plane spin.”[/quote]

James, preoccupied with two MiGs approaching Ford flight head-on, was attacked from the rear by a MiG-21. He executed a horizontal barrel roll, got behind his attacker, and fired an AIM-9 that the MiG evaded. However, the maneuver placed the MiG in front of Raspberry, who shot it down with a missile hit behind the cockpit. After Ford 02 scored its kill, Ford flight left the scene without loss, its success due partially to the high-speed maneuverability of the F-4 at 17,000 ft.

Rambler flight, the third into the area, was led by Captain John B. Stone, the wing tactics officer and one of the architects of Operation Bolo. When Rambler entered the engagement, Stone spotted a pair of MiGs popping up through a break in the clouds, dove and launched an AIM-7 Sparrow, which failed to ignite. Stone fired again a second Sparrow that successfully guided to one of the MiGs. Observing a third MiG behind him, he coordinated his maneuvers with his wingman and steered the MiG into the line of fire of Major Philip P. Combies (Rambler 04). He saw the battle in this way:

[quote]"We flew at 13,440 feet (4,800 meters) above sea level and our speed was 540 knots. A little bit after completing a turn to the northwest, we identified a patrol of four MiG-21s in spread formation at a distance of 5 miles –about 8 km- at ‘2 o’clock’ and below than us. Two more MiGs appeared 2 miles –about 3 km - behind. . . . When the MiGs crossed in front of Stone, he started to follow, breaking left and losing height. Due to that, the flight spread wide to the right, and I found myself higher and somewhat to the right than the others. I kept the throttle to the minimum during the first phase of the combat. So, the MiGs broke to the left, and the engagement began. I choose one of the MiGs and followed him with my radar. I don't think that we ever exceeded 4 g during the whole engagement. I decided to follow the Navy pilots' tactics - at close range foregoing the radar tracking, but looking through the reticle instead. When I realized that I was in the right position, I pushed the fire button, released it, pushed it again, and waited. I did not even see the first Sparrow. However, I followed the entire trajectory of the second one, from launch to impact. I fired the missiles at less than 2,000 yards from the MiG’s tail, height 9,800 feet (3,500 meters) and turning to the left. The second one hit the tail section of the enemy aircraft. A second later I saw a huge, orange ball of fire."[/quote]

Seconds later, another MiG-21 crossed in front of Rambler 02 and was apparently destroyed by a Sparrow fired by its pilot, Lawrence Glynn. The MiG, hit behind the tailfin, exploded in a fireball. This, the third MiG-21 downed by Rambler flight, raised the final score of the day to 7:0 in favor of the F-4s. SA-2 missile launches (five in all) began to threaten Rambler flight, which also disengaged. The entire combat lasted twelve minutes.

______________________________________

In those twelve minutes Operation Bolo had destroyed over half of North Vietnam's operational fleet of MiG-21's (two more were lost several days later in a similar ruse). The MiG-21 threat was greatly reduced over the next several months while additional aircraft were acquired - and as both the North Vietnamese, and the Soviets, reassessed their tactics.

Over those same twelve minutes, Operations Bolo's leader, the late Brigadier General Robin Olds (1922-2007), already a World War II double ace flying P-38's and P-51's went from leader, to Legend.

To read more about Operation Bolo, and more about Robin Olds, I can't recommend "Fighter Pilot: The Memoirs of Legendary Ace Robin Olds", by Robin Olds, his daughter Christina Olds, and Thunderchief and Phantom Vietnam Veteran Ed Rasimus nearly highly enough. Everyone with even a passing interest in military aviation history, the Vietnam War, or Leadership in general, needs to read this book.

www.amazon.com/Fighter-Pilot-Memoirs-Leg...

(Much of the data and text above from Wikipedia, was going to rewrite it, but it's well done and I wanted to get this out to everyone - MK)

Squadron	Call Sign	Aircraft Commander	Second Pilot	Missile
555 TFS	Olds 02	1st Lt. Ralph F. Wetterhahn	1st Lt. Jerry K. Sharp	AIM-7
555 TFS	Olds 04	Capt. Walter S. Radeker III	1st Lt. James E. Murray III	AIM-9
555 TFS	Olds 01	Col. Robin Olds	1st Lt. Charles C. Clifton	AIM-9
555 TFS	Ford 02	Capt. Everett T. Raspberry, Jr.	1st Lt. Robert W. Western	AIM-9
433 TFS	Rambler 04	Maj. Philip P. Combies	1st Lt. Lee R. Dutton	AIM-7
433 TFS	Rambler 01	Capt. John B. Stone	1st Lt. Clifton P. Dunnegan, Jr.	AIM-7
433 TFS	Rambler 02	1st Lt. Lawrence J. Glynn, Jr.	1st Lt. Lawrence E. Cary	AIM-7

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OPERATION BOLO - 02 January 1967

In late 1966, a new threat was appearing to our Airmen serving in Vietnam with the North's introduction of the then state-of-the-art Soviet MiG-21 Fishbed.