F-111 vs MiG-23! | with Jeff Guinn

you there was I can't remember the name of the project and which is a shame because I read about it just I did a little bit of research kind of reading up on history of red flag and and fighter weapons school because I also I'm a went to flight school also and you know Wikipedia article about red flag they mentioned the Soviet aircraft program mm-hmm so I think the cover has been blown we did not fly against any type aircraft and red flag Tonopah the Tonopah test range is up in the northwest corner of the red flag ranges and that's where they kept a lot of Soviet aircraft that had been obtained through various means they had a mig-23 mig-21 I went to fighter weapons school and flew against them in one of our missions we went down and did some kind of look-see and and kind of get alongside I'm gonna do some acceleration tests and a little bit of air combat maneuvering where I learned that there is a fighter type aircraft that turns worse than a 111 that's a MIG 23 and not really any it wasn't faster than we were it was and they couldn't see out of it it was tiny cockpit sides of it came up to here and so anyway it was really not it probably wasn't any good air-to-ground cuz I couldn't Gary Blair much could go very far and when you do any good air-to-air because I wasn't maneuverable that's one of the things I got out of that but we did fly against some Soviet type aircraft but that was during fighter weapons school because I thought the hot the Russian types for red flags and I'm chef seen a video where they going visit the aircraft I don't know oh oh oh that was that's something different there was a kind of a museum okay there was a museum down there where they had Soviet surface-to-air missile systems and aircraft systems they had some aircraft that were parked static display kind of things so they had airplanes we could go and look at I thought you were talking about airplanes actually flew against hopper operating Soviet type aircraft and that was operate them on red flag axes no not now I think if memory serves the Wikipedia article about red flag had a picture of that but that never happened when I was there right when I went to fighter weapons school that's that's when we flew we had one mission that went down a Tonopah test range and and and when I say down the f-111 fighter weapons school was geographically separated it was up at with schools based up Mountain Home Idaho that got us off the ramp made support for the airplane easier and we had a range we could easily go from mountain home down to the down to the Nellis ranges and back with depending on the mission we might hit a tank or in the way they were back but we'd even need to do that which kind of brings up even though it's not a red flag it does bring up the fighter weapons school at the end of it it was a red flag like scenario perhaps a higher level of intensity than that because you're kind of training you know kind of graduate level and stuff and this is one mission that kind of a significant submit significant emotional event kind of thing we did things back then that were probably patently stupid operation frequent manhood kind of stuff if it wasn't scary Minoo we looked at back on now it's just like what the lord were we thinking well one of the things we we didn't have the f-111 F I had pavement has paved tack on it and so it could launch a weapon its best maneuver was what we call toss word come in at like 600 700 knots 200 feet off the deck TFR and then from about six miles out it would pull up to 45 degrees weapon goes off and it now goes into ballistic arcs it's got good six seven miles of range on it and the airplane does 120 degree wing over and this is something they did at night and because the pave tack pods in the center of the airplane it can look in the direction the weapons going and now they put a laser spot on the target as the airplanes going away and then bombers boom and nails it I'm it's brilliant well we didn't have that all we had were ancient well-worn hand tooled techniques where really we're not particularly advanced overbeat what b-17s used really don't really was I mean we had a radar to put us in position and we had perhaps more accurate speed and altitude measurements but basically were doing exactly the same problem that these Seventeen's were doing so we had f-111 F n V so we would cook up the scenario where we would imagine Special Forces troops in a target area and then they would put a laser at a certain time on a target and we'd come in and toss the weapon from the proper point and then it would guide on there he says how we got over f-111 F n D and E and so the way we did this to get bombs on target and with Mutual's we did this in formation well you kind of have to have your airplanes to airplanes pretty close together in order for their weapons to get to the same point they can't be too far apart it doesn't work so we're coming in what's called the fighting wing formation low level so on on you know probably 200 feet to the right about a hundred feet back and low level so now I'm client's formation at hundred meters so off the deck and now I'm just I'm focused on lead and lead was focused on navigation and terrain masking and flew right by kind of a cliff very steep mountain on the right side of his airplane where I am and the only reason I didn't hit it was because it was early in the morning and the Sun went behind it the Sun suddenly got dark I'm like boat halt back in the stick clear the mountain they wait the these missions had they had they have instructors overhead orbiting overhead too so they could critique the mission afterwards something what was going on it's like oh my god he just died oh he didn't well that knot was that a scary moment yeah it really was and if that mean if it had been you know an afternoon story I think I'd probably hit the mountain because I would not you're so focused on lead and lead is now he's flying in a and I couldn't blame lead for this I didn't do the same thing because you're not this is not something we ever did yeah right you're never thinking about you're always thinking about okay I'm kind of a solo airplane I'm doing my own terrain masking this guy is if we're flying low level with another airplane he's a mile and a half away he's doing his own terrain masking issues completely off our written script and almost almost probably the closest I ever got to buy in the farm

Channel: Aircrew Interview

Views: 68,292

Keywords: f-111, f-111 aardvark documentary, f-111 dump and burn, mig -23, jeff guinn, pilot interview, aircrew interview, usaf documentary, f-111 airshow, f-111 takeoff, f-111 crash, fighter weapons school

Id: fLjOcpsrLsI

Length: 7min 36sec (456 seconds)

Published: Thu Feb 07 2019

Reddit Comments

[u/FirstDagger]

As he lists the MiG-23 and MiG-21 you can almost tell he is thinking to himself "I better not mention all these other types that the cover hasn't been blown on".

[u/KingGEARGAMING]

Thanks for the great find, that was enjoyable.