Tornado F3 vs F-14, F-15 and F-16 | Roy Macintyre

so back with roy mcintyre to talk a bit about dact and the f3 so before we get into a few platforms you went up against roy just tell our viewers what dset is dact is dissimilar air combat training that's where you have two different aircraft types maneuvering aggressively against each other both bvr beyond the visual range and within the visual range and the two one merges into the other but they're all important now uh in world war one days it was all visual maneuvering battle of britain all visual maneuvering nowadays the fight starts out beyond 50 miles but we don't stop and then switch to the visual it's one big long phase one transitioning into the other and what happens to begin with affects what happens in the end game but the top gun bit is the visual maneuvering yes so how often would you um i guess get into that kind of visual range and how uh like with other aircraft and you know and how often was it was it planned or was it just spur at the moment never spur the moment not for air combat because it's so aggressive it needs to be organized it can get dangerous and it could end in tears quite easily so we weren't allowed to go into unplanned air combat there was something called target of opportunity for us and we would have what we call visual maneuvering right what's the difference well it would be preset limits that one or other of the two uh parties would have to stick to and when they reached those limits we would stop it was really just like safety limits really to stop it getting carried away in the unplanned uns unbriefed scenario so all the air combat sorties we would have either within the squadron or cells or with other f3s or with other aircraft types would all have been pre-briefed as a minimum over the telephone preferably face to face um so everybody knew what what the objectives were everybody knew what the rules were and knew the parameters that would cause the engagement to stop so we have to keep control of it because it can we are operating towards the edge so you need those limits absolutely so yeah i'm going to pick a few aircraft here and i would like you to tell me your experiences and how the f3 did against these types so i'm just going to name three off uh my head right now maybe you can just go through them so the first will be the f14 second would be the f15 and third f16 so if you can tell us how you fared against them right yeah absolutely uh i've already kind of mentioned there's two phases to this there's a beyond the visual range and then there's the within the visual range and as a headline the f3 didn't do well in the within the visual range bit we were always on the back foot it was a question of how far we were on the back foot depending on what happened before so we're talking about the f 14 i went up against 14 on two occasions the first one was an um an exercise in 1988 called exercise teamwork and it was basically out over the northwest approaches uh beyond the hebrides there was a united states navy carrier group involved i can't remember the name of the carrier and therefore i can't remember the name of the uh f-14 squadron what was my situation well we had just formed 11 squads at leeming and so we were still working up and hadn't yet declared to nato um i went off with manav on one of the very first sorties where we were carrying the big 2250 liter underwent tanks the big graph zeppelins so bears first back um handicap because when they're full if i remember correctly the max g we could pull was two and a half g so effectively like an airliner these things were ferry tanks we weren't allowed to drop so we're we were out over the north sea i remember i've just referred to a log book it was a five hour sortie we had a tri-star support and um so the tanks were emptying and then filling out so basically we weren't very maneuverable um we the thing about the f-14 it's a big aircraft and it's got a big rcs a radar cross-section which means we can pick it up quite early on we could pick it up quite early on the radar so in the beyond visual range we were quite well placed somebody's going to say ah but what about the phoenix the phoenix wasn't anything to worry about and to be honest against a fighter target the phoenix wasn't really an option what we're really worried about were their aim seven sparrows against our super temp sky flashes so beyond visual range i would have to say we're pretty equal we had two cop two guys in the cockpit both sides are both working as a team and our rhwr radar homing warning receiver was very good right from the very start that was one of the bits of kit on the f3 that was really good so that meant that we could tell when the the f-14 radar was looking at us and a pretty good idea of what mode it was in i are either getting ready to launch a semi-active missile against or we could do something about it so beyond the visual range it was pretty good and we didn't get a chance to debrief this sortie so there's probably claims of shots on both sides and they would say yeah we timed out a missile kill on you at this point before you did this et cetera et cetera um so if we accept that beyond the visual range it was probably parity there was just one only another side should point out it was a single a14 um that was coming at us i should also point out that this was within an exercise so it wasn't that scripted we didn't know what was around they didn't really know who's coming against them we had general rules to keep us in check we got to the visual range and i said to my nav i could instantly see this as a tomcat you can see the twin fins big aircraft swinging in towards us um we turned towards it and we had what we call a two-circle pass now you have to excuse me here can't rest can't stop a fighter pilot using his hands that's great so f14 here f3 here and we are displaced like that so it's a two-circle fight means you're going to turn towards each other and go like that so i'm completing a circle out here he's doing a circle out here that our display the center of the two circles are displaced so that's a two-circle fight which is good for the f3 because it gives us space i referred back in the last time i was with you about the knife fight in the telephone box that's not what the f3 wants so two circle but of course we took up half of scotland really to turn because of her excuses coming out now but the um the lima fit as we call it meant that this guy was arcing around and got his nose on very very quickly um and i said to my nervous said that we're done here and then i had a brilliant flash of inspiration because i remember the film top gun and how tom cruise says right watch this he's just going to fly right by so it did exactly what tom cruise did and that is to pull the throttle to idle put the air brakes out and pull as hard as the configuration would allow so the i'm throwing all my energy out the window and this is the last ditch attempt so the aircraft just started to mush and i look back over my right shoulder expecting to see the f-14 overshoot and know he's doing exactly the same and he's inside me with it i can see his underbelly is he's pulling hard and i got down to about 250 knots thinking right now what am i gonna do so i just had to roll out at that point put the air brakes back in and he just cruised on up onto the wing and the two guys are looking at us i just put my hands up but yeah sofia cop it's a fair cop so the backseat of his camera and then he disappeared back to the carrier and that was it so not very good from us in the visual range although we were not configured for visual maneuvering at all second second time it happened we fast forward many years and i'm on the f3 operational evaluation unit i'm out at mountain home in idaho and there was a big trial to investigate the interoperability of the link 16 jadeds the data link that was coming in now vf2 at miramar were invited to come up because they were also getting involved with data link we had if the resident yusuf uh f-16s and f-15s there we had our own uh an e3 from eight squadron warrington over i think there was a hawkeye come up from wherever they were based on the west coast and we were going to have um some again uh beyond visual maneuvering into visual maneuvering now the thing i should point out here is a mounted home training area is up in the rockies and it's 3 000 feet above sea level you start at 3 000 feet and work upwards um data link gives you a lot of situational awareness so the united states navy were running on their own net they were in data link but they were kind of on their site they were like on bbc two and we were on bbc one so we couldn't see each other but we had the benefits of data link so that kind of negated each other but now we've because we were on the f3 ou we had the leading edge equipment that was going to become available to the f3 so the radar was at the leading edge with a lot of enhancements um both to the main computer and um to our rhwr etc and we were obviously more experienced at this stage so from the bvr side of things given that we're semi-active against semi-active missiles again we we were and in the debrief we were able to confirm this we were scoring kills before they were and we started as two v two so two f-14s against two f threes but again very quickly because utilizing data like we were quite happy to split wide because we knew where each other was and by splitting wide i would say we could go up to five miles apart which is singleton's in the old days you've lost all your cross support you've lost your mutual support why are you doing this well we haven't through data link and we were happy to do this the americans are not happy to do that the united states navy or the american air force will come on to that in a bit um so that gave us an advantage and we got into the visual fight this time personally coming in the side door and they didn't see us and that gave us about 90 degrees of turn and it was very and i was also in a configuration to maneuver i we didn't have big drop tanks on so this time we came around and i was able to get in quickly and get a uh sidewinder shot against them if it had continued on i'm confident the f-14 would have gained angles on us because it's got more powerful engines it can replenish its energy faster than i could and therefore as time goes on on a 1v1 basis the f14 would have won the other the post script to it not quite the act but i must tell you is one of the tactics i used to get in the side door is we found this ravine quite a wide ravine not the grand canyon but we could drop into it i.e drop down below the ground level which is up to 3000 feet i thought this was brilliant because we could cruise up and down as if we were in a world war one trench just climb slightly see what's going on go back down again and we reported this back when we got into the debrief and then there was a few stony faces particularly from the american air force and they said where exactly were you oh yeah it was this canyon down at the bottom of the train and it was and then everybody went silent and they said that is the duck valley reservation for uh you know first nation americans you know and that is a no-go area you don't go in there and that was it we got away with it we got away i was i fully expect to go in front the base commander etc but it was all quieting down his stupid brits don't understand what's going on but we were using every trick we could so that was how we got on against the f-14s it had to be the advantage from range not in the visual side brilliant but yeah f-15s we worked a lot with um they are always superior to the f3 across the whole range their radars generally generally were better than ours except towards the end of the f3's life their weapon system was always better or the same again we achieved parity when we got the m120 am ram and the azram which i would argue was better i leave the m9x but certainly better better than the m9 mic sidewinder but the airframe itself performed better than the f3 in all regimes uh all heights etc etc what's the advantage we had two people in the cockpit versus one if we're talking about the f15 15c and that's where the weak point was and that was the point that we attacked how did we do that we tried to confuse them the american tactics they're not frightened of anybody they will come in in the high 30s maybe the low 40 000 feet in a formation called wall if there's four of them they are in line abreast forming a wall they don't care if they're putting out contrails we would in the early days because we didn't want to be seen they didn't care their attitude was we're coming down the middle of the street what you going to do about it and it can be quite intimidating when you look out about 40 miles away you can see four white lines coming towards you in a line knowing that they're coming for you but anyway how do we do it at range again it's to destroy their situational awareness so we would start to do some tricks particularly if we had jaden's we could keep track of each other and by that i mean we're going into 90 degree turns breaking apart we're doing big height changes basically to try and disappear out of their radar scan because you've got a single f-15 pilot who's flying these aircraft is also trying to operate his radar and talk to his other elements in the formation and we would just try and catch them out by maybe the radar not quite following us and suddenly we're gone they would hopefully coordinate between the four aircraft we if we've got four aircraft are now trying to give them four different targets in different parts of the sky possibly two having turned tail and maybe gone back 10 miles we call that a pump so you pump back then face back up again perhaps now not in their radar scan so basically it's all about sneaking through longer range etc and generally speaking if there is a breakdown on their side we would tend to get shots in before they would our missile the super temp sky flash wasn't quite as long-legged as the aim seven mike sparrow uh but not far off it but we're both requiring the radar to lock its target for the duration of the missile flight so that was the limitation that changed with the amram with if they had am rams and we didn't the fire and forget that gave us a big challenge so we would get to the visual merge with some advantage with equal or with no advantage if we're no advantage visual meds there's only one thing we would do and that's try and get the heck out of dodge as quickly as possible which was generally charging straight through the fighters with our hair on fire and then trying to save your space and hopefully they wouldn't turn the jesus down uh if they did we're usually toast if it was equal we're still looking by the nature of the f3 to get out the fight as quickly as possible hopefully with cross cover and if we came in with advantage we would take what we could quickly but again knowing that if we stayed and there were still live players there um on the other side very quickly we could end up defensive so it was a heck of a bit of discipline really not to get too greedy when you finally break into the the fruit orchard to think i'll just have another apple no you've had two apples get it out the farmer arrives sort of style um again f-15s very easy to see particularly planned form huge wing area um they tended to fight around the 350 uh not tight sort of area we would try and be faster than that for our energy management and the configuration of our airframe they were quite happy to work one-on-one i rarely saw two or three f-15s in the same visual fight right they tended not to come in if there was two f3s against two f-15 that in a visual fight that was pretty much it the others tended to stand back and maybe there would be coordination uh between them that was also what we would try and do if we had the opportunity of a free and engaged fighter by somebody who is keeping the enemy interested and the other one who has perhaps got less pressure on him maneuvering such that he can come back in with advantage if he can do that depends on what the two enemy fighters are doing but generally speaking they would like to go to circle as we would as well but both their rate of turn so degrees per second and how quickly their nose was coming around the horizon um so that was rate per second plus also the radius of turn was better than ours so pretty quickly certainly after 270 or 360 degrees of turn they're going to have angles on us and we're expecting to have sidewinders coming towards us we never ever therefore the f-15 never really got into guns situation because the guns tracking took too long and generally the fight broke down before that um there could have been something called something we call snapshot guns which is basically high high aspect or a a guy just flashing across your nose for training has limited value for real it could have a bit of a shake-up effect where you suddenly think bloody hell is round's coming towards you won't you start fighting the rounds and not the aircraft that gives the firing aircraft a chance because you have to do something it's called a guns jinx to get away from the rounds of the the gun cannon that's coming towards you um but they're also fairly strict uh training limitations on that because going head-to-head with guns uh can generally cause very closer boards um so it was frowned on so that's generally how the f-15s worked the 16s tended to start their fight a lot closer even when they had the amram they were not really uh and all nations really they were not um air superiority they were not um offensive counter-air fighters i.e we're going into enemy airspace and we're going to dominate it they tended to be a bit more close in and of course smaller size and more maneuverable they lived for the visual fight uh and we couldn't really live with them at all any sort of visual fight with our f-16 no matter what configuration we were in got to the stage where it was it was over in seconds because you think we've just gone down just gone wing to wing to pass turn now the f-16 always goes single circle now by that what's the difference between two circles single circle well there's your two circle fight as i've said before we're going to go i'm going to go this way f16 is good or the opposition is going this week word make we're making two circles if you're looking in plan for where they're with their centers displaced single circle we're coming towards i will turn towards him he will reverse and go this way so now you can see we're making one circle with the center here now that is for a radius fighter which the f-16 is he can get his nose round much quicker which is rate but radius in a much tighter radius so if i try and show you e colico we come around and after 180 degrees if i just put my hands that way we come nose to nose like that yeah equally with an f-16 if i bring myself round here the f-16 is already yeah if i keep you like that he's got angles because his circle is much smaller he's come round much faster so therefore after i've turned 120 degrees he's already got his nose on for a shot across a circle yeah so that the f-16 works that's the knife fight in the telephone box the f-18 you haven't mentioned that but they're very similar but the f-18s we could actually deal with because they lost energy quite quickly in the visual fight and we could see them almost wallowing so they were a little bit like us that they could they wanted to keep the fight a little bit wider and keep it to circle but my experience of f-18s was at least excuse me we stood a little bit of a better chance with them those 16's though and also when they go nose-on they disappear because they're so small so small yeah like the writers as they were called um so they were really quite hard work and very demoralizing he said yes i've got oh no [Music] [Laughter] we were very much let's keep the fight at arm's length and use guile and cunning and occasionally a little bit of subterfuge and to come in with advantage to the visual merge and be disciplined not to try and grab too much if you've come in with advantage yeah that was that was life in the f3 galen cunning i'm really good that was a great insight there to you know like how yeah free uh fed against these types because i've always been fascinated and getting someone with your experience telling me that is great but before we wrap up roy i want to know um did you ever get to chase f-111s down low and did you be could you catch them yes yeah um the most common time was an exercise in the 1980s and 90s called exercise salty hammer and what was that that was basically nato trying to swamp uk air defenses so all the nato forces that were in germany and europe at that time as well as some of the uk forces going over the north sea and coming in as if they're coming you know like the soviet union uh forces uh warsaw pact coming across the north sea poland etc etc but it would be mass raids to try and swamp the um and saturate their defenses of uh the united kingdom so they're frequently used f-111s at low level coming in um that i should also point out it was one of the times when i actually went up against the b-52 and i can see this now because the radar is out of service but we got initial contact at 120 miles which was pretty good for an airborne radar but then you have to say it was against something the size of norfolk you know anyway i digress the f-111s yeah they're coming in and quite often we would end up being displaced north or south of them and then turn in behind to try and chase them down and they're running at about 500 feet generally over the water and in the early days with the f3 yes we could chase them down why did i say early days well i have mentioned before for various reasons some of them necessary others were political the engines were detuned as we went through life so therefore the top speed of the f3 particulate low level was became more limited but we could make 800 828 30 knots at low level and that was more than enough to catch the f-111s um but it was yeah we were about the only ones that could do it that's right that's amazing well thank you for sharing them their stories there roy i'm sure our viewers are going to love that because i certainly was i have to sometimes forget i'm working i'm listening like a viewer but roy yeah thank you very much for coming on again it's been obviously a pleasure no bother at all nice to see you [Music] you

Channel: Aircrew Interview

Views: 138,211

Keywords: Tornado F3, Pilot interview, F-14 tomcat, F-15 Eagle, F-16 viper, F-15 vs, F-14 vs, Tornado vs f-14, Aviation podcast, Aircrew interview, RAF pilot, Panavia tornado, F-16 vs, Dcs f-16, Fighter pilot interview, f-15 vs f-16, f-15 airshow, tornado gr4, f-111, f-15 interview, tornado pilot

Id: hHDoCzoIvp0

Length: 26min 59sec (1619 seconds)

Published: Tue Apr 13 2021