𝙶𝚛𝚞𝚖𝚙𝚢 𝙾𝚕𝚍𝚖𝚊𝚗

A funny combat sortie in the KC-10: We’re meeting up w/ a formation of British Tornados to fuel them in Afghanistan. Our next customers, F-16s if I recall correctly, announced they were showing up early, too. We de-conflicted them altitude wise & arranged the meeting point. As we approach, I can see both formations. They are nearing a rendezvous point from maybe 135° off different headings, the Tornados are closer. We’ll fly over & do a turn to help them get behind us…the Vipers have more time & will maneuver to wherever we are. Anyway, suddenly the Tornados start dispensing flares & roll hard, pulling G to get to a different aspect of something & splitting up. The Vipers soon follow…or maybe they did simultaneously, I could only really see one flight at a time. 4 jets all getting away from us as fast as they can. It takes me a second to figure out what’s going on. You see, the KC-10 had no real sensors. If someone was shooting at us, we didn’t know unless we saw it with our eyes. That was it, that was all we had. If we did manage to see it, we had no flares to dispense or any other countermeasures. We could try to turn or maneuver vertically. Good luck, Maverick, remember it still weighs 550,00 lbs after you’ve burned 40,000 to get to the front. The fighters, though, had systems that can “see” a missile launch. They don’t need a “radar lock on them” like in the movies…the sensors see the heat plume & maybe even the track of a missile & can automatically start dispensing flares & such. It’s a necessity…not all missiles are guided by radar, some look for the Infrared Profile. In layman’s terms, they are “Heat Seekers”, but it’s way more complicated than that. So they are sitting & watching with sensors that don’t send out a signal to be detected until they launch…it’s extremely difficult to tell you are being targeted until it’s in the air. (These missiles have gone through decades of being developed, having countermeasures developed to defeat them, then developing a way to defeat countermeasures, to have new countermeasures introduced, etc., etc.. They are very sophisticated) But then they launch, and the second they do there are warnings in the cockpit…hiding the heat plume of a missile is pretty difficult. If equipped, the jet may dispense flares or other countermeasures automatically. Missiles come fast, you’ll only have a little reaction time to change your aspect & evade. So, there I am, watching the fighters go away, and realizing why they are doing it. Then realizing I can’t do anything & even if I could, it was too late. After maybe 30 seconds with no loud bang, I start thinking this has taken too long. There is some amount of time that passes, but eventually the Tornados come on the radio & apologized for a false alarm. Their sensors had picked up & interpreted a heat plume from the ground & sounded the alarm. I don’t know if the Tornado dispenses flares automatically or not, but it looked cool when the flares all came out. Viper pilots don’t apologize. You should never expect an apology from a Viper pilot. I was probably in the wrong for endangering them. I didn’t say it on the radio, but I wanted to say “what fucking alarm, dude, you bailed & didn’t say a damn thing to the brightest meatball in the sky”. What I said is something along the lines of “no problem, join up left wing, we’re trailing the drogue”. Hope you liked the story! As a coincidence, this is what I find questionable about video of an F-35 flying in a straight line & doing nothing after an IR missile is launched against it, then just keeps flying in the same straight line after getting hit & I wonder what the wingman was doing, too. P.S.: new tankers & military cargo jets have sensors now, too. You can google “LAIRCMS” & go down the rabbit hole. Enjoy! Also, picture is not related to the story.

👋 Real Clouds ⛅️ where are you guys hiding? ☁️ 😶‍🌫️

Ten toes down.

I have questions🦈🤣