As he made his approach, a cockpit warning went off to tell Tullia that he had been targetted by a radar-guided surface-to-air missile. Sign up for notifications from Insider! Many SAMs were now guided and most of his flight had to take evasive action, which included "last-ditch maneuvers" such as jettisoning fuel tanks and bombs. In other words, it was an incredibly complex and dangerous operation being executed with too little preparation by pilots who were already exhausted. After high-G flights, my arms and legs will have what appears to be chickenpoxblood has pooled in my extremities and caused the blood vessels to rupture.

Eight F-15 Eagles flew alongside the F-16s to maintain air superiority (engage any enemy fighters), eight more F-4G Wild Weasels were tasked with taking out air defense systems, and two EF-111 Raven electronic warfare aircraft would jam enemy radar while the Wild Weasels hunted them down. This was so close, he could hear it scream by. You could see an undercast of clouds from the triple-A going off, he added. We felt pretty confident it wouldnt be as difficult as it seemed on paper, later recounted F-16 pilot Maj. Jeffrey S. Tice. "Okay, missed him." I let it take me as far as it was going to go, said Tice.

In fact, Iraqs capital in Baghdad may have been one of the most heavily defended cities on the planet when Coalition aircraft first screamed across Iraqs border on 17 January 1991. Almost immediately, another SAM is coming his way. Break right!" At 5:58 you can hear a pilot call out, Another SAM launch, another SAM launch same location!. As a result, its easy to forget just how massive, intricate, and logistically challenging the Coalitions speedy victory over Saddam Husseins Iraqi regime really was. The F-16s were soon close to stalling out, and some had to light afterburners just to stay airborne; four fighters coming off the last tanker fell so far behind that their mission commander ordered them to return to base. That was intended to change with the launch of the. Related: Desert Storms air campaign was absolutely massive. As he defeats the missiles coming off the target, additional missiles are fired, this time, from either side of the rear quadrants of his aircraft. These missions were designed to dismantle Iraqs sizable array of air defense assets, cripple the Iraqi Navys capacity to move troops by sea, and clear the way for the ground forces and heavy armor that would soon arrive.

One fighter would have crashed short of Coalition territory had a KC-135 tanker from the Kansas Air National Guard not crossed over into enemy territory. Their targets, as on the morning of day three, would have been the larger command headquarters and symbols of the regime, such as those of the Ba'ath Party, Republican Guard, and Directorate of General Military Intelligence.

Another SAM is coming at him. Regional powerhouses Israel and Iran had both tried to destroy the facility but Desert Storm gave the Americans their chance to take a shot at it. The air mission showed that F-16s werent as effective against Baghdads air defenses as B-2 bombing missions and F-117 Nighthawk fighters. However, the organization was confused, with many air commanders not receiving their orders until the night of 18 January.

Training for SAM launches up to this point had been more or less book learning, recommending a pull to an orthogonal flight path 4 seconds prior to missile impact to overshoot the missile and create sufficient miss distance to negate the effects of the detonating warhead. In the early stages of Operation Desert Storm, one US F-16 fighter pilot defied all odds by avoiding six successive surface-to-air missiles without the aid of flares or chaff. Training for SAM launches up to this point had been more or less book learning, recommending a pull to an orthogonal flight path 4 seconds prior to missile impact to overshoot the missile and create sufficient miss distance to negate the effects of the detonating warhead. Many of the F-16 pilots that day had to deal with SAM missiles locking on to them, and were forced to take evasive maneuvers. This time, there were three missiles heading his way. which eventually convinced USAF commanders to call off further airstrikes against downtown Baghdad by conventional (non-stealth) aircraft.[2]. Many of the F-16 aircraft sustained major or minor damage, but stayed airworthy. Your email address will not be published. Undaunted by the close call, Tullia pressed on and was among the few F-16 pilots who were able to brave the onslaught of Iraqi defenses and find his target, deploying both 2,000-pound bombs over an oil refinery. As the flight egressed Baghdad, evading SAMs, another missile impacted near another F-16.

Tullia continued to dodge, dip, duck, dive, and dodge while worrying about using his remaining fuel. On their way to downtown, the F-4 "Wild Weasels" left, being low on fuel. American air commanders adapted to the situation as it was. With no enemy aircraft to engage and the sky filled with enemy missiles, the F-15Cs assigned to escort the F-16s soon found themselves limited to nothing more than new targets for the Iraqis to fire at.

I thought: Dammit! For Air Force Maj.

There was another missile heading his way.

Well, it works.

There were a number of crucial lessons from Package Q. Its similar to a bruise and usually dissipates within a few days. He was steadily losing altitude though, and at one point I saw his speed indicator drop to a tad below 200 knots that is almost to the point of losing control for the maneuvers he was executing. Tullias task was not yet fully completed: He saw two other aircraft that he thought were F-16s as he got ready to head home. At this time, the 388th TFW F-16's were hitting the Nuclear Research Centre outside of the city, and the Weasels had fired off all their HARMs in support of initial parts of the strike and warnings to the 614th F-16's going further into downtown went unheard. When F-16s attacked the MiGs, the Iraqis fled.

In footage recorded from the nose of his aircraft, you can not only see the hair-raising combat environment these pilots found themselves in, but you can also hear the bravery, professionalism, and stress in their voices as they worked to find their targets, stay alive, and look out for one another. Maj. Tullia(Call sign: Stroke 3)had to dodge six of those missiles, at times banking and breathing so hard that he was losing his vision. Cloud cover obscured the target; Nichols rolled off to turn to an alternate target, an oil refinery which was under attack by a portion of his formation. 16,000 surface-to-air missiles (SAMs), the United States fleet of stealth F-117 Nighthawk aircraft was reserved only for specific missions. A fighter pilot weighs in. It is undeniable that the massive US-led force outmatched the Iraqi military in every way, but Iraq did have significant and effective defenses.

Desert Storms air campaign was absolutely massive, How an F-15E shot down an Iraqi gunship with a bomb, F-16XL: Why America didnt get the best F-16, Taking a stripped-down F-16 on a max speed run, Whats it like to pull 9Gs in an F-16? But the challenges of deploying all these aircraft from four different installations, coordinating them in the sky, and refueling them at necessary intervals was daunting. In what is perhaps the most hair-raising portion of the video, you can literally hear the physical stress and exhaustion overtaking Tullias voice as he calls out that he is once again attempting to avoid getting hit. However, there was a problem with the Weasels allocated to the mission; either because of fuel, timing, or the decision of the package commander, not all made it to Baghdad; moreover, some Weasels did not fire all their HARMs, which suggests that they had to leave because of fuel problems. The use of precision-guided weapons was also prevalent.

Given that Iraq had.

The Iraqi forces had several air bases within striking distance of the city that could be ready in minutes, all housing MIG-29s. Stroke One took a hit!" The nuclear facility was well-protected by smoke, anti-aircraft guns, and surface-to-air missiles and are forced to withdraw from the area. The Iraqi capital was guarded by a Soviet-style air defense system integrating anti-aircraft artillery and optical and radar-guided surface-to-air missiles. Still, he continues his attack run and drops his bombs.

The F-4G was a purpose-built iteration of the Phantom for this role, but the job was still incredibly dangerous. I'm ah-stand by.

Adding to the disarray of the flak exploding below, the Iraqis threw 100-mm shells into the formations. The US and its allies conducted more than 116,000 combat air sorties and dropped 88,500 tons of bombs. Unfortunately, bad weather hampering refueling efforts and some degree of confusion compromised the Wild Weasels portion of the mission, forcing them to leave a fair portion of their mission objectives incomplete and depart without accompanying the F-16s into the inner portion of the city. Saddams nuclear facility was damaged in the raid, but it was not taken out. Thanks to a vast array of overlapping air defense systems and anti-aircraft artillery, supplemented by both radar-guided and optical surface-to-air missiles, the capital of Iraq had only seen airstrikes from the stealth F-117 Nighthawk in the first two days of the fighting, but on day three, the U.S. Air Force was coming in force. The mission goal was not met, with the reactors of the research facility only slightly damaged, although many of the secondary targets were hit. While theres no question that the Iraqi military was outclassed in every appreciable way by the massive force fielded against it, Iraq was not without serious and sizeable defenses. Copyright 2021. While this is an often-ignored aspect of the conflict, this massive coordinated display of airpower was an incredible undertaking in itself, requiring close coordination between military forces and their respective nations.

The hard part though, is to see the missile early enough to make all the mental calculations.

What speaks well for the American leadership in this air war was the fact that it did not repeat Package Q to prove some doctrinal beliefs of the high command at the expense of aircrew lives. The city had not yet been attacked by non-stealth fighters and much of its air defense systems were still in place. Hes now pushing 6.5 Gs. Eventually, Tullia was able to evade the sixth missile. Alex Hollings is a writer, dad, and Marine veteran who specializes in foreign policy and defense technology analysis. That 6 indicated an SA-6, or Soviet 2K12 Kub which is a more capable weapon system than the SA-2s fired earlier. At 6:02 you can see the contrails from multiple SAMs that had been recently launched. On January 19, 1991, Air Force Maj. Emmett Tullia narrowly avoided death dozens of times when he piloted his F-16 through a barrage of Iraqi surface-to-air missiles during a mission.