Some interesting stuff. Very interesting as they say. See what you think
TRANSCRIPT OF REMARKS: JO (“FITTER SHOOTDOWN”) PANEL, TAILHOOK ’17 (08 SEPT 2017)
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TAILHOOK ‘17 SYMPOSIUM
NUGGET CASINO RESORT, RENO/SPARKS, NEVADA
JUNIOR OFFICER PANEL - 1230-1330 8 SEPT 2017
M: CDR Andrew “Grand” Mariner
A1: LCDR Jeff “Jo Jo” Krueger (VFA-87)
A2: LCDR Michael “MOB” Tremel (VFA-87)
A3: LCDR William “Vieter” Vuillet (formerly VFA-37)
A4: LT Stephen “Scotty P” Gasecki (VFA-37)
CAPT McLaughlin: Good afternoon, and welcome to what promises to be one of the more
entertaining panels of this year’s symposium. For those of you who weren’t in attendance
yesterday, I’m Captain Kevin McLaughlin, President of the Tailhook Association, and it gives
me great pleasure to introduce the moderator for today’s panel. Partly because I’ve known him
since he was a fledgling JO1 in the Tophatters,2 but mostly because he has the distinct pleasure to
introduce our next generation of warriors, who have literally been there and done that, scoring
the first kill of an enemy aircraft since January of 1991.3 To say that I am jealous of these
gentlemen is probably the understatement of the century.
As previously mentioned, Commander Andrew “Grand” Mariner started his career with the
Tophatters of VFA-14. A TOPGUN graduate, he was assigned to Strike Fighter Weapons
School Pacific, before doing his Training Officer tour in VFA-27 in Japan. Following a
successful department head tour with VFA-192, Grand went off to the Naval War College in
Newport, Rhode Island, before he screened. During his command tour with VFA-105, Grand
deployed on the USS Eisenhower in support of Operation Inherent Resolve, where he became
quite familiar with the AOR4 and the ROE5 which we are going to discuss today. Grand
subsequently assumed command of the Navy Fighter Weapons School earlier this year, where he
continues to serve today. Ladies and gentlemen, please [join] me in a warm round of applause
for Commander Grand Mariner. (Applause.)
M: Alright, Hook ’17, welcome. Deputy,6 thank you for that rousing biography. So yeah, this
is going to take a little bit different tack this time, than you’re probably used to with the JO
panel, because how can we pass up an opportunity to have these four guys talk to us about what
happened relatively recently over in the AOR where combat operations are still happening
today?
So with that, I’d like to introduce from my right (your left), we have Lieutenant Commander Jeff
“Jo Jo” Krueger, who’s the Training Officer at VFA-87; Lieutenant Commander Michael
“MOB” Tremel, who is a department head at VFA-87; and then to my left, Lieutenant
1 Junior officer, which in the U.S. Navy denotes an officer no more senior than a lieutenant (O-3).
2 Unit nickname for VFA-14, the Navy’s oldest active aviation squadron.
3 Referring to the 17 Jan 1991 double-victory of Fox and Mongillo (VFA-81), which were the last fixed-wing air-toair
kills by the U.S. Navy. Note that Broce/McElraft (VF-1) did score a rotary-wing kill in February of that year.
4 Area of Responsibility, the geographic region over which a U.S. combatant commander has authority. In context,
this refers to U.S. Central Command, which covers the Middle East (minus Israel) and much of Central Asia.
5 Rules of Engagement.
6 At the time of this panel, CAPT McLaughlin’s day job was Deputy Commodore, Strike Fighter Wing Atlantic.
TRANSCRIPT OF REMARKS: JO (“FITTER SHOOTDOWN”) PANEL, TAILHOOK ’17 (08 SEPT 2017)
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Commander William “Vieter” Vuillet, who was most recently the Training Officer at VFA-37,
and Lieutenant Stephen “Scotty P” Gasecki, who is a junior officer with VFA-37. And all four
of these gentlemen were airborne the day that the Su-22 Fitter was shot down.
With that, I’m going to turn it over to MOB, to start the discussion.
A2: Awesome. Thank you, sir. Sounds like you guys can hear me in the back. The first thing
that I want to kick it off with, is that: this doesn’t escape me—it’s extremely surreal to be sitting
here in this environment. Couldn’t have done it at all that day, that mission, without the guy
sitting next to me, Jo Jo, and then these guys that were airborne as well. So, absolute team effort,
to include all the coordination that went on with the Air Force the entire time in the AOR, and
that was mostly done by our Training Os, two of which are sitting up here today. So, just
massive amount of coordination. And the amount of learning that we did pre-cruise, and then
more learning than I’ve ever done in a cruise before (this being my third cruise).
Other big things to drive home, and currently, kind of keeping up with operations, the
environment in-country right now is extremely dynamic, both in the air-to-air and air-to-ground
region. And that’s why we needed these guys to keep training us every day, day in and day out,
and just kind of teaching these roles.
So with that, I’m going to kick it over to Jo Jo, so he can talk to you guys about a little bit of the
buildup to where we were that day on 18 June.
A1: Alright. Alright guys, the big picture. I’ll give you a bit of the background of how we got
to that day, and help maybe fill in some gaps in knowledge for those of you still in the service
who have been able to see the debrief, and then help provide really what our mindset was that
day that we walked on.
So, big takeaways: we walked on a CAS7 mission that day, both MOB and I (as Freedom 33 and
34), and then Vieter and Scotty P (as Freedom 43 and 44). That was a CAS mission about four
months into our deployment, and it was not our first air-to-air exposure. So, that’s kind of the
first thing to take away: although we were on a CAS mission, this was not the first time we were
thinking about air-to-air. Rather, there was months of events that prepared us for that, in the
AOR as well as on our workup. Kind of the key background information is again our mission
out there was to (and still is) to attack ISIS, and then protect the friendly forces that are operating
in the AOR. So those two missions are fundamentally tied together, and it’s something that
through very clear commander’s guidance—I think CAG8 would probably say it’s some of the
clearest that he’s seen—to the aircrew that help us get to where we were. With the
understanding that the workup syllabus and everything that brought us up to deployment was
largely standard, with some compression that they can obviously talk about a little bit more, I
think the big takeaway at the Training O level was that we just deployed as any other Training
7 Close air support.
8 Commander Air Group, the customary title for the commanding officer of a carrier air wing.
TRANSCRIPT OF REMARKS: JO (“FITTER SHOOTDOWN”) PANEL, TAILHOOK ’17 (08 SEPT 2017)
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Os, with good turnover9 from CAG-3,10 and we knew that our primary mission set out in the
AOR was likely to be close air support, as well as some deliberate strikes and air interdiction
missions that were definitely new for us, but we definitely had exposure to in the training
syllabus. And it was for about a couple months that we were largely executing mostly what the
previous air wings had, and then a few escalation events started occurring in the AOR that
required the air wing to take on more of the DCA,11 or air-to-air mindset, than what had
previously been done in that AOR, as well in the Navy in some time. So, reaching back to not
only TOPGUN, the weapons schools, and the resident knowledge of some of the older gentlemen
in the air wing to basically bring in an understanding of where we needed to go, how we needed
to prepare, and from that point there’s basically three scenarios that built up to the knowledge
base to that day. And the key takeaway is on the day of the mission—as I said we launched on a
CAS mission—but we had a very clear understanding of what the ROE was, as well as how to
protect a dynamic friendly position. In other words, if there was individuals on the ground, we
knew that in order to effectively protect them from a potential third-party attack on them, the key
takeaway is we needed to know exactly where they were, who they were, and then work a team
effort to coordinate with not only potentially the individuals on the ground, as well as TAC-C2,12
as well as inherent in our own elements, in order to get the job done. I think that was one of our
biggest takeaways in the lead-up to this event, was that multi-role teamwork effort that would
need to be done in order to effectively execute the mission as it was.
A2: So I will just jump right into “day of” ops at that point in time, 18 June. We are the second
wave of the day. We don’t find out until Vieter and Scotty P see us in the mass brief that
everyone is headed to the same place that day, to Raqqa. At that point in time, the AOR was
pretty hot in that general vicinity, and a lot of guys were dropping bombs. So our number one
priority that day was cutting Vieter and his wingman out of the stack, and making sure we can
employ before them.13 (Laughter.) So we briefed success there, trying to launch early, talking to
the yellow shirts, getting off the deck first, making sure we hit the tanker early…anything we
could to cut those guys out of the stack. Number one priority.
Again, kind of a senior flight for us (gesturing to A1).14 Most of the time, senior-junior was most
of what our flights were, it just worked out that day. As everyone knows, you can try and put an
“A-team” out there (if you want to call it that), but that doesn’t last, and you’ve got to get back to
just normal ops, where the youngest JO is going to be in the mix there. So you’ve got to train
everyone up to that level.
We’ll take off in the Eastern Med. Anyone who hasn’t flown ops from the Eastern Med: it’s
fantastic. The weather’s great, and clear for us that day. Jo Jo will take off first, and start a lazy
9 The transition and hand-off activities conducted by a departing carrier air wing to its arriving relief, which would
typically include situation briefings and lessons-learned for the air wing taking over.
10 “Carrier Air Group 3,” a popular (though technically archaic) way of referencing Carrier Air Wing 3, which was
relieved by the panel aviators’ own Carrier Air Wing 8 in early 2017.
11 Defensive Counter Air.
12 Tactical command and control agency, usually an AWACS aircraft of some sort. Alternatively used to refer to the
radio frequency designated for use by that agency.
13 MOB is joking about racing Vieter and Scotty P to Raqqa, entering the aircraft holding pattern (“stack”) first, and
therefore being first in line to drop any required bombs.
14 As lieutenant commanders, MOB and Jo Jo are both senior aviators in the squadron.
TRANSCRIPT OF REMARKS: JO (“FITTER SHOOTDOWN”) PANEL, TAILHOOK ’17 (08 SEPT 2017)
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right hand turn and we’ll go south of Cyprus from there, with myself joining up. We both took a
cup of coffee as well, so we’ll sip on some coffee at 22,000 feet inbound to the AOR at that point
in time.15
Again: we briefed to CAS, and that was going to be our mission that day. So we felt like it
would be kind of in our wheelhouse what we were doing. But we had also already trained to all
of the air-to-air contingencies we might have, and we had talked about that pre-flight. And then
just standard procedures for us, working our way through the northern route into country.
That’s when Vieter will come up our AUX.16 We’re already using callsigns right now so we
were Freedom 33/34, and Freedom 43/44. As you guys can hear, that’s a mouthful, which once
you start losing brain stem power,17 it’s just easier to go back to callsigns.18
So with that, I’ll kick it over to Vieter, he’ll come up our Tac19 and say hey guys, things are
starting to heat up, and we all need to switch up the same Voice Alpha.20
A3: Yeah, so, Scotty P and I were about 60 miles behind these guys when the [Mighty
Charles(?)] working out all the kinks on deck before taking off, as usual. So we’re about 60
miles behind them, and listening on Voice Alpha to my skipper, “Peterman” Shoemaker, who’s
in-country in Raqqa before us, and you can hear that already the situation is getting a little more
heated on the ground, with some friendly forces getting a little closer to some Syrian forces
there. So, based on that, I just get Jo Jo and MOB on the radio, and let em know hey, should
monitor Voice Alpha to monitor the situation and see what’s going on.
As we head into country, we get there before those guys. So we’re at the bottom of the stack
now. The JTAC21 is pretty aggressive, wanting to get some employment going right away. So
we’re in the full CAS mindset at this point. The events that have been going on are purely on the
ground, and they’re expecting us to potentially step in if need be for self-defense reasons at this
point, as required, and basically have us teed up with some potential nine-lines.22
So we’re just monitoring the situation, seeing what’s going on, overhead the situation. As this
happens, based on all the different factions in play in that area, the air-to-air picture starts to get a
little more busy. So what we’ll see is a Russian asset show up first, and start to circle overhead.
15 Throughout his remarks, MOB will recount the incident in the future tense, as if narrating (or previewing) a
cockpit tape (quite likely the most common way he has been asked to tell this story before).
16 A radio frequency.
17 Getting task-saturated as the stress of the mission begins to rise.
18 There are two different sets of radio callsigns involved. First are the “official” callsigns that are centrally assigned
by the Air Tasking Order for all aircraft airborne in the theater (in this case, “Freedom 33/34/43/44”). Separately,
however, are the personal callsigns of the aircrews involved (“Jo Jo”, “MOB”, etc.). (There actually is a third set of
callsigns that would be used for Navy air traffic control purposes around the carrier, which would be based on a
squadron tactical callsign and aircraft side number (e.g., “Party 304”), but these callsigns play no role in the remarks
here.)
19 Another radio frequency.
20 Another radio frequency.
21 Joint Terminal Attack Controller, a specially trained controller on the ground who directs the employment of
aircraft in support of friendly ground troops, often at close distances.
22 A standard briefing format for ordering an air strike, so named because it consists of nine key elements.
TRANSCRIPT OF REMARKS: JO (“FITTER SHOOTDOWN”) PANEL, TAILHOOK ’17 (08 SEPT 2017)
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We’re in a CAS mindset, in the stack, typical saving-gas, going-max-E23 in that CAS stack, and
now we have a Russian asset overhead us, that we’re trying to keep a track out. From there,
basically MOB volunteers, if you will, to keep track of this guy, based on having issues actually
within his jet, so he’ll just start keeping track of this guy and see what’s going on. Again, it’s a
very professional interaction at this point, between all the Russian assets and ourselves
throughout the whole theater—everything’s been really professional.
From that point where we’re—again, talking to the JTAC, and just talking to each other on Voice
Alpha, no real air-to-air interaction with any C2 entity at this point—is when MOB will pick up a
contact on his radar.
A2: Cool. Back over to me. Just to clear some things up (I think Vieter got confused with all of
his time at Wharton recently).24 (Laughter.) We had a tanker fall out, so our tanker wasn’t…we
had to go hit a different tanker, so that’s why we end up second in the stack, otherwise our game
plan would have worked perfectly…
A3: Is that an excuse?
A1: Yeah, we were about 70 miles in front of you.
A2: We would have flown the brief perfectly and executed.
Second thing: he did get the point right. We had four assets there looking at the same target
area, and just as luck would have it, my FLIR25 will jam up for a second and go through a BIT,26
and so I will offer my services. Again, we’re all just keeping visual track of that Russian asset
overhead—I’ll just extend out at that point in time in air-to-air master mode,27 while these guys
are using air-to-ground master mode28 to continue to monitor the situation on the ground. And
that’s when I’ll pick up an unknown aircraft approaching from the south.
Anything up to that point we missed?
A1: No.
A2: Great. So, from that point in time, everyone knows we have Air Force assets in there. I’ll
make a declare call,29 and we’ll get that Air Force asset: “unknown.” They’ll come back with
different conflicting information based on what that track would be, and then they kind of work
their way down to the fact that it is a Syrian aircraft. I will at that point in time—based on the
23 Maximum endurance.
24 At the time of the panel discussion, Vieter had left the Navy to pursue an MBA at the University of
Pennsylvania’s Wharton School of Business.
25 Forward-Looking Infrared: a targeting sensor.
26 Built-in test routine, typically triggered by a hardware reset of some kind.
27 An avionics setting in F/A-18-series aircraft, in which the sensors and displays of the aircraft are optimized for
detecting and engaging other aircraft.
28 The corresponding avionics setting optimized for surface attack.
29 A request to a command and control agency to confirm the identity of an unknown aircraft.
TRANSCRIPT OF REMARKS: JO (“FITTER SHOOTDOWN”) PANEL, TAILHOOK ’17 (08 SEPT 2017)
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learning that we had, from crews in the last 10 days especially—knowing that, as these things get
more and more dynamic, the best thing you can do is go down and make that VID30 happen.
So just leaving our block there in the 20-24 block,31 go ahead and descend down. That’s kind of
the first call where if anyone has seen the tapes, that’s when the callsign switch is going to
happen, because I’ll say “Freedom 33 is descending to make this VID” on Voice Alpha, and
Vieter will throw out “Freedom who?”, and then it’s “Vieter and MOB is descending to make the
ID happen,” and then it’s going on from there “MOB”, “Jo Jo”, “Vieter.”
And Scotty P is doing his job up there, uh, being high cover.32 (Laughter.)
A1: The other key point there that MOB alluded to is that as soon as we found this questionable
aircraft that we knew could be a factor, one of the first things that MOB did was recognize that
we needed to start task-shedding.33 As anybody out there flying knows: you can have three
radios, but you’re not going to talk on three radios and listen on three radios all at the same time.
So something that we definitely learned as an air wing, and really practiced, was how we were
going to split these tasks up. So very quickly it became—the comm plan from that point forward
was: MOB’s up TAC-C2, and me and him are up the same AUX, all four of us are up the same
J-Voice,34 and then I’m working with the JTAC. Vieter, you’re still up the JTAC freq right? As
well as Scotty P. We basically started to say—we split our pri35 freq, and now we’re starting to
work different pri plans to accomplish everything that needs to be done for the ROE, as well as
effectively protect…also a lot of coordination. Very, very comm-intensive.
A2: Absolutely. Jo Jo hit on it. I will switch off the pri freq, and this where—everyone knows
you need a great wingman out there, and that’s what he was for us that day. He will talk to the
guys on the ground, and get his arms around the situation, find out where exactly where that
forward line of troops is, anchor that and use our onboard combat systems as well as voice comm
to me, to make sure that I understood how close that this Syrian aircraft was to coalition forces.
Jo Jo mentioned it in the beginning: the whole mission out there that day was to defeat ISIS,
annihilate ISIS—that’s our mission. So, as quickly as we can get back to that mission, that was
our goal that day, and get back to that primary mission of close air support. It won’t transpire
that way, as everyone knows at that point in time, but if at any point in time this would have
deescalated, then that would have been just fine with us, and we could go back and get mission
success, continue to drop bombs on ISIS.
Proceed to the south, execute the VID, looking at the combat systems that Jo Jo is putting out for
me with good transmit-designate36 (if everyone’s familiar)…and he’s putting out good comm for
us as far as how far away this track is to our friendly forces. At that point in time, the aircraft—
30 Visual identification, achieved by getting close enough to an unknown aircraft to actually see it.
31 Altitude blocks are established for control and deconfliction purposes. The 20-24 block is the band of airspace
between 20,000 feet and 24,000 feet.
32 Scotty P is the most junior pilot of the four.
33 Abandoning or disposing of all non-critical tasks in order to preserve tactical focus.
34 Another radio frequency.
35 Primary.
36 A tactical datalink function used to share information between fighters.
TRANSCRIPT OF REMARKS: JO (“FITTER SHOOTDOWN”) PANEL, TAILHOOK ’17 (08 SEPT 2017)
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again will be ID’d…I will make a visual identification of a single Su-22 Fitter. Put that out on
the radio for TAC-C2, and now I’m just monitoring his position and comparing that to the rules
of engagement. Which we won’t get into the very specifics right now, just for operational
security. He’ll proceed north overhead, and at the same point in time, we’ll task-shed down to
TAC-C2 to put out numerous Guard37 calls on every radio they could possibly have. So Jo Jo
mentioned three radios, now we got Guard talking on top of that as well. So, just tough. Tough
to get a lot of information through, which goes back to that training piece: hey, you might have
to do this semi comm-out,38 we need people to be in the correct place at the correct time. I can’t
be driving you around like yellow gear39 on AUX. And that’s what happened (that day, at least):
everyone was in the correct place at the correct time to make this happen.
Assessing that nose position, we’re putting out these Guard calls as well, assessing his position
to friendly forces. At this point in time: great wingman as well, he’s proceeding closer to
friendly forces: “hey man, we need to execute a head-butt.” Which at this point in time is just
going to be passing overhead closely to the aircraft, and putting out flares. So again, that second
warning, on top of the Guard calls: and we’ll execute three of those as well.
Like I said, at any point in time, if this aircraft would head south and work his way out of the
situation, that would be fine with us, and we can go back to executing CAS.
After the third one—this is probably where, if anyone’s seen the tape, it kind of picks up with the
cut—after that third one, he will proceed to release ordnance…execute a dive and release
ordnance in proximity to friendly forces. Two weapons will come off the aircraft, he’ll execute a
climb at that point in time. And I’ll swing the master arm,40 fire 1 x AIM-9X.41 It goes…for all
the aviators in the room, it’ll come off the rails quick, like normally (which I’ll get to here in a
second to make sure we practice shooting air to air missiles).
It’ll come off like it had before in a previous missile shoot that I had executed as a JO, and kind
of go in there (gesturing forward). I lose the smoke trail, and I have no idea what happened to
the missile at that point in time. So, as we’ve been taught: try something different, and then just
select the AIM-12042 at that point in time. AIM-120 will do its job. For all the aviators here: it
takes a long time for the cheek station,43 so make sure you think about that, with trigger
discipline and holding it down.44 Long time for that weapon to come off.
It will explode, impact the back side of the aircraft, and the aircraft will pitch right and down,
and the pilot will jump out and left in his ejection seat.
37 Guard is an international emergency radio frequency (243.0 MHz for military aircraft).
38 “Comm-out” is the condition of having no operable radios.
39 Possibly a reference to aircraft-handling deck tractors used to tow aircraft into position on a carrier flight deck.
These tend to be painted bright yellow.
40 Turn on the master arming switch that unlocks the fighter’s weapons for use.
41 AIM-9X Sidewinder, the latest U.S. model of heat-seeking air-to-air missile.
42 AIM-120 AMRAAM, the latest U.S. model of active radar-guided missile.
43 The weapons station on the F/A-18E just aft of the engine inlet.
44 Unlike an AIM-9 (which responds nearly instantly to a press of the weapons release pickle), there is a short delay
in launching an AIM-120 during which the pickle must be held down. Most historical combat reports of AMRAAM
employment involve pilots holding down the pickle and wondering whether something is wrong with the missile.
TRANSCRIPT OF REMARKS: JO (“FITTER SHOOTDOWN”) PANEL, TAILHOOK ’17 (08 SEPT 2017)
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To my previous point, myself and Mick D (wherever he is): we were on a missile shoot when
we were JOs, and I was back in VFA-31.45 Both shot a drone off of the coast of Oceana, and
both watched the weapons impact, and both continued straight into the cloud of debris, almost
hitting it. So we realized that was a bad idea and both executed a quick quick break turn away
from that. Fast forward all these years later…didn’t forget that…see the impact of that weapon
and execute a quick turn to the left, and watch the ejection seat go down the right-hand side of
my canopy.
I’ll kind of go on the egress, but Vieter at that point in time will descend out of that high holding
stack, and starts jumping into that wingman role. He’s called something a “loose deuce”—which
I think is a 1960-70s thing, so I’ll have to get tightened up on that later.46 Vieter, if you could
explain a loose deuce to everyone. (Laughter.)
A1: Specifically, please.
A2: With ranges. (Laughter.)
A3: I think a good point to bring up here…it will be kind of non-standard obviously, but, Jo Jo
and MOB are the flight together, but the stack going into this is basically Freedom 43 (myself) at
the bottom of the stack, then Scotty P just on top of me, then MOB, then Jo Jo. And then, based
on the air-to-air mindset, led MOB to go down—first of all he picked up that contact, and then
that led him go down to execute the VID, and then basically from there I’m the next guy to the
bottom of the stack. So I’ll basically…as soon as I get reasonable assurances that this is a Syrian
contact, I’ll basically jump in and pick up visual of both MOB and the Su-22, and basically join
in for support, knowing that this can become a little more exciting situation at this point.
A2: Cool. Again, kind of in trail with me, Vieter will see the canopy deploy. Big white canopy,
with…?
A3: Actually, pretty similar to ours, green-orange-white pattern. They may have the same
supplier, I don’t know. (Laughter.)
A2: Could be one of these contractors out in the audience today.
So now, we talked about Guard calls as well…so we have an ELT47 going off as well, to kind of
compound all the communications at that point in time. Hadn’t escaped us as well…and Vieter
put out good comm right prior to weapons impact…that we have descended now into multiple
surface-to-air WEZs.48 So at this point in time, highly defensive situation…Freedom 33 will
45 Tomcatters, another Navy strike fighter squadron with a long pedigree.
46 “Loose deuce” is a basic two-ship fighting doctrine developed by the Navy in the 1960s, building on the WWIIera
Thach Weave, which emphasizes mutual support and flexible transition of the lead/offensive role between the
two aircraft, depending on which was in the better position to engage. Vieter is a former TOPGUN instructor and
presumably has a reputation among his colleagues of being something of a tactics nerd.
47 Emergency locator transmitter, a rescue “beeper” triggered by the Su-22 pilot’s ejection.
48 Weapons employment zones, the airspace in which various antiaircraft weapons are effective.
TRANSCRIPT OF REMARKS: JO (“FITTER SHOOTDOWN”) PANEL, TAILHOOK ’17 (08 SEPT 2017)
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elect to SEL JETT49 my ordnance (works as published). We start working our way out of
country. We’re not in the greatest place on earth right now, to include that Russian asset that’s
overhead as well.
So we start working our way out of country. And we kind of hit on this—Vieter just takes this
wingman role, no one told him to do that, but he knows it’s kind of what we need to do, with all
the training we did pre-cruise. He’ll be there. And then we flow pretty quickly into mutual
support in a…for lack of a better term, it kind of looks like a “wall”50 extended out to the south,
and kind of pick up division tactics51 on the way out. I will throw out an RWR52 inventory, and
that will get heard—I put that out on AUX actually, and Jo Jo had the great SA to put it out on
Voice Alpha for all of us. And that kind of cages53 everybody that we are absolutely operating
as a division at this point in time.
I would like to state at this point in time as well, Vieter will key the mike and ask where Scotty P
is, cause he realizes he actually came out with a different wingman than us two.
And Scotty P is in defensive combat spread54 on his right-hand side. (Cheers and applause.)
A4: It was actually the left.
A2: Left-hand side, thank you.
A1: But I believe it was a “Scotty P, where are yoooou?”
A2: He was not in the loose-deuce, he was exactly where he should be. Right? That’s what we
train to, and I can’t say enough about him—that’s awesome. Awesome.
Anything else you want to say for the egress, without getting into real specifics?
A1: I want to emphasize the point that, it depends on how you train, but man, there was this nokidding
excellent opportunity that we had where the three-star CFACC55 came out to the aircraft
carrier not too many days prior to this, and was very clear, talking directly to the aircrews, saying
you know my guidance, any questions on the ROE, and I have your back. And emphasizing the
point that you have to be able to go out there and operate autonomously within the guidance of
the commander’s guidance. So, very clear commander’s guidance, and then very clear
49 Selective jettison, a function that allows a pilot to drop particular external stores (such as air to ground weapons),
commonly to reduce weight and drag.
50 A line of fighters that usually extends quite some distance both horizontally and vertically, often associated with
offensive activity.
51 In U.S. Navy parlance, a “section” is a group of two aircraft, while a “division” is a group of four.
52 Radar warning receiver, an instrument that detects radar emissions and displays their strength and bearing to the
pilot.
53 Orients.
54 The standard, building-block tactical formation, involving a bit less than a mile of lateral separation and about
1000’ of vertical spread. Offensive combat spread increases these distances.
55 Combined Forces Air Component Commander, a three-star general who leads all coalition air forces in theater.
At the time of this incident, this was Lt. Gen. Jeffrey Harrigian, USAF, an F-15 pilot by background.
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understanding that you have a big responsibility out there, and your decisions have strategic
implications. So make sure you don’t take those decisions lightly, but it could not be
emphasized enough that for MOB to recognize what happened, and that it was his job at that
moment to execute the ROE…it’s no small feat to say that I’m going to be the first guy to arm
this jet up and squeeze the trigger because that’s what needs to happen right now in a long
time—that could not have been made possible without our entire command environment from
the COs, all the way through CAG, Admiral, and all the way through the CFACC. That moment
in time that that occurred: I can tell you honestly that being over the friendlies, stacked up high,
and rolling up on a wing, and looking at the wreckage down below us…it was a different feeling.
And we knew right at that moment, there was a lot of questions regarding the threats…there’s a
lot of threats out there, we won’t go into specifics—but we very quickly were in a position where
we had to make some decisions pretty quickly, and I thought that the training and the
commander’s guidance that we got at that point was a big deal.
A2: Cool. Other things I’ll mention on the egress: numerous calls, just for switchology, making
sure we’re safed up at this point in time. We’ll have multiple civilian traffic between us and our
next tanker, so lots of comm between the four of us, making sure that we continue to do ROE as
we egress. So making sure we can ID if we can, onboard, and just making our way through
there.
Fantastic job by the Air Force to hook us up with a KC-1056 right there. I think IBM, you guys
were on it, and they will kindly, kindly move out of the way for us (or get enough gas at least to
make it to their next vul57), and keep it going. So we will work our way through, I will just
tattoo that basket as fast as possible. Pretty mean, and that’ll work.
At that point in time, Freedom 33/34, with my aircraft kinda looking like a -106 jet58 now with
just one -9X on a wing,59 will elect to head home. So we will work that scenario, and kind of
work with the CAOC60 to get approval to RTB61 to the ship.
I’m going to kick it over to Vieter, because these guys will not—classic naval aviation—we’re
just going to keep fighting, there’s no reason to go home if we still have ordnance on the jet.
Vieter.
A3: Yeah, I’ll go real quick here so we’ll have time to take questions as well. But, one more
quick thirty seconds on ROE, just highlighting again how important it was and how dynamic it
was, really.
56 McDonnell Douglas KC-10 Extender.
57 Vulnerability period, a specific window of time during which an aircraft is scheduled to be on station and
available to perform its mission.
58 VFA-106 is the Atlantic Fleet F/A-18 fleet replacement squadron, where pilots go to train in the various Hornet
models. Lopsided loadouts are more commonly associated with the training environment than in the fleet (excepting
cases where the fleet has employed part of its loadout on somebody).
59 The other wingtip AIM-9X having been expended earlier, although no one seems to know where it went.
60 Combined Air Operations Center, the theater air war room.
61 Return to Base.
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Throughout our cruise, we lived through several pretty big events. Obviously TLAM62 strikes in
Syria happened while we were out there. Before this shootdown there was a drone shootdown in
a different area.63 So very dynamic environment in terms of the ROE. Daily changes to that
ROE. They had to be communicated down, to the top level, but all the way down to the aircrew.
It was very important to get that communication piece and that understanding from a daily
perspective of how the ROE was moving and what the implications were behind that ROE.
So yeah, we’ll get to the tanker. Now we’re still full up on ordnance, Scotty P and I, haven’t yet
employed, getting a little jealous at this point. We’re also a little excited, so we’ll get the tanker
on the—we feel like we have to tell somebody what happened—so we get the tanker on the
secure comm and let ‘em know what happened. From there, they give us basically new tasking,
so we quickly decide that we’re basically the best fit, and we’ll push to Mosul. So we’ve been
operating in Raqqa in Syria, with a specific set of ROE for CAS, and now moving to Mosul, with
a slightly different set of ROE for CAS. And now basically we’re providing a vul of straight-up
CAS in Mosul. And, unfortunately, my bomb will go hung and locked, but Scotty P will get to
drop that night.
The flight started expecting to be a CAS mission. We were fortunate, I guess, to get into a little
bit of air-to-air, and go right back into CAS. So, very dynamic environment, executing multiple
missions throughout the span of a couple hours.
A2: Just so everyone doesn’t yell, dirty hinge,64 stealing the JO panel: Scotty P, could you tell
us about switching mindsets—man, honestly, because I know I was operating on brain stem
power—Jo Jo and I talked about it—at numerous times, it’s just tough to do that, and you
switched roles right into air-to-ground.
A4: Yeah, the hardest part for me was recaging after seeing the wreckage, and then just trying to
figure out how I’m going to get myself settled back in. That KC-10 was critical in that, I would
say, just getting a nice fluffy basket to calm myself down, nothing better than that. Had it been a
KC-135 I probably would have ripped my probe off.65 (Laughter.)
After that, settling down, everybody’s kind of chattering on AUX about what just happened. It
kind of soothed it a little bit more when we got back into the normal CAS operations, talking
with the JTAC. I think talking with the JTAC is what calmed me down the most, and just getting
back into that wheel, and executing from there.
A2: Good stuff, man.
62 Tomahawk Land-Attack Missile, fifty-nine of which were launched by USS Ross (DDG 71) and USS Porter
(DDG 78) against Shayrat Airbase in April 2017.
63 An F-15E shot down a Syrian drone on June 8, 2017.
64 JO term for a lieutenant commander, who upon promotion to that rank are rumored to have a hinge installed in
their skulls to facilitate a partial lobotomy.
65 Unlike in a KC-10, the KC-135’s midair refueling equipment is notoriously challenging for Navy fighters to use.
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So, uh, greatest part of naval aviation, right? Coming back to the boat, as well, mission’s not
over yet. Both sections will work their way out of country…little bit of issues, little bit of
differences, but we’ll all make it back to the ship, and then…
A3: I think a lot of one-wires?66 (Laughter.)
A2: There was a lot of…Vieter tagged the one-wire, pretty hard. (Laughter.)
A1: We got no-graded.67 (Laughter.)
A3: I got it as well.
A2: Oh. There’s a double no-grade.
A3: What wire’d you hit? I forget.
A2: I’ll, uh, I will smash the ace pretty hard, for the underlined OK.68 (Laughter.) Fitter-killer:
“One.”
A1: I’ll get told to extend off the one-eighty. Cause he’s like forty-five seconds in the groove.69
(Laughter.)
A2: Somewhere between the point-nine-eight70 aileron roll overhead the ship, and the shit-hot
break,71 I got a little long in the groove. And slightly below what I would like to be on the ball,
as far as the fuel number.72 So I wasn’t skipping the one-wire there.
Again, just love this business. And here’s one of the many reasons why. Taxi out of the LA,73
no one’s there. Not no one, but the first…the go just launched, there aren’t a lot of people
around…the show goes on, right? Taxi out, there’s a lot of AOs74 there, everyone’s pretty
excited, as they should be. Come down, shake a few hands, and then I remember it was AO275
and I just kinda staring at each other, and he’s like:
“Okay, sir. Alright. Well, uh, you SEL JETT’d all this ordnance, so we have to load it up. It’s
going in-country in one hour.” And that was it. He kinda pushed me out of the way, and the
show went on.
66 Reference to a carrier landing in which the aircraft engages the first of three arresting wires. A perfect approach
results in the engagement of the third wire, so the panelists are joking about poor landings.
67 Every carrier landing is graded by a Landing Signal Officer. A “no grade” means “below average, but safe.”
68 “Underlined OK” is the highest landing grade, signifying a perfect pass.
69 A very long time to be on final approach to the aircraft carrier.
70 0.98 Mach. Rather brisk.
71 Aggressively hard turn downwind, used to impress observers on the carrier.
72 MOB was running low on fuel.
73 Landing area.
74 Aviation ordnancemen.
75 Second-class petty officer.
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Went downstairs and was reminded that I was air wing safety duty officer, so I walked around
and got everyone’s safety reports. (Laughter.) It was amazing, it really cut down on all that
nitnoi stuff, no one really had a lot of that that day. It was a short report for DCAG.76
I miss anything there?
A1: (Inaudible, laughter)
A2: And then, uh, standard stuff. Standard debrief stuff, for all the aviators in the room, kinda
working our way through. To Jo Jo’s point, the chain of command told us the entire time for all
the ROE, for all the SPINS,77 we’re going to back you up. That happened for everybody in this
room that was in CAG-8 for the air-to-surface regime, and it was no different in the air-to-air
regime when we needed to execute the ROE SPINS. Skipper, CAG, Admiral Whitesell,78 and
then the whole way on up to CFACC. Had a chance to talk to him, kind of iterated those things
as well, and how important it was to us as aviators for him to come out and actually put “eyeball
to eyeball” is what he voiced that as, for the support.
Anything else?
Alright I think we have at least 25 minutes for questions, and I know I’ve at least stuffed 3 or 4
questions in this audience, mostly for Scotty P, and whether he was going to shoot an AIM-120
into the wreckage. (Laughter.)
M: The only thing to remember for the questions: please try to keep them unclassified. Thank
you.
Q: (Inaudible.)
A2: I can’t see you, there’s too much of a shine off your head, sir. (Laughter.) If you could
state your name.
Q: Just for the record, the average GPA was a 5.0, and there were two no-counts. (Laughter.)
A2: Ohhh, nice. CAG Paddles, ladies and gentlemen, CAG Paddles.79
Thank you, I appreciate that. Well, it was just to set the record straight.
Q: Awesome, gentlemen, thank you so much. Non-aviator, so please pardon my naiveté, but:
with regard to C2, AWACS and Hawkeyes, and yet you actually secured the initial contact as
unknown. Could you just talk a little about what in that coalition force whether there was other
C2, and a priori knowledge that something might come from someplace, and be looking there,
etc.?
76 Deputy CAG.
77 Special Instructions.
78 The Carrier Strike Group commander.
79 An air-to-air kill can wipe away many sins.
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A2: Yeah, certainly. As everyone knows: large AOR, working numerous assets in there, trying
to keep the air-to-air picture straightforward. C2 every day works fantastic things for us as far as
tankers, and tasking, and making sure we’re being efficient with the assets that are airborne, to
put those things downrange. So that was the 95-99% solution of what they’re executing every
day, as well as what they’re trying to monitor all these air-to-air tracks that are out there.
Just kinda putting that whole piece together, we’ll get there, where it is, just because this is what
we would say is non-standard from what we’d seen, so I think it caught them a little bit by
surprise, the way those aircraft were operating. But they did eventually…we got the correct
assessment for that aircraft. Again, things that we had learned on cruise, though: make sure you
just go down there and execute a VID, if you need to, to make sure there is no question in the
cockpit whatsoever. Does that answer your question, sir?
A1: One thing I’ll just bring up really fast too, kind of along those lines…is just that, we harp a
lot on training (and as a Training Officer, it’s near and dear)…but on this mission, there was a lot
of different mission sets that came up. The big thing I would throw out there is the fact that, we
always hear it all the time, I remember being at TOPGUN, you hear all the MiG-killers, the guys
from Vietnam, would come and talk about the importance of section-engaged maneuvering, and
all that visual maneuvering…all that stuff, you know “everything’s going to be a hundred miles
away, but…” Out there, real-time, it’s 100% those fundamentals. So those can never fade away
no matter what the technology is.
Q: Ernesto Howard, Draken International.80 The question I have kind of closing out what you
guys did with the JTACs on the ground. So obviously there’s the air to air picture going on, how
did you guys step away from that, at the time? So can you walk us through that small piece?
A3: So, during the engagement, what happened is…honestly, the radio piece, the comm piece
was a huge deal, as we alluded to. Probably could have been managed a little bit better on my
part, specifically I’ll stay up the JTAC on pri. So we’d end up with three guys up on the JTAC
frequency, still on pri, and then MOB’s on the C2 frequency at that point during the engagement.
Post the engagement, at that point—the situation on the ground actually has not been progressing
for at least an hour or so, it was pretty still. So based on all the potential threats out there, the
decision was initially made to egress. We’ll communicate with the JTAC what’s going on, and
he basically did not have any issues with that, if that’s answering your question. He’ll just kind
of just roger up, we’ll let him know that we just had an engagement against a Syrian aircraft, and
that we’re egressing at that point. And no, basically, qualms from his perspective.
Q: Bill Hamblett, callsign Zygote, I was the squadron AI81 in VFA-87 about thirty years ago.
I’m now the deputy editor-in-chief of Proceedings magazine. What you guys just briefed, I
would love to see you write it up, we’ll get it published in Proceedings, so see me afterwards.
Because this story needs to be out to the rest of the Navy. Great story, thanks.
80 The questioner is a retired Marine officer.
81 Air Intelligence Officer.
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A2: You got it, sir. And cheap plug, the NAWDC journal article is out there on the desk as
well, for anyone with that access. But great point, sir.
Q: I’m curious, you had your procedures to go through after the VID to basically thump him
(you called it a “head butt”, whatever). You did that three times. What’s your sense that they
know that that means get out of here? Why did he keep trundling on and let you shoot him?
That’s the question.
A2: Post weapons employment, is that what you mean, sir?
Q: Well, even before. You’re on Guard, you’re shouting at him, you’re flying by him three
times pumping flares…is your sense that he knows that there’s something bad going to happen if
he doesn’t go away?
A2: Unknown. He’ll just kind of proceed on his mission, ambivalent to where I am. And then,
unable to execute a Red Air debrief, so I’d, uh. (Laughter.)
Q: LT Walden (?), callsign Hodor, E-2 instructor at VT-4. My question is, if you guys were the
first ones to pick up sensor SA to the contact, were the ones to make the ID, were the ones to
witness the hostile act, and make the hostile declaration, who was controlling you guys and what
did they provide to that intercept?
A2: So, that’s, uh, a loaded question. (Laughter.)
A3: So, I think, there is, there was a C2 track. It just wasn’t communicated to us, I think, maybe
a better way to put it.
A1: And I would cage that discussion with: we were on a CAS mission on a pretty dynamic
two(?) nine-lines. We weren’t even up TAC-C2. So MOB switched up TAC-C2 based on
finding this guy. So if we were on a dedicated DCA mission, then we would have had a
dedicated asset already looking at that, and without going into any specifics…those sorts of
things change back and forth a little bit in country based on the environment. So that specific
day, there was not a dedicated DCA at that time. So a lot of these points…maybe a debrief point
you’d say for TAC-C2, it needs to be caged based on the scenario. Anything else there, MOB?
A2: I just want to throw this in…let’s say you come up with a range, and you say that hey TACC2,
I need you to tell me about an aircraft that’s in this range…the AOR right now is so dynamic
that you’re going to hear about it. You’re going to hear about it a lot. So, we just kind of make
the best we can of it at that point in time.
We did a debrief with them. They provided me with what we needed…task-shedding the Guard
calls to those guys was huge for us…so they really came through for me at that point in time.
It’s a good question though. That answer it, man?
Q: Yeah, thanks a lot.
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Q: Hey MOB, Poof here. You got a pretty cool piece of addition to our shared history sitting
there in front of you that a lot of people in the room may not know what it is or where it’s going.
Why don’t you explain that to them.
A2: There’s a wall. There’s a glass wall between the fleet training building, TOPGUN, and the
hangar where the staff dresses and the class fires(?), and it’s got every Navy shootdown in it.
The block you’re looking at here, kind of building on that wall as we go, year by year. So that
was given to me by the staff, Vespa(?) and the gang, and Skipper Grand, just this week as well.
So, I’ll be carrying it around the rest of Tailhook. I heard if you’re the last person to touch it,
you’re the next person to get an air-to-air kill. And there’s a lot of room left on that wall to keep
building.
One point I’ll point out there…we’re definitely focused on the guys in flight suits right now, but
the thing that we’ve talked about…CAG and Skipper and I have talked about…is the fact that,
how many years have we been loading and unloading air-to-air ordnance for the one day that
we’re going to use it, and it works. So just fantastic commitment by the sailors, all of our
squadrons, uploading and downloading, the ship as well, building these things, making sure that
they’re 4.0, even though probably in their heads they know there’s zero chance—zero chance—
that these things are going to get launched. But, they both worked.
Q: Doug Dennedy (?), BZ to all of you. Question, one of you guys said earlier that you wanted
to talk about the amount of missiles you shot prior to the shootdown, kind of from a training
perspective. Really from a JO perspective, you did a great workup, you guys had a historic
deployment, in PGM82 deployments. What do you think going into that, did you need more of,
to be more effective, as far as…let’s just focus on PGMs and missiles?
A2: I’m going to kick this to the Training Os…I caught the back end of the workup cycle. So,
Jo Jo and Vieter?
A1: NCEA.83 Ordnance, air to air, air to surface. I think anybody that has done this business
long enough knows that you can train, simulate all you want, but nothing replaces the real thing.
Simulators are great, in that they are making phenomenal advances in technology, but you can’t
really put a price on some of the lessons learned that you have from just physically doing it. So,
I would say that would go across the board, both air-to-surface and air-to-air.
A3: Yeah, specifically from the Charlie84 perspective, one of the issues we had was obviously
that you can simulate JDAM85 in the jet, but you don’t have the exact same symbology, exact
same options as you do when you’re actually carrying, whether it’s a CATM86 or a light weapon.
So that was definitely a limiting factor, just how much NCEA, how much we were able to
captive-carry, and for us specifically captive-carry a variety of weapons. So not just one GBU-
82 Precision-guided munition.
83 Non-combat expenditure allocation, an authorized number of live weapons that may be used for training purposes.
84 F/A-18C Hornet. While VFA-87 flew F/A-18E Super Hornets, VFA-37 flew older legacy C-model aircraft.
85 Joint Direct Attack Munition.
86 Captive Air Training Missile.
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38, for example, but a mix of different weapons. That was definitely a great limitation for us
across the air wing, I think, at times.
Q: Gentlemen, thanks for being here, Vieter your hair looks incredible.87 This question is for
MOB. Didn’t you get treated with a real nice vacation after you executed this flight? Didn’t you
get off the boat pretty near after your landing?
A2: Well, I got…are you talking about when I got sent to the CAOC, because it was my time to
be the department head at the CAOC? CFACC asked if that was punishment or reward, and I
told him that we go to the CAOC for R&R and it’s not a real deployment. (Laughter.)
Great question though, does that answer your question? (Laughter.) Yes sir?
Q: You mentioned a Russian asset airborne at the same time. What was it, and how did it react
after you launched the AIM-120?
A2: That’s a very great question, sir. We’ll have daily interactions with Russian aircraft, as
anyone who’s keeping up with the news knows, and…professional. Professional interactions,
this is just one of many that we had. It’ll be a Flanker, and he’ll be overhead in the bandit block
30-34. (Laughter.) And he will, as we egress and start to flow out of the downed aircrew
position, he’ll follow us for a period of time, and then turn back overhead the position, is what it
appears to be, at that point.
Anything else on that?
A1: Yeah, I would just say that from our perspective, yeah it had been very routine to see them
around, but it was a very non-standard day. So there was a lot of trust-but-verify going on,
during the way out.
A2: Anything else?
M: Parting shots?
A2: Got nothing, sir. Thanks, guys, for having us.
CAPT McLaughlin: Well, as I promised, told you it’d be entertaining. Especially with this
guy. (Looking at A2.) To say I dislike you is an understatement. (Laughter.) But if that doesn’t
make you feel good about being a naval aviator, and doing what we do, nothing is gonna. So
thank you to Jo Jo, MOB, Vieter, and Scotty P, thanks to Grand for moderating. I have time 17,
please be back in your seats time 35 for the Naval Safety Center Brief. Thank you. (Applause.)
TRANSCRIPTION/ANNOTATIONS: ROBIN J. LEE
87 Vieter is now a civilian.