The F-5E pilot remembers the amazing simulated gun kill that Joe “Hoser” Satrapa Tomcat achieved against his Tiger

Joe “Hoser” Satrapa

Without a brace of Joe “Hoser” Satrapa stories, no dissertation on present-day section tactics—or naval aviation in general—could be considered complete.

Hoser was a legendary figure in naval aviation. He was good with a rifle as a kid, and while he was flying the F-8 Crusader, his instructor noticed how he simply “hosed,” or sprayed, bullets at the target being towed, and said, “We’ve got a hoser, here.” The moniker stuck, as usual, throughout the fighter community.

Hoser was legendary in the F-14 Tomcat community by the time he joined.

Fighting against Joe “Hoser” Satrapa F-14

In the book Half Century, Baby! by David “Hey Joe” Parsons and Mads Bangsø, Alex “Rattler” Rucker, an F-14 Tomcat pilot and VF-14 Tophatters CO, says that he also knew a thing or two about the element of surprise;

‘One particular event (of many) makes me smile.

‘It was back in 1975. I was on the staff at TOPGUN and Hoser was at ACE/AIM up at Nellis. We had arranged to meet over the desert at Chocolate Mt. and do an ACM performance comparison between the F-5E and the F-14A.

‘By then I had a fair amount of time in the F-5 and it felt of like a second skin to me. I could do some really neat stuff with it and I figured I could at least give Hoser (with Bill “Hill Billy” Hill as his back seater) a respectable fight. So, we got together over the blazing desert below (with Clint Eastwood staring up at us, no doubt), took a two-mile lateral separation and the fight was on.

‘In no time we were beak to beak and for me the fight went downhill from there. I tried all my slickest moves, but in fairly short order I was looking back across my vertical stab at two huge intakes camped out at my six with ‘guns’ coming into my headset.

‘Vorboschka’ manoeuvre

‘Well, this went on for several more set-ups with the same end result. Finally, Hoser said we’d start with me behind him at 1,500ft. 0oohhk yeeahhh! I said to myself. He for damn sure can’t shake me off his dead six.

‘Wrong again.

‘He proceeds to go hard nose up and do one of his famous ‘Vorboschka’ manoeuvres (stick full forward and in one corner rudder full opposite) and now I’m watching this huge F-14 planform basically stopping in mid-air, pitching nose over as I slide out in front of him, and then recovering nose low behind me and rolling back to a perfect guns tracking solution at my six. I had no more questions. I spent the rest of the day looking for my appendage which had been so thoroughly knocked in the dirt.’

The F-14 Tomcat was eye-watering

Rucker concludes;

‘The bottom line though is that not only was the Tomcat an awesome airplane, but in the hands of one of the few fighter pilots of Hoser’s league, it was absolutely eye-watering. Dale “Snort” Snodgrass was another one of those gifted sticks that the rest of us can only admire and envy. I was lucky to get to fly it. My admiration and thanks go to the Grumman Tank & Iron Works for a FINE fighting machine.’

Half Century, Baby! is published by Mortons Books and is available to order here and here.

Photo by David “Bio” Baranek / U.S. Navy and News10 video via Fire Aviation