Post-war CAPs were usually quite uneventful, and the biggest enemy that threatened most F-15C Eagle pilots during this period was complacency
The ceasefire on February 28, 1991, effectively concluded Operation Desert Storm. Despite this, USAF F-15C Eagle crews continued to maintain a Combat Air Patrol (CAP) station north of Baghdad. On March 20, while on such a mission, two Eagles engaged a pair of stray Su-22s over the city, which is Saddam Hussein’s hometown. Captain John Doneski from the 53rd TFS (flying F-15C 84-0014) intercepted the rear jet and shot it down using an AIM-9 missile launched from behind. The other Su-22 successfully landed at Tikrit Air Base.
After the war, these Combat Air Patrols (CAPs) often turned out to be rather uneventful, with the primary challenge for many F-15 pilots during this time being the risk of complacency. According to MiG killer Thomas ‘Vegas’ Dietz, patrolling the skies over Iraq was the most boring task he had ever undertaken, which meant that focus could wane and errors could occur. It had been six weeks since his double kill at the start of February, and Operation Desert Storm had transitioned into Operation Provide Comfort—a mission aimed at safeguarding and supplying the destitute Shiite and Marsh Arab populations to the south, as well as the Kurds in the north.
Provide Comfort instructed the Eagle pilots to impose no-fly zones in the north and south, stopping Iraqi fixed-wing aircraft from targeting the destitute refugees. On March 22, Dietz was carrying out one of those missions in F-15C 84-0010. He remembered this in Steve Davies’ book, F-15C Eagle Units in Combat.
‘We were just about ready to come home when we decided to investigate a few radar contacts headed west that were to the northeast of us. Normally, when we locked up a helicopter, it looked like a fixed-wing target in terms of airspeed on our radar, but as the latter settled down, the airspeed indication walked its way hack down to about 100 knots or so. We then knew it was a helicopter. Well, these two contacts stop at about 300 knots, so I decided that we would VID them.
‘We headed northeast and then turned in behind them, sanitizing the area as we went. We locked them up, and as we got into visual range, I could discern that my aircraft contact was camouflaged and had a sloped tail and a pointed nose. I thought to myself that it was definitely not a helicopter and that it met our strict ROE.’
Dietz did well to visually identify his target aircraft (a Su-22) without a close pass, as a combination of the heavy haze that particular day and the much greener terrain in northern Iraq made visual acquisition and identification difficult. Satisfied that the ROE was met, he rolled in behind the fighter-bomber as Lt. Robert ‘Gigs’ Hehemann (in F-15C 84-0015) engaged his target some 1.5 miles further south.
‘We had started off above them, but we were at a co-altitude of about 1000 ft when I shot the guy down with an AIM-9 at less than a mile’s separation. The missile came off the rail and flew right up the Su-22’s tailpipe. It blew up just like you see in the movies, forcing me to pull out of the way to avoid this huge fireball and debris. As I rolled over to see it all, I spotted chunks of metal falling to the ground.
‘Meanwhile, “Gigs” was telling me that his target was a turboprop, which we were not allowed to shoot down, but its pilot had seen my guy explode and had had enough. He ejected and came down in his parachute as “Gigs” went ripping by the Iraqi pilot at 450 knots.’
Hehemann added:
‘I almost speared the guy as he ejected—he surprised the hell out of me! I checked him in his chute, and he was alive, hanging there with his goggles on. He had punched out of a camouflaged PC-9 with rocket rails. It carried on flying perfectly straight and level, so I flew in close formation with it until it started a gradual descent—it crashed one minute and fifty seconds later, to be exact.’
Dietz had shot down a Su-22 ‘Fitter’ that was bombarding Kurdish civilians. The PC-9 was functioning as a forward air controller, identifying targets and deploying smoke markers to guide the Fitter before it attacked. These victories marked the final ones achieved against the Iraqi Air Force (IrAF), and they represented Dietz and Hehemann’s third kills each, establishing them as the most effective MiG-killing duo of the conflict.
F-15C Eagle Units in Combat is published by Osprey Publishing and is available to order here.
Photo by U.S. Air Force and Radomil talk via Wikimedia Commons
