U.S. pilot scares off Iranians with ‘Top Gun’-worthy stunt

reply to post by neformore


Because you've been on so many intercepts, and talked to pilots, and learned how they're done right? I hate to break this to you, but any pilot intercepting those two F-4s would have done the exact same thing. The only difference here is that he did it without being seen, which puts a little extra fear into the pilot intercepted, because he doesn't know how many more are out there.

A standard interception of an armed aircraft requires visual inspection of the weapons carried, followed by a join up on the wing, on either side.

But you're right, since he's an American he was just showing off, because American pilots don't do anything unless they can show off.

As for the UAV, apparently the AF leadership disagrees with you, expert that you are, or they wouldn't be escorting them. Yes, they're designed to be expendable without losing a pilot, but why the hell should we let anyone that wants to shoot them down whenever they want to, even if they're flying in international airspace?

reply to post by intrptr


You mean the PAK-FA (T-50) that has a whopping five examples that haven't even made it into weapons testing yet? OH yeah, I'm sure there was one there.

As for the F-4s being a threat to the Predator or not, again, you're going to tell me that with all the airspace they could have flown in, it's sheer coincidence that they happened to pick the bit that pointed them directly to where a Predator was flying, in international airspace, not long after another pair of Iranian planes tried to shoot one down? Yeah, that's almost as funny as claiming a T-50 was in the area.

reply to post by Zaphod58


Is it odd that I am humming the Top Gun tune while reading this verbal dog fight?

-Launching counter argument missiles

-Deploying fallacious position counter measures

-illogical supposition called out... EJECT EJECT.

reply to post by Zaphod58


Im with you i dont understand how someone thinks we should just let Iranians blow up our property. All the AF pilot did was let the other pilot politely know that was US property and he wouldnt appreciate it if he blew it up. Now if the irainian pilot took that as a threat all the better.

Zaphod58
reply to post by neformore
But you're right, since he's an American he was just showing off, because American pilots don't do anything unless they can show off.

And where have I said that American pilots don't do anything unless they can show off.

Don't throw that anti-american crap at me, you know better.

I happen to think this guy pulled a stupid stunt when he could simply have observed and taken action if need be. That's my opinion of what I read. Fine, disagree with me, but do it in a mature manner befitting the respected ATS member you are, and not through jingoistic diatribe.

Here ya go...
...
it's different belief systems that dictate we americans ram-rod the show....
yes we can be butts....but we have the relationship with God that puts us in a special role. true it is outta hand on one level....and the paradigm has changed...the big " duke it out " is right around the corner...huh!
..
to explain sort of....south africa is not short of money, in their human needs....they have three seasons to harvest crops if they want....so it's not that there is no money there...it's the belief system and the government belief system. Some countries have people that are hungry....and a cow will walk through the room indoors....and the peiple all stand against the wall to give the cow room to do what it wants to....instead of cooking it, because it could be one of their ancestors. That's my que to explain my God of the Bible in that paragraph up there.....those that subscribe to the school of thought that the Bible and everything in it is true.....are led by the Spirit to understand....that the cow is probably not one of our ancestors.


Meaning that the title of this thread .....is spot on for the pilot....cool....a friggin raptor from friggin nowhere...the Phantom pilot has a seat in his jet......that has a permanent funny little crease there in the middle.....THAT WILL FRIGGIN NEVER GO AWAY!!!

reply to post by neformore


And your opinion goes contrary to current doctrine and procedure that is in use by the air force. Whatever anyone says about UAVs being expendable they are still assets and still have protection needs. What's the point of having an escort if your escort doesn't do a damn thing until it's too late?

So a pilot follows procedure as written in the Dash One, and as briefed in the preflight briefing, and he's hot dogging?

He preformed the mission as required, and followed procedure used by every military in the world when intercepting armed aircraft.

Having read this thread up to page 6, I believe there is another way to look at this situation.

Let's use our imaginations for a bit. Here we have some radar operator just doing his job like every other day when all of a sudden he gets a hit off the coast. Once the signature comes back as an enemy aircraft, intercepts are launched.

That sounds like a pretty reasonable reaction from any sovereign nation, be it the US, Iran, or anybody else. International waters or not, if your aircraft get too close to another country they are going to investigate the possible threat.

As stated by another member, neither party in this incident broke international law. The Iranians were investigating a possible threat and we were protecting our assets from harm. Neither party were in the wrong here, besides the fact I don't think we belong over there in the first place but that's another story.

The thing that get's me is how some here seem to think Iran WAS in the wrong somehow. Zaph mentioned that Iran fired on one of our drones not too long ago. I don't remember hearing about that but I can definitely understand why we would be more on edge, BUT since Iran was still 16 miles away I believe they had every right to that international airspace as well. A football analogy comes to mind since I just heard it the other day: A defensive player has as much right to his place on the field as the offensive player does. Meaning I don't believe we have the authority to tell them to go home just because our UAV is in the same area as them.

Like my little story implied at the beginning of this post, what if this incident would have been the other way around? An Iranian pilot off the US coast telling our birds to "go home" would be met with indignation and calls for something to be done about Iran. And yet when our boys do it to them, it's met with bravado and "hu-rahs". I think it just illustrates the hypocrisy that is politics.

Another point brought up by others is the anti-piracy thing. Pirates are a very real issue even today and somebody has to deal with it. I just wish it wasn't always us doing the dealing. I'm reminded of the Navy commercial that was popular a while ago:

The ad claims America's Navy is a "Global force for good." While our military is great at what they do and can do lots of good in the world, I can't help but ask why it's us who have to pay for it while our country is crumbling around us. We can barely afford to pay our bills and yet we can afford to police the world's oceans? Something isn't right with that picture. Anyways that's my 2 cents.

reply to post by princeofpeace


i'd like to here the iranians version of events, if they did happen at all. and if the drone was there for surveilance then it was spying on iran of course and deserved to be looked at. much ado about nothing.

Why would the Iranian shoot it down when they can just take them over and land them?

reply to post by thov420


As far as the pirates go, it's not just us dealing with them. Just about everyone has forces in the area, and at one point the US and Iran even worked together to stop an attack.

If you look at the forces list in the area, the EU, China, Japan, Russia, India all have or have had forces in the area dealing with the piracy problem. It's not just us dealing with it, in fact at tires we're just a small part out the forces in play.

reply to post by PlatinumShatinum


Because the Predator isn't semi autonomous like the Sentinel, which means they would have to be able to break the encryption, and override the base station. Even with the Sentinel though they didn't land it. It crash landed in the desert after they spoofed its GPS.

reply to post by Zaphod58


Thank you for the response and you're right. I know we're not the only ones dealing with pirates but I guess that's what came to mind since I mostly browse US news outlets.

Do you happen to have any comments as to the rest of my post?

reply to post by thov420


I do, but I'm going to wait until I'm done driving probably in the morning, and can give that part the attention it deserves instead of just whipping of a post during a break.

reply to post by Zaphod58

You mean the PAK-FA (T-50) that has a whopping five examples that haven't even made it into weapons testing yet? OH yeah, I'm sure there was one there.

How would you know "one was there" or not? They are Stealth. My point was more to everyone is laudng the Raptors one up over the lowly F4 (apples and oranges), but in all that Nyah, Nyah, nobody checked their six. How do you know how many there are in operation? Famous last words, General Custer.

These must be CGI...

As for the F-4s being a threat to the Predator or not...

Everything is a threat to a drone.

...again, you're going to tell me that with all the airspace they could have flown in, it's sheer coincidence that they happened to pick the bit that pointed them directly to where a Predator was flying,

You misunderstood (again)? I hold that the F4 scrambled and chased the drone into International waters and the Raptor was dispatched to interdict. I have logic on my side all you have is a "press release" from the Media.

Why else would an F4 close on a valuable asset Predator on a "good will" anti-pirate mission, especially in an F4? Unless it was about to or just did violate Iranian airspace. Iranians aren't looking for an excuse to engage the US, its the other way around.

The F4 made his point too. 18 miles ain't squat for modern air to air missiles. What took so long for the raptor to get there?

intrptr
Why else would an F4 close on a valuable asset Predator on a "good will" anti-pirate mission, especially in an F4? Unless it was about to or just did violate Iranian airspace. Iranians aren't looking for an excuse to engage the US, its the other way around.

There are definitely powerful factions within the Iranian military that are trying to goad the US into a fight.

2nd

reply to post by intrptr


Wow, a video of three T-50s after I said five had been built. Yep, CGI.

As for having one there, you may want to fly a plane that's barely begun testing into what could become a combat mission but no sane commander would. As for how I know what's going on with them, many sources I follow that know quite a bit about the testing program.

As for why they'd intercept a Predator on an anti piracy mission, why not? It's flying near their airspace, so they'd want to at least see what it was, and potentially down it.

Again though, while you would send a UAV capable of flying around 400 knots and has a huge radar return, to penetrate heavily defended airspace, no real military commander would be that stupid.

reply to post by Zaphod58


Seems like they would need 26 dollars of junk to break it.

online.wsj.com...

MystikMushroom
Our pilots are used to F-4's, as they were (up until recently I think) used for training. The F-22 pilot totally knew he could get the drop on the F-4, as they probably had already tested the stealth abilities of of the F-22 with an F-4 at some point.

Iran: Still flying F-4's

America: Shooting down F-16's that are remotely controlled for training

+1 America.

Iranian gross external debt: $14.34 billion (31 December 2010 est.)

American gross external debt: $14.71 trillion (June 2011)

+1 Iran

intrptr

As for the F-4s being a threat to the Predator or not...

Everything is a threat to a drone.

and?

...again, you're going to tell me that with all the airspace they could have flown in, it's sheer coincidence that they happened to pick the bit that pointed them directly to where a Predator was flying,

You misunderstood (again)? I hold that the F4 scrambled and chased the drone into International waters and the Raptor was dispatched to interdict. I have logic on my side all you have is a "press release" from the Media.
Its the press release that tells us about the incident. Your logic fails actually because you just don't know any better.

Why else would an F4 close on a valuable asset Predator on a "good will" anti-pirate mission, especially in an F4? Unless it was about to or just did violate Iranian airspace. Iranians aren't looking for an excuse to engage the US, its the other way around.
==
The F4 made his point too. 18 miles ain't squat for modern air to air missiles. What took so long for the raptor to get there?

What took so long? This must be YOUR logic, who could you have known? The raptor was there all along. Its due to the Iranian deficiency in technological progress, that it was not able to see it there.

And for the record, what makes you think there were Russian stealth planes there? oh wait, there wasn't, that's you.

PlatinumShatinum
reply to post by Zaphod58

 

Seems like they would need 26 dollars of junk to break it.

online.wsj.com...

Siphoning feeds and obtaining control are vastly different animals.

I can siphon a satellite feed with little more then a Pringles can and some wires.

To obtain control of the satellite...well, let's start with a high powered transmitter array, a couple dozen computers...you get the idea.