A-10s over Kosovo (illustrations removed)

The variety of strikers I worked during these missions was truly impressive. I controlled Air Force A-10s, F-15Es, and F-16CGs (block 40s); Navy F-14s and F/A-18s; Marine Harriers and F/A-18s; British GR-7 Harriers; Spanish EF-18s; Canadian CF-18s; Dutch, Belgian, and Turkish F-16s; Italian Tornados and AMXs; and French Super Etendards. These fighters carried a wide variety of weapons, including LGBs and CBUs, as well as Mk-82 (500 lb), Mk-83 (1,000 lb), and Mk-84 (2,000 lb) general-purpose bombs.

Our AFAC mission wasn’t a new one for the Air Force. The first AFACs were the Mosquito FACs of Korea. Using slow, unarmed prop-driven planes, they were extremely successful in flying behind enemy lines, locating lucrative targets, and working strikers on those targets. During Vietnam the fast FAC was born with F-100F Misty FACs driving deep within North Vietnam searching for targets. In the nearly 50 years since the advent of the AFAC, it’s evident that FACing really hasn’t changed all that much. During Vietnam one key to survival was to stay at least 4,500 feet above ground level (AGL) to avoid AAA. Since Vietnam, with the improvement and proliferation of shoulder-fired, heat-seeking missiles, we now fly at over three times that altitude. The radar-guided SA-2s of Vietnam were also replaced by more capable and mobile SAMs in Kosovo. Given the threats and the operational altitudes these missiles dictate, the toughest task for a FAC remains that of finding the enemy. A good FAC can find viable targets—a skill not so much a science as an art. The good FAC always has a plan and, most importantly, is confident that he will always find something.

I relied heavily on the same skills it takes to stalk a trout. A successful fly fisherman understands the trout, is able to read the water, and therefore knows where to look. Kosovo is shaped like a baseball diamond, about 60 miles long and 60 miles wide. Twenty-five missions provided plenty of time to learn the terrain by heart and to develop a sense of where to search. The Serbs stopped using the roads openly and hid most of their equipment after they had been attacked day and night for close to a month. They even ceased to bring their SAMs out in the open during the day.

I have to admit that I was starting to feel invincible. At medium altitude we had begun to feel immune to the AAA and heat-seeking, shoulder-fired, man-portable air defense systems (MANPADS). On 2 May I went to the squadron to prepare for a FAC mission. It had been over a week since I had located a command post in western Kosovo and FAC’d three sets of fighters onto it. Since then, I had completed an uneventful three-night rotation of CSAR ground-alert and was raring to get back into country.

Arriving at the squadron, I was greeted by a rush of activity. Catching bits and pieces, I found out that an F-16 had been shot down two hours before and that Capt Richard A. “Scrape” Johnson and Maj Biggles Thompson had launched as Sandys for the rescue. I asked Lt Col Mark “Coke” Koechle, our topthree supervisor, if we needed to begin preparing a subsequent rescue attempt, but before that could get under way, we heard that the pilot had been successfully picked up.

I continued my preparation for the day’s mission. I would be the mission commander working eastern Kosovo (code-named NBA). I searched through the imagery and found a juicy new picture of artillery revetments in northeastern Kosovo. Other than that, there wasn’t much useful imagery. It appeared I would be on the slow side of Kosovo, with most of the Serbian activity being in the west (NFL). Still, I liked the imagery because it was of an area where we had not spent much time, and a tree line next to the revetments indicated a likely hiding place for self-propelled artillery.

As I “stepped” (departed the squadron at the prebriefed time—a critical milestone in the sequence of getting a flight airborne on schedule), the sun was just coming up on a beautiful Italian morning. I watched Scrape and Biggles return from their successful rescue and raised my arms over my head with clenched fists in a sign of triumph as they taxied by. My call sign that day was Lynx 11, and my wingman, Lynx 12, was Capt Andy “Buffy” Gebara. Andy had been a B-52 aircraft commander and had crossed over to fly A-10s. We took off for the tanker, refueled, and then waited.

\Photo: Taxiing for a CSAR mission at Aviano AB