A-10s over Kosovo (illustrations removed)

“One’s off dry, hung rockets,” called Kimos. His selected rocket pod had malfunctioned, so he selected his jet’s other pod and rolled in again. After his second passed he radioed, “One’s off dry, both pods of rockets are hung. Two, you have the lead. Go ahead and mark for the Hornets.”

I assumed the lead, maneuvered my jet to a different attack axis, and rolled in. The second smoke was on target and the lead Hornet began to employ his ordnance. The second jet lost sight of the target area and asked for another mark. “Watch the number of passes in a target area” was the lesson firmly planted in everyone’s mind after Maj Goldie Haun had been hit by a MANPADS and limped to Skopje only two days prior.

“Two’s in.”

I hammered down on the pickle button at 17,000 feet above mean sea level (MSL) and was rewarded with a quick, “tally the target,” from the second Hornet. When the Hornets departed for the carrier after their attack, we egressed the target area and began a new search.

“Pepper 01, this is Cyclops. We have a two-ship of A-10s with CBU that needs a target.” Kimos called them up and decided to have them unload their CBUs on the command-post area.

At this point I was fairly comfortable with the target area. The Serbs had not shot back on their “normal” timing, and I was now lighter and had good energy, having already dropped my bombs. With Kimos in a cover position and the fighters in trail to watch the mark, I began a roll-in to the right on a previously unused attack axis.

“Two, break left!” was the call I heard. I immediately began to dispense flares, turned in the cockpit, and saw two trails of smoke following behind what appeared to be red flares arcing towards my jet. Since I had been in the process of rolling in, I had already committed myself to a right turn—versus the break left—and began to lower the nose while pulling hard on the stick to turn quickly and put the missile at three o’clock. I can still see the red glow of the rocket motors and the way the missiles kept turning with me. I remember thinking that the missiles were rejecting the flares, and my next thought was, “What is three to five seconds?” (Our training tells us that three to five seconds before we think the missile will impact, we should perform a special maneuver to make the missile miss.) I was still breaking into the missiles and ejecting flares when the first missile lost track. I saw it would miss well behind the jet, but the second was rapidly getting closer.

“Two, get rid of your stuff.” One of the other A-10s advised me to “combat jettison” all of my ordnance to improve my turn and energy state. It seemed like I had time to think it over and decide that I was okay with just my Mavericks. There was no way I was going to take my hands off the stick or the throttle and the flare button located on it!

As I began a last-ditch defensive maneuver, the second missile began to fall behind the aircraft. I can still see the missile trying to turn and “hack” the corner as it began to lag. With all this defensive maneuvering, I had turned approximately 270 degrees, and I was now looking exactly at where the two smoke trails had started their journey. Time to turn the tables. The GAU-8 30 mm Avenger cannon is the most flexible and formidable weapon on the A-10. Since it was built to destroy Soviet tanks in Germany’s Fulda Gap, one can imagine its effectiveness on softer types of vehicles—especially a lightly armored SAM system.

I distinctly remember switching from rockets to the gun in the weapons-delivery mode of my head-up display and then placing the pipper short of the two vehicles where the smoke trail began. I dropped the hammer and began to retaliate in anger. An A-10 driver will normally shoot about 100–200 rounds in a combat burst, attempting to concentrate directly on the target. Passing 300 rounds on target, I kept the hammer down and began to move the pipper around the target area until I saw an explosion—500 rounds later.

“Two is egressing south.” With the tables turned and the Serbs diving for cover, I called my flight lead and told him the heading on which I was departing the target area. Looking over my left side, I saw that Kimos was in a solid cover position as we concluded our first vul period, crossed into Macedonia, and began the air-refueling process in preparation for the sortie’s second scheduled vul period.

Deep Thoughts Capt Andrew “Buffy” Gebara