Apache

Reading this just now as I am researching something else reminds me of thoughts I have had for several days now, specific thoughts in recent days. One difference is that I did not have specific thoughts about the specific day it happened. The article mentions the first day of the war and I believe I was there during the first day of the war and flying an Apache helicopter but I was not having thoughts recently consistent with that article below about the first day of the war.

Those of you following along at home might recall that my theory about deja vu, that urban myth of how something seems familiar, is that when it happens to a person a lot then that might be a symptom of mental illness. The theory I wrote about how is that I believe, must as some Neanderthal painting on some cave wall somewhere, that the notion is deja vu when it happens excessively is that the brain is distorting the perception of reality and that might be similar to hallucination.

So anyway, as for this particular instance, I cannot think of any details I documented about those thoughts. You fanboys and you fangirls at home might also recall how I have successfully documented that I do indeed have some kind of ability to have prescient thoughts, prescient about observations I will make later. My current thinking is that it is not unlike some mirror somewhere, sometimes I catch reflections in that mirror and the mirror reflects thought in my mind that I will have in the future.

So again anyway, several days ago I started thinking of something similar to the article below but as it applied to me, I was the pilot of a United States military Apache gunship helicopter. I had been thinking that an Iraqi fighter jet was in the vicinity of my helicopter and I shot down that Iraqi fighter jet with a Sidewinder missile my helicopter was equipped with. That was the only air-to-air kill I had while serving as pilot. So goes the thoughts in my mind. I don't actually have memories of any that, memories in the conventional sense, those kinds of memories we are all, presumably, accustomed to, that we have become accustomed to since we were very young.





http://www.deseretnews.com/article/148399/RADAR-RAVEN-MAY-GET-CREDIT-FOR-1ST-AIR-KILL-OF-THE-GULF-WAR.html


Deseret News


RADAR RAVEN MAY GET CREDIT FOR 1ST AIR KILL OF THE GULF WAR


Published: Friday, Feb. 22 1991 12:00 a.m. MST

The electronics-jamming EF-111A Raven is not a combat plane. But a Raven that lured an Iraqi fighter into a death trap may be credited with the first air kill of the war.

The U.S. Air Force is investigating whether the two-man crew of the EF-111A will go down in history for destroying an Iraqi F-1 Mirage minutes after the war began on Jan. 17.Capt. Brent D. Brandon, 30, of Houston, the plane's electronic warfare officer, said the Iraqi fighter rolled in a mile or so behind the EF-111A near an airfield in western Iraq and fired a missile directly at its clear canopy.

"I actually saw the missile snaking," Brandon said Thursday.

The American jet immediately dove to within a few hundred feet of the ground and released chaff and decoy flares to try to divert the heat-seeking missile from its engines.

At the same time, the pilot, Capt. Jim Denton, accelerated toward the speed of sound and made a hard right banking turn, Brandon said.

The Iraqi fighter couldn't match the maneuver.

"And that's when we see the fireball behind us ... as the guy hit the ground," Brandon said.

"We got so low he couldn't hack it and smeared into the ground behind us," Brandon said. "It can't turn as tight. . . And they can't fly as well as we can at low altitude."

The Iraqi missile sped by behind the jet, but Brandon said he didn't know how close it came.

"I was breathing pretty hard at the time," he said with a laugh. "It was a real gee-whiz thing."

For Brandon and Denton, getting official recognition for the first enemy kill of the war would be an unprecedented mark of distinction for their plane.

It can detect and identify different enemy radars observing an attack force and use electronic countermeasures to make them ineffective. But unlike fighters, the EF-111A doesn't carry any anti-aircraft missiles to defend itself.

"We'd get the first kill instead of the F-15 bubbleheads," Brandon said, referring to the pilots of the bubble-canopied F-15C fighters, which are designed to intercept enemy aircraft.

"The bubbleheads think they are really glamorous, but the real work is done by the dirt movers (bombers)," he said.

Those early morning hours of Jan. 17 are etched in Brandon's memory.



- posted by H.V.O.M - Kerry Wayne Burgess 03:19 AM Pacific Time Seattle USA Monday 17 June 2013