"SA-2 Active, western Kuwait!" I thought, "No kiddi

[MKopack]

"We screamed down the chute, aiming for a SCUD missile storage area. There were missiles going everywhere. They were shooting SAM's with and without radar guidance. The adrenaline was really pumping! I pickled, and came off with nine G's! My 500 knots was converted to 400 knots and my RHAW lit up with a SA-2 at my dead six. I heard AWACS call, "SA-2 Active, western Kuwait!" I thought, "No kidding, he's on me!" I punched chaff, jinked right…and it went away…came back to egress heading…he's on me again…no kidding! My airspeed is down to 350 knots and I'm thinking, "This is it, he's got me!"

As you get slower the tracking solution is easier for the missile and I really had a solid spike, right at my dead six. I've got twenty miles to go to the border, but the SA-2 is closing at supersonic speed and I am convinced that the war is over for me. It was time to punch the tanks off. There is a little plastic cover over the jettison button so that you don't accidentally punch them off. The crew chief had glazed it over with white glue to make it look pretty. I bruised my finger, but the adrenaline rush got that button punched. The tanks came off the airplane, it was clean, and I started to accelerate. Right then, I heard a Weasel guy call "Magnum two." The SA-2 is gone…just like that, and I am outta there!"

While we all love seeing military aircraft put through their paces at airshows, it pales in compairson to what they do operationally. I've just posted an interview, courtesy of Lou Drendel, with one of the pilots in my squadron during Desert Storm, the 614th TFS from Torrejon AB - then Capt. (now BGen) Phil 'Ruhldog' Ruhlman, at the Lucky Devils in the Gulf War website.

3.7 million pounds of ordanance, 1303 sorties, 42 days. The 'Forgotten 1000'. Visit the Lucky Devils in the Gulf War at: http://www.lucky-devils.net

Along with the the interview, we've got over 250 personal photos of our aircraft, people and places, a photo gallery of official USAF photos, articles, stories, and an opportunity to 'ride along', through HUD camera video, on the "Package Q" mission - the first daylight on downtown Baghdad, one of the most heavily defended targets ever attacked from the air.

I invite you to take a look and hope you enjoy my tribute to the people that support, maintain, and fly the aircraft that we love to see.

...and you won't even have to sleep in a tent...

Mike Kopack

ex-Lucky Devil Viper Maintainer

[jmel]

Mike, your website is just fantastic. I still haven't read everything there.

When I do the Viper Story, Part III, I'll be in touch with you to do your unit justice.

Jake

[MKopack]

Mike, your website is just fantastic. I still haven't read everything there.

When I do the Viper Story, Part III, I'll be in touch with you to do your unit justice.

Jake

Thanks Jake (and everyone else that has written and visited!) I don't even think that I have read everything on the site! It's amazing that whenever someone from Doha sends me a photo or "I Remember's" from the Gulf, it's almost like being there again (...of course without being 130+ degrees and eating MRE's...)

How could you forget some of these Lucky Devil memories?

- Staying in a nice hotel for a couple nights followed by staying in the worst conditions (most expeditionary we call it today) we had ever encountered. NCOs who led by example, killing rats with a baseball bat so their Airmen could get some sleep in a condemned Qatari barracks -- and we kept flying EVERY day.

- Sixteen crew chiefs who stood in the open on the Doha ramp, the morning of 17 January 1991, in the middle of an "Alarm Red," who refused to don their chem gear or move until "their" jets and pilots taxied; who looked straight north at a very likely Scud missile pointed directly at them -- I will never, never forget them and wish I could shake every hand and hug every neck right now.

- Conan trying to take that "darn cat" home to Torrejon in his F-16C, and he was the "safety" officer.

- Taking off my gas mask after a SCUD warning and walking over to KFC for chicken.

- I remember stepping down to the ramp and walking toward the hanger. I think I made it about 10 - 15 feet and noticed that I was dripping. That was the beginning of the longest, hottest summer I ever lived through. All I could think of was that everyone told me Korea, Florida and the Philippines were hot and humid. None of those have anything on Doha, Qatar.

-The night my aircraft 87-0257 went down with "Tico" in it. I still think about that almost everyday! It sucked that I lost it with over 30 code one's in a row. I am sure that if that SAM wouldn't have got it, she would have landed that way again.

- Being posted at the pilots' barracks the day 16 went out and only 14 came back.

- I remember going downtown to eat and the menu was in Arabic. The only thing I recognized was fried chicken so I ordered it. They brought me an entire whole chicken...innards and all...fried!!

- One evening when the Emiri Air Force came over to "borrow" a MK-82 to see if it would fit on the shackles one of their jets, then the next thing we know CENTAF orders a transfer of an allocation of MK 82s to them -- then the pride on their faces when they took to the skies armed to the teeth with our bombs to drop on the Iraqi Army.

Mike

[MKopack]

Mike I just spent the last couple of hours reading of your experiance in the Gulf War, great to hear a prespective of the war from the maintenance troops level. I think your site is great and look forward to sepdning more time reading all the info on it.

Thanks Will - I need to sit my butt down and write some more... I've still got pages and pages of notes of 'stuff' to write up for 'The Call'.

Mike

[Julien (UK)]

Thats a great website you have and a testimony to those involved.

I have booked marked it and will read it properly over time.

You are doing a great service.

Julien