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Pilots hunt moving targets in Iraq
22/03/2003 16:39 - (SA)
Claudia Parsons
Aboard USS Abraham Lincoln - US Navy pilots say they are increasingly hunting moving targets in Iraq as the battlefield shifts slowly north towards Baghdad.
"There's only so many fixed targets you can hit out there. We've been doing this for three days," said Captain Scott "Notso" Swift, deputy commander of the air wing aboard the carrier USS Abraham Lincoln, on Saturday.
He added that strikes would more and more be directed at targets such as mobile weapons systems or troops.
Swift led a mission on Saturday in which he was diverted from his original target to a new one south of Baghdad, that was judged at the last minute to be more important.
Just four minutes before he was due to attack the original target, a bunker and headquarters building in a town, Swift was told to hold and fly to another target area.
The F/A-18 E Super Hornet that he flies was carrying satellite guided weapons which require precise coordinates to be programmed into the control system. This is normally done on deck before the plane is launched and double-checked during flight in an effort to avoid inflicting damage other than on the target.
"The challenge of the hop was the re-roll of the mission, the new frequencies, the new target area," Swift said.
Running low on fuel and with the new target coordinates not sent in time, Swift eventually turned back, dropping his bombs on the original targets on the way.
Flight operations continued all day from the carrier, with F/A-18 Hornets and F-14 Tomcats also flying strike missions backed up by radar-jamming EA-6B Prowlers, refuelling tankers and surveillance planes.
Dozens of planes had been launched by mid-afternoon and many more flights were scheduled on the daily flight plan.
For much of the past week the Lincoln and two other carriers in the Gulf have been flying what the pilots term "surge operations", spreading flights over the day to provide 24-hour pressure on Iraq from the carriers.
"It's a free for all," was one F-14 pilot's description of the busy skies over Iraq where US and British air force planes are operating alongside the Navy aircraft.
"I've never seen so many airplanes," said Lieutenant Commander Kenneth O'Donnell, a Prowler pilot who flew over Iraq on Friday night.
He said one of the main challenges was refuelling, with dozens of planes lining up to fill up from the tankers and several planes getting dangerously close to "bingo fuel" - the minimum needed to make a dash to the nearest airfield.
An F-14 pilot who goes by the call-sign Thumper said the volume of traffic meant the pilots were being given more freedom to use their initiative.
"The nice thing about it is they're allowing us to use what we know how to do. It actually means everything works more smoothly," he said.
- Reuters
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