AAR 26May BMS FALCON STRIKE ON THE WONDOMAL RADAR

[Laser]

First a big thanks goes out to those folks who were able to attend this weeks Falcon BMS event. Given the holiday weekend I really didn't expect many folks, but we were still able to fill 7 slots for our strike on Wondomal Radar Station.

Laser led the strike element (Laser, Wyn, Spearhead) on a low level attack, while I led the escort element (Boomer, Piglet, Doc, Sobe). The skies were full of contacts keeping AWACS busy with sorting duties, although only a few were bandits brave enough to get airborne. As we crossed the FLOT, Laser took his element down to the deck for their run-in, and I turned my element nose hot on a contact to the west, while I directed Doc to take his element and sanitize the rest of the area behind us.

The contact to the west turned out to be an AN-24 cargo plane, so I passed off the target to Piglet to monitor and close with. As Piglet closed with his target, then launched a pair of AIM-120's, I turned to regroup the flight. Laser called off target and egressing south so I took one more look around and found a pair of Mig-23's coming in from the north. I turned to engage and fired a single AIM-120 at Rmax, at the same time another flight on a sweep fired a volley at the pair. Piglet got a confirmed kill, while my guy slipped away, only to catch the hot end of the other flights attack.
Recon confirmed the TV Station at Wondomal was taken out but the radar may still be operational, as only Laser was able to pickle.

The return flight was uneventful, except,,, we had a NORDO situation that caused the death of one of our pilots, and the loss of two airframes. The following satellite imagery shows that the flight was returning for an overhead break recovery, but the number 4 aircraft turned the base leg short, cutting off number 3, who didn't have a visual due to having the nose high in landing configuration until he was on the runway, at which time it was too late and he inadvertently rammed number 4.