Okay, so there were some notable things in the preflight and admin portions of the flight, but I'll limit my comments to the tactical portion of the flight, specifically the wedge/bombs deliveries. Also, if we were on TS in a debriefing room, before each smack in the head with my pointer, I'd give you a compliment to soften the blow. Since I'm just banging away on the keyboard, however, I'll skip the pleasantries and give it to you straight. :POriginally Posted by ZeroMass
Hey Noodle, Snooze and I decided to practice the Wedge/Bombs attack yesterday. I think in the end we did pretty good for our first try, but if you don't mind, could you give us some feedback?. Only if you have the time!
Tacview is attached and video from my view (2) is here: http://www.twitch.tv/zero_mass/b/609344767 (available for two weeks.
First and foremost, overall, I'd say you guys demonstrated that with just a little bit of range time, you can effectively employ this tactic to ensure flight path deconfliction, generate offset attack headings while maintaining visual lookout, achieve tactical surprise, and egress the target while quickly regaining tactical formation and mutual support. That's a win as far as I'm concerned.
However...
It appears as though FL never actually flew the pattern he passed in the Fighter-to-Fighter (Wedge/Bombs, In North, Off East). Instead, the base leg of each run seemed to be either a continuous arcing turn, or a check turn to something other than a 90 degree base position. The result was that most of FL's attacks were well off the intended attack heading (180).
An essential element to getting the geometry correct is for lead to adjust his crosswind and base legs of the box pattern to arrive at the proper base/roll-in position. The arcing base legs make it very difficult for the WM to fly Wedge formation; since he's on the outside of the turn, he's inevitably going to fall behind and stagnate near FL's six o'clock. With the WM so far aft, it's difficult for him to generate sufficient Heading Crossing Angle when he checks to FL's roll-in point. It looks like the attacks at 00:56, 1:06 and 1:14 of the ACMI file had pretty good geometry.
Also, for the most part, the SEM and egress worked pretty well, except that those cross-turns were cringe-worthy. The WM should ALWAYS ALWAYS ALWAYS keep lead in sight so he can deconflict flightpaths per the contract. The WM went belly-up to the FL and flew an awesome lead-turn that works great for BFM, but not for tactical formation. The WM should fly outside and above FL's flightpath.
Other than that, it's a good effort, and not bad at all for a first attempt.
So to recap, FL should fly a straight path on a 270 heading to his roll-in point. WM then checks to FL's roll-in point, and drives to his own roll-in point. WM rolls-in when he sees FL SEM, or when FL calls "OFF". After that, you seem to have it figured out.
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