493rd EFS “Grim Reapers,” F-15C
Operation ALLIED FORCE
MiG-29
24 March 1999
Call-sign: EDGE 61

Remember what I said about the F-117s and the big sky theory? This is exactly where this proved false—as always, Murphy’s is alive and well. Because we had spun once in the CAP prior to the commit, one of the F-117s was now in front of us, directly between us and the MiG during the engagement. He’s flying along, looking through his NVGs when, WHOOSH-WHOOSH, two missiles go right over the top of his canopy. He looks back and forward and realizes he is sandwiched, smack in the middle of an air-to-air engagement. I'm 20 degrees nose-low. and about a thousand feet away from the F-117, pointed right in front of him, when I fire my third missile. I find out by talking to him on the phone later that he sees all this as the missile motor illuminates my F-15, and the missile, followed closely by me, flying right across his nose. I almost hit him. He turns and follows the missile's path, and sees the MiG turning left towards him. also! Then the MiG explodes, and he watches it crash, too. Another F-117, about 35 miles away, sees the explosion. With his NVGs he clearly saw the MiG. the Eagle, and the F-117 all together. So much for the "Big Sky Theory," and of course, I have NO IDEA this just happened!

While all this is going on, my wingman and other flight members are only getting bits and pieces of my radio calls. My wingman knew something was going on, but not the whole picture. Because of this, when he sees the fireball "Man-O's” first thought is, "Dozer just got shot down!” I then transmit on the other radio "Let's come off north,” and he thinks, "Thank God it’s not Dozer!" He did have an ID by then, and was ready to shoot, but held off on his shot trying to figure out what was going on—outstanding patience for a young fighter pilot at night, on his first combat sortie! The other element didn’t realize what had happened until later (radio again). So that’s the end of the first engagement.

We had just reset in the CAP when we turn south and see an exact repeat of the first radar contact, except at 20 miles this guy turns into the beam. I can’t get an ID on him and AWACS is no help; not once did they call an ID on a real airborne contact that night in the north. I can’t blame them entirely, because first, NATO AWACS did not train as focused on tactical engagements as U.S. AWACS controllers did, and second, they were not given our U.S. Only Air Tasking Order (ATO), so they didn’t know who was where, at what altitude, times, etc. In addition, since they couldn't hear my ID and shot calls, either, there was no way for them to hold onto a contact and pass the ID back to us if we lost track or had to turn cold (again, a factor later on). At this point I end up right over the top of the contact-I'm at 30,000 feet, and he's at 10,000. I call my element out north, since I don't have an ID and no NVGs so we're not comfortable running on him. In my heart-of-hearts AND based on information I had in front of me, I KNEW this was a hostile, I knew where everyone else was (Eagles and CJs, and I knew he wasn't a F-117 or B-2), but without the technical and “legal" ID I couldn't shoot. After the shoot-down of the Black Hawks, the F-15 community was so conservative and worried about doing something wrong that we missed an opportunity to do something right. While being conservative is a good thing, we completely removed the ability of a pilot to use common sense and situational awareness. I had no doubt who this guy was, I had tracked him off his airfield. So while I did the right thing, what if the MiG had gotten a lucky contact and shot one of us? I fully believe I would have been questioned for not shooting. In retrospect, and I teach this all the time now, under the same circumstances—SHOOT! If there's ANY doubt you don't hit the pickle button, but if there isn’t, don't be a lawyer—do what's right!

Meanwhile, "Billy Mac" and his element are running on this guy, who is now northeast of Belgrade, turning back to the north. "BillyMac” runs on him for 30 miles with a lock, and he can't get an ID. One of the problems is while I was directly over the top of the MiG. “BillyMac” gets a “Friendly” indication from our merged plot. I didn’t think to call out that I was directly over the MiG, and he doesn't know to break lock and reacquire to clean up the picture — in those days we didn't have data link yet, so we didn’t have great S.A. on where other people were. They go in to 10 to 15 miles and abort out for lack of ID. Meanwhile “Dog” Kennel, an F-16CJ pilot (CLUB 73), has a solid radar lock on the MiG but no ID. He asks me seven times to confirm “Hostile” on the target, but once again, because of my radio he can’t hear me (I respond five times to his calls!). In the heat of the battle he forgets to then get an electronic ID, so he holds his shot and comes off north with “BillyMac’s” flight.

With no one able to get an ID we now have EIGHT fighters all running north away from ONE MiG-29 because we couldn’t ID him, nor use situational awareness to shoot him. While we are bravely running away to the north, my two-ship is in a position to start a turn back to the south to look at Belgrade again. Right then AWACS calls out “MiG-29 CAPs airborne near Belgrade,” so I’m thinking where did all these MiGs come from? We found out just before takeoff they had moved six MiGs well to the south (the ones “Rico” engaged), but what AWACS was calling was ground traffic. We flew south all the way to Belgrade looking for these MiGs that weren’t there (they became somewhat infamous for this—and worse were those in charge at the CAOC that several times attempted to commit us through SAM rings throughout the conflict to attack MiGs that weren’t there because they were ground tracks). Operation ALLIED FORCE took a big step (backwards!) towards centralized control AND execution.

A few minutes later the lone MiG-29 had turned south, so the other six U.S. fighters turn and start chasing this guy south. “Dog” calls me and recommends that I turn north. As soon as I do, I get an immediate radar contact with hostile ID at 16 miles, beak-to-beak. “Man-O” is with me and locked also. At exactly the same time that I call the bullseye position of the hostile contact at 10,000 feet, AWACS comes back with “Friendly there, 27,000 feet.” So I start a steep dive from 37,000 feet trying to get below 27, all the while screaming for the position of the other Eagle element and CLUB flight, the CJs. Of course they can't hear me because of the radio issue, so I get no answers from anyone!

By the time I'm diving through 19,000 feet the MiG is now five miles off my nose, and I know I'm looking at a guy WELL below 270. I call "Hostile, FOX-3” and shoot one AIM-120. I make a cardinal mistake here, and it's something I always hammer guys on doing —take two shots! They are called “miss”iles, not “hit"tiles. So I hold the second shot, since I only have one 120 left and an old AIM-7. I should have cranked, which would have given me room to complete the intercept and be in a position to shoot again (another mistake), but I don't, so I'm in a right turn looking straight down when near time-out I see a small “pop." This could have been a proximity detonation of the missile, or it could have been the missile hitting the ground. Either way, it didn't down the MiG and there's no fireball, so my “one” shot didn't do the job. Now I'm too close to keep him on the radar, so he gimbals off my radar low; I’m looking all the way down, and he’s got to be right under me, and I'm thinking this isn’t a very good situation. So I've got to spin to get spacing, and hope he ends up in front of me again. I call for a 360 turn, or “spin,” and around I go. I say “I” go because of the radio again, as two doesn’t hear the call.

"Man-O” has been locked to this guy the whole time, but he doesn't hear my hostile call, my shot, nor the spin call; he also doesn’t have his own ID, so he’s not sure who this contact is. While I'm in my 360 turn I see the air-to-air TACAN range getting bigger, so I ask him for his heading in the other radio, and he says “south.” I direct him to come north and spin to get back in formation, and being a good wingman, he drops the contact and turns north. Had I known he was tracking the same contact, and was in a position to kill this guy, I would have shouted, “Shoot him. he’s hostile!” In fact, when we listened to his tape later there was broken but audible radio calls from "Man-O” about being locked to something—had I been able to process that and figure out what was happening, we might have been able to get this MiG.

Once I roll out southbound and “Man-O” is back behind me, we get more locks on a contact that we “KNOW” is the same guy; he's heading south towards Belgrade, same place we left him, same airspeed and altitude, but I can’t get an ID, and AWACS keeps saying “friendly there,” so I can't shoot. No kidding, this is the only radar contact in the area; everyone else we can see with radar and IFF is behind us (ie, it was only stealth aircraft in front of us and the MiG). He starts to slow and descend, so I secretly hope he has battle damage and is going to crash, but he was probably on approach to his field. We are coming up on the SAM threat rings around Belgrade, and I don’t want to go from hero to zero by getting us shot down, so I drop the contact and call us out north. We missed killing this guy not once, but twice, for a variety of reasons. My radio problems, ID issues, not shooting two missiles, AWACS not hearing the hostile calls, and the reasons mentioned before all compounded in the “fog of war" to cost us this opportunity. And many of the issues were solvable at the time, had I just been able to process the information and act upon it.

However, at this point we just return to our CAP; the B-2s are nearly overhead based on timing, and it’s time to egress and Return To Base (RTB). All said and done, it was still a pretty cool start for Eagle drivers on the first night of a war!

The Yugoslavian press later reported that the first MiG-29 to launch from Batajnica Air Base was Maj Nebojsa Nikolic in MiG-29 18111, followed shortly by Maj Ljuhisa Kulacin. Nikolic was reported to have been shot down almost immediately, while Kulacin claimed to have evaded three missiles fired at him. Since Batajnica AB was under attack by NATO forces, he chose to land at Belgrade International Airport. Both pilots reported that the radars and SPO-15 radar detectors were inoperative on their aircraft. These reports match amazingly close to the NATO claims.

Capt (now-Lt Col) Shower went back to the F-15C Fighter Weapons School, this time as an instructor. Following this tour, he was selected in the initial cadre of F-22 Raptor pilots for the initial operational test and evaluation, and currently is stationed at Elmendorf AFB Alaska, commanding an operational F-22 Raptor squadron.