Speaking of Pk…this was not VF-32 but another NAS Oceana squadron.
A Tomcat is participating in a exercise in the MED. They are a single out on CAP or something. They get vectored town Orange Air (bad guys) RF-4 Phantom that, per the exercise schedule…that only us intel bubbs seem to actually read…is to make a photo recce run over the battle group.
The F-14 pulls up the the RF-4 while it is tanking from an Illinois (please don’t pronounce the “s”) Air National Guard KC-135. The Phantom finishes and rolls out towards the career. The Tomcat falls into trail. The RIO locks it up and then switches to TCS to view the wonderful jet (this ends up being contributing factor*).
A bored air controller on the carrier, picks up the Orange Air Bogey and at the proper scripted distance, yawns, keys his mic and transmits to the F-14 that he is “RED and FREE” on the contact.
The F-14 driver, selects Master Arm ON, switches to Winder and pulls the trigger…nothing happens…he says to his RIO, who has been wondering why it is taking him so long to call the shot, “It didn’t go”.
His perplexed RIO (senior to the pilot), starts to key his mic to announce “FOX-2, Bandit Splashed, returning to CAP station”, when he sees a bright glow outside the canopy.
Not deterred by the AIM-9M that failed to come off the rail, and thus factoring into the overall AIM-9M Pk calculations (see,I told you this was Pk related), our intrepid pilot switched to the next station and again pulled the trigger.
This time the Sidewinder flew true, right up RF-4s hot exhaust, and detonated as designed. Inside the RF-4 the USAF aircrew experienced an un-commanded, uncontrollable roll to the right about the same time the Fire and Master Warning panels lit up like a Christmas tree…it was time leave their beloved Phantom and they did so expeditiously. So again another statistic for the Pk formula crunchers.
The Pk for this mission turned to be .66 1 x Fail, 1 x Hit, and 1 x Naval Aviation career down in flames.
This was later updated to .33 when our undaunted pilot made Admiral in the Reserves! …so not a kill to his overall career.
@Navynuke99 and I couldn’t make up these things if we tried…brings new meaning to the acronym WTF.
BTW, the pilot’s callsign before he bagged the RF-4 was “Smoke”…go figure
- Contributing Factor: In normal radar mode, the RIO gets an indication of Master Arm ON on the screen and would have likely (hopefully) stopped events. However, in TCS there is no such indication, thus the RIO, looking at the pretty Phantom, never saw the pilot go to Master Arm ON.