08 November 2024 - OAG CSAR - After Action
- Thread starter Roman
- Start date
For context: I flew as Sandy 1-4 last night off Muldoon's wing. Our tasking was Close or Detached Rescort for Jolly. I'll provide thoughts/feedback in chronological order.
Alibis:
I'm most definitely not current on anything A-10 , especially anything tactical at this point. SADL in my jet was bent, no one showed as being in my Group despite cycling JTRS and network settings. Broadcasted SPIs also were displaying oddly last night for me. Sometimes they were fine, other times they'd be way off and or rubber banding.
1. Brief/Step:
I felt underprepared stepping to the brief. Years ago I did some CSAR in a squad that was much less organized than any of the groups represented here last night. So my CSAR "knowledge" is suspect at best. I was not really clear what, as Sandy's 2nd element, we were supposed to be doing once in the AO and detached from 1&2. Some academics, training and practice executing the various Sandy roles would be a great addition in the future to remedy this.
More time to brief as a package and taking advantage of a few extra minutes to brief as flights (maybe Jolly & Sandy) would have been beneficial as well. 15min is a big ask to cover a 41 slide deck.
2. Startup/Taxi/Takeoff.
We had some issues with a few members of Sandy loading into the server. Not all of the WPs were loaded into the WP database. IDing, building and inputting these into the CDU took an extra few minutes. I think we all seen the "ENGINE START CYCLE" light on the caution panel last night. I did not realize it at first and this delayed me starting my #2 engine. I think someone else had a hung start on #2 as well. These delays added up and resulted in us launching late. Maybe a little more buffer here would not be a horrible thing?
I lined up off 3 as standard but slid up even with or maybe even ahead of him with 90% set. Not sure why that happened. Maybe because of the noticeable downhill grade on the runway but why did 3 not slide too then? There was the HUD clock freezing too.
3. Ingress
No input
4. Mission Execution
We discussed the comms problem on Watcher last night. I believe some members of Sandy had the preset punched in, I had the freq punched in my FWD radio. None of us had good comms with Jolly on Watcher. We worked the rescue on the already very busy Boxcar from that point onward. It occurred to me this morning we could have tried to pull Jolly over to our intraflight on 36.500 and if we could talk to him there us A-10s could have used Watcher for our intraflight. This would have afforded us that lost CSAR Discrete, Intraflight and Package.
At FENCE In I realized I had nothing bound to kill my external lights. This led to me going into controls for an extended period and breaking out of formation. Once that was sorted 3 and I detached and went about our RESCORT mission. Initially we tried to have a look for Jolly but I had 0 bandwidth for the TGP trying to fly off 3 with the lighting conditions as they were and fenced in. At one point Jolly called Provo and I requested direct to Provo and Lower from 3 so that I could go try and pick up Jolly. I realize that 3 probably had not fucking clue what my intentions were and I more or less abandoned him to go chase after Jolly. Definitely not what I should have done... At some point 3 came down and joined me. I picked up 2 black dots 5mi or so up ahead and requested a flare from Jolly to PID him, which he put out immediately. At that point I flew direct to him and started roaming up and down his route to Dude. About this time Sandy 1-1 picked Jolly up in the pod and was broadcasting his SPI which was invaluable for me down low. I lost Jolly about every time I circled him but that SPI locator line would put me right back on him every time when it was working properly. In hindsight, requesting a sparkle would have been super handy at various times as well!
Again, some advisory calls from Jolly regarding deployment of flares and changes in external lighting would have been welcome. Also, I'm not sure when we were to terminate our RESCORT, but I stayed down with Jolly until I bingo'd out and had to RTB. I assume that once you guys turned on your navs and strobes y'all were good? IDK. On the subject of calls, mine were shit. I think I tried calling for Jolly as "Sandy, Jolly" all night. Also numerous times I said "Sandy 4" when "Sandy 1-4" would have been appropriate.
Lastly, towards the end we were looking at stuff well away from and out of Jollys flight path. Anything over near that town would have been no factor to Jolly. If it were, we could have leaned Jolly away from it vs. sending assets into a potential MEZ to sanitize something we really did not need to and risking aircraft/pilots
5. RTB/Recovery
I called for RTB a little late in the game and this caused me to land with something like 1k left in the tanks. 3 declared an emergency fuel state for me and we proceed direct for the field. I don't think we got a push to RAPCON until we were very close to the field. At one point I think we were abeam the field and still on RAPCON. I was getting pretty low on fuel and antsy for some clearance when we got pushed to Tower and told to join the right base for 03. Approach was fine but I had 0 illumination from my landing light. I landed off the RADALT and TVV. Taxi light offered virtually no illum as well and I nearly taxied into the grass a few times.
6. Parting Shots
Again, I was generally behind the jet last night. From trying to jam WPs into a flight plan to taxiing back to parking. Definitely on the struggle bus. I felt as though there was an inherent interoperability with the 303 bros, which is not too surprising considering a common lineage. I know there are some differences in how we all do things but I feel as though they melded right into our op and I felt at home as their #4.
I'm not really sure where exactly as #4 I needed to be last night. I feel like I needed to be down with the choppers in the weeds. With that assumed, I question how effective I would have been having to engage any threats to the choppers, 3 or myself, especially at night. We were loaded 4x G54s, 1x 65D, 1x65L, AGRs, CM and 9Ms. I don't think the G54s would really be handy for us because we'd have to extend out miles from the target, climb to 10k and run in for the attack. The AGRs and 65D require some pod work to get the most out of them which is really hard low and super hard low and at night. My plan, should I have to react to a threat, was to gun the fuck out of it and CCIP ballistic rockets into it or spin the choppers and pass off the threat to 1 and 2 who were up in the teens. The AGRs and 65L could have been buddy lased by 1 or 2 though and that offers some usefulness. I'd personally have rather drug up some Mk82AIRs with a HD and LD profile and maybe some LUUs. Thoughts?
Last night was certainly far from my best performance but I had a lot of fun and I will be excited for future joint-ops. In the future! I'd welcome the opportunity to train to this before future ops as I felt like I went straight to the run portion to the crawl/walk/run approach and I think my personal performance reflects that. Regardless, thank you to Papa Flare, Melt-Down and Muldoon for letting me fly with you guys! I look forward for the opportunity to do so again in the future!!!
Alibis:
I'm most definitely not current on anything A-10 , especially anything tactical at this point. SADL in my jet was bent, no one showed as being in my Group despite cycling JTRS and network settings. Broadcasted SPIs also were displaying oddly last night for me. Sometimes they were fine, other times they'd be way off and or rubber banding.
1. Brief/Step:
I felt underprepared stepping to the brief. Years ago I did some CSAR in a squad that was much less organized than any of the groups represented here last night. So my CSAR "knowledge" is suspect at best. I was not really clear what, as Sandy's 2nd element, we were supposed to be doing once in the AO and detached from 1&2. Some academics, training and practice executing the various Sandy roles would be a great addition in the future to remedy this.
More time to brief as a package and taking advantage of a few extra minutes to brief as flights (maybe Jolly & Sandy) would have been beneficial as well. 15min is a big ask to cover a 41 slide deck.
2. Startup/Taxi/Takeoff.
We had some issues with a few members of Sandy loading into the server. Not all of the WPs were loaded into the WP database. IDing, building and inputting these into the CDU took an extra few minutes. I think we all seen the "ENGINE START CYCLE" light on the caution panel last night. I did not realize it at first and this delayed me starting my #2 engine. I think someone else had a hung start on #2 as well. These delays added up and resulted in us launching late. Maybe a little more buffer here would not be a horrible thing?
I lined up off 3 as standard but slid up even with or maybe even ahead of him with 90% set. Not sure why that happened. Maybe because of the noticeable downhill grade on the runway but why did 3 not slide too then? There was the HUD clock freezing too.
3. Ingress
No input
4. Mission Execution
We discussed the comms problem on Watcher last night. I believe some members of Sandy had the preset punched in, I had the freq punched in my FWD radio. None of us had good comms with Jolly on Watcher. We worked the rescue on the already very busy Boxcar from that point onward. It occurred to me this morning we could have tried to pull Jolly over to our intraflight on 36.500 and if we could talk to him there us A-10s could have used Watcher for our intraflight. This would have afforded us that lost CSAR Discrete, Intraflight and Package.
At FENCE In I realized I had nothing bound to kill my external lights. This led to me going into controls for an extended period and breaking out of formation. Once that was sorted 3 and I detached and went about our RESCORT mission. Initially we tried to have a look for Jolly but I had 0 bandwidth for the TGP trying to fly off 3 with the lighting conditions as they were and fenced in. At one point Jolly called Provo and I requested direct to Provo and Lower from 3 so that I could go try and pick up Jolly. I realize that 3 probably had not fucking clue what my intentions were and I more or less abandoned him to go chase after Jolly. Definitely not what I should have done... At some point 3 came down and joined me. I picked up 2 black dots 5mi or so up ahead and requested a flare from Jolly to PID him, which he put out immediately. At that point I flew direct to him and started roaming up and down his route to Dude. About this time Sandy 1-1 picked Jolly up in the pod and was broadcasting his SPI which was invaluable for me down low. I lost Jolly about every time I circled him but that SPI locator line would put me right back on him every time when it was working properly. In hindsight, requesting a sparkle would have been super handy at various times as well!
Again, some advisory calls from Jolly regarding deployment of flares and changes in external lighting would have been welcome. Also, I'm not sure when we were to terminate our RESCORT, but I stayed down with Jolly until I bingo'd out and had to RTB. I assume that once you guys turned on your navs and strobes y'all were good? IDK. On the subject of calls, mine were shit. I think I tried calling for Jolly as "Sandy, Jolly" all night. Also numerous times I said "Sandy 4" when "Sandy 1-4" would have been appropriate.
Lastly, towards the end we were looking at stuff well away from and out of Jollys flight path. Anything over near that town would have been no factor to Jolly. If it were, we could have leaned Jolly away from it vs. sending assets into a potential MEZ to sanitize something we really did not need to and risking aircraft/pilots
5. RTB/Recovery
I called for RTB a little late in the game and this caused me to land with something like 1k left in the tanks. 3 declared an emergency fuel state for me and we proceed direct for the field. I don't think we got a push to RAPCON until we were very close to the field. At one point I think we were abeam the field and still on RAPCON. I was getting pretty low on fuel and antsy for some clearance when we got pushed to Tower and told to join the right base for 03. Approach was fine but I had 0 illumination from my landing light. I landed off the RADALT and TVV. Taxi light offered virtually no illum as well and I nearly taxied into the grass a few times.
6. Parting Shots
Again, I was generally behind the jet last night. From trying to jam WPs into a flight plan to taxiing back to parking. Definitely on the struggle bus. I felt as though there was an inherent interoperability with the 303 bros, which is not too surprising considering a common lineage. I know there are some differences in how we all do things but I feel as though they melded right into our op and I felt at home as their #4.
I'm not really sure where exactly as #4 I needed to be last night. I feel like I needed to be down with the choppers in the weeds. With that assumed, I question how effective I would have been having to engage any threats to the choppers, 3 or myself, especially at night. We were loaded 4x G54s, 1x 65D, 1x65L, AGRs, CM and 9Ms. I don't think the G54s would really be handy for us because we'd have to extend out miles from the target, climb to 10k and run in for the attack. The AGRs and 65D require some pod work to get the most out of them which is really hard low and super hard low and at night. My plan, should I have to react to a threat, was to gun the fuck out of it and CCIP ballistic rockets into it or spin the choppers and pass off the threat to 1 and 2 who were up in the teens. The AGRs and 65L could have been buddy lased by 1 or 2 though and that offers some usefulness. I'd personally have rather drug up some Mk82AIRs with a HD and LD profile and maybe some LUUs. Thoughts?
Last night was certainly far from my best performance but I had a lot of fun and I will be excited for future joint-ops. In the future! I'd welcome the opportunity to train to this before future ops as I felt like I went straight to the run portion to the crawl/walk/run approach and I think my personal performance reflects that. Regardless, thank you to Papa Flare, Melt-Down and Muldoon for letting me fly with you guys! I look forward for the opportunity to do so again in the future!!!