Magnum!

     Today’s exercise was a simulated Destruction of Enemy Air Defense mission in the good ‘ol DMT (Distributed Mission Trainer, the current fancy name for "simulator").  Huck, Beast, Nash, and I went up against a plethora of SAMs, ZSU-23-4s, AAA, and MiGs.  It was a pretty good ‘Piccolo Drill’ workout with HOTAS, every couple seconds it seemed like I was switching between air-to-air and air-to-ground mode.  That, and I seemed to be the IADS’ designated pincushion, as every simulated SAM launch seemed to be aimed at me.  Thank goodness it was just older SAMs! You don’t even have to punch your tanks off for them most of the time.  The really fun thing is when the bad guys shoot a SAM at you and your wingman’s HARM hits their radar first, then the SAM just falls out of the sky.  It’s even more fun to watch the closer the missile managed to get to your jet!