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February 18, 2009
Aerial combat has always been more about engineering than flying
Cesar Rodriguez' office features an image of his F-15 Eagle - and a rather larger AIM-7 in the foreground - as these appeared in the head-up display of an Iraqi MiG pilot.
It was the final splash of light on his retinas, probably arriving too late for his brain to process before being vaporized with the rest of his corporeal frame. Pilots like Rodriguez don’t romanticize such exploits. These are strictly matter-of-fact men from a world where war is work, and life and death hang on a rapidly and precisely calibrated reality, an attitude captured by the flat caption mounted on the frame: This is an AIM-7 air-to-air missile shot from an F‑15 Eagle detonating on an Iraqi MiG‑29 Fulcrum during Operation Desert Storm.
This anecdote by way of making an argument for the F-22. Or of maintaining total dominance of the air, which might not be quite the same thing.
Posted by Ghost of a flea at February 18, 2009 09:04 AM
