I'm going to miss this Saturday as well.
It's my 16th wedding anniversary and If I'm flying I may not make it to 17yrs.
Although I could possibly make a Sunday night session with it being Labor Day weekend and having Monday off.

Yeah, if it was moved to another night because of the weekend, I would make it.

No more "Generation Kill" on Sundays, so no conflict

UTR, that sounds like it's going to be one hell of a birthday party! Starts Thursday and ends???

Regarding the "Charge of the Light Brigade" beginning of the campaign last Saturday...

I might not have been clear when discussing the option to restart and go after air superiority, given the death toll due to MiGs. I was suggesting that as the aim of the FIRST mission, not as a campaign goal for the foreseeable future and many missions. Given the incredible high rate of loss we suffered, that seems not only wise according to doctrine, but also wise regarding loadouts. Difficult to be nimble and deal with the quite capable MiG 29s and their R-77 stingers -- when most of us are loaded down with strike weapons and no one is flying air superiority or TARCAP missions.

Exposing our limited number of human pilots to air attack without cover and without air superiority seems like an invitation to exactly the kind of losses we suffered both times Saturday.

On the otherhand, even in the poor configuration we used, both times we knocked down double-digit numbers of MiGs. Imagine the resulting balance of forces if we accomplished the same rate of kills but preserved our own stinking hides, perhaps losing only one or two airframes.

The impact on campaign time consumed is only a matter of a couple hours, but we would gain a measure of security to then move ahead with strike operations in support of the ground war.

And this from one perfectly willing to take on the suicide Hail Mary Beograd area strikes, any time!

Oddly, it is turning into quite a shindig!

The original plan was dinner with a few couples at my favorite hibachi joint on Saturday night. Mai-Tais!!!!

My one buddy was supposed to be getting married on that night. He broke up with his girl but, they had a 1/3rd non-refundable deposit on the banquet room. When my wife called to invite him, they were discussing his situation and he came up with the idea of using that place to have the party. The deposit is non-refundable and paid for 1/3rd (60/180) of the guests so, we might as well get something out of it... buffet food, top shelf hooch...

It's a weird situation, I don't know if I am gonna do it but, it has the potential to be a pretty memorable night.

Any of the Striker's crowd from Jersey?

Shaping up to be memorable!
Striker's in California. Recluse is our Jersey guy. Neph too, who has flown with us on occasion.

I know what you mean Eugene so it's all good. I think we're going to do fine so I'm not going to worry about anything. I knew that the first few weeks of this campaign would be very difficult. Actually, compared to how crappy we did at the start of the Korea campaign, we're actually doing much better. We're actually stopping and thinking more about the best course of action to take.

I'm going to spend a lot of time this week going over the assets at each air base and how we can use them effectively. I plan on setting up a bunch of CAS, Interdiction and Sweep flights before we fly this coming Saturday. We'll have plenty of help out there this time I can assure you of that. We're going to pound the crap out of their ground units while we hit them with a wall of A2A.

I will be posting the list of all airbase assets before this coming Saturday so keep an eye out for it!


I totally understand. I'll be here for anyone that wants to fly this Saturday and if anyone wants to fly on Sunday, let me know by PM and we'll run the campaign for awhile then too!

I will be here Saturday and Eugen for the love of god Check your PM's

Given the threat level re PM's...checking!

Thanks UTR!! Keep up the good work.

Striker,

I hope you can fit me into a minor role for the Balkans 2005 Saturday Night Campaign.
I was lurking on TS last Saturday Night. Sounded like a fun bunch.

I live in CA. What's your ETD? I have you on my ICQ contact list. I'll drop you a note.