Early in the dark hours of December 10th, 2011, a RC-135V/W "Rivet Joint" reconnaissance aircraft was intercepted by DPRK fighters in international airspace and inclement weather, and a mid-air collision occurred. The Rivet Joint executed an emergency landing on the peninsula of Panggumi-ni and the aircrew has been captured. The DPRK is now in the process of dismantling and transporting classified ELINT equipment that they were able to salvage from the wreckage to a more secure facility. PACAF has authorized an emergency SAR and Strike package to avoid a repeat of the embarrassment suffered during the Hainan Island incident in 2001 with the goal of rescuing the aircrew and destroying the convoys and facilities involved in salvaging the ELINT equipment.

This is a scalable TE with slots for up to 32 interested pilots scheduled for Saturday, December 10th @ 2000z utilizing BMS Falcon 4.32. To reserve your seat you must sign up in the Operation RIVET BEND forums. Please include the VFW you are a part of (if any) so we can group VFW's together if possible. We hope to see you there!

13 seats left. If you want to fly this TE you MUST sign up on Fightersims. We've run two 24-person TE's for F4:AF last year and they were a huge hit.

Come join the fun!

Mission Complete. 37 pilots and 1 Human AWACS (Me) finished an hour and a half TE mission over at Fightersims. There were pilots from at least 4 VFW's and a few unaffiliated in attendance. Wizard is expecting to put these on every 4-6 weeks or so. Everyone is welcome from brand new guys to grizzled vets. I had a great time, and it seems like everyone else had a good time also. Be sure to reserve your seat the next time one of these comes up. Great learning experience and tons of fun.

This was an awesome gorilla package - SEAD, TARCAP and Deep Strikes all coordinated - of course a plan holds together until contact, but with the human AWACS and coordination among the packages, the overall mission was successful and a heck of a lot of fun. Real sense of satisfaction after flying this one.
Thanks Wizard and JayC for the planning and Maizpan for the AWACS role.

Duke
72nd VFW