With the links showing a different aspect to this story, it should, at the very least, be completely brought into the open. If he has served well for the remainder of the time and there were questionable orders when he shot down the other plane, it certainly merits an in depth consideration.

Like I Said, you can blame the Pilot for that, he followed the rules of back then, and was told he was clear to fire.

My thoughts on the subject too. If they were going to refuse him further promotions or discharge him they should have done it at the time of the incident.


Wheels

He was on his way to being an enemy ace.

Along with the rest of Dorsey's career.

I remembered there being some somewhat mitigating circumstances, but as pilot in command of his aircraft, I think he should have made extra effort to make sure he was getting an order to fire a live weapon at a friendly aircraft. He knew the situation was part of an exercise, and that it might not be clear or that others may not have known he had live weapons, so I think he didn't use his best judgement there, and nearly killed two people and cost the taxpayers a lot of money as a result. I think I read somewhere that everyone else in the exercise knew they weren't asking him to actually shoot down another aircraft, so he seemed to be the only one who wasn't clear.

Limiting his promotions now is a little gray, since he's been in so long since that incident, but as someone else here pointed out, the Navy didn't trust him to fly after that, so I am not sure I'd want him to have even more responsibilities.

Start off with it was an exercise. There was no enemy threat. The aircraft type was US.

To live fire during an exercise is way out of bounds of anything approaching normalcy.

When confronted with conflicting and uncertain information, it was his responsibility to clarify. On command frequency ask and confirm that this was to be a live fire real world shoot. He should have transmitted the question for clarification. It is expected. And more so from officers.

Hotshot on the trigger.

Of course he went a different route from there where his lack of the right stuff could be buried. But to confirm him now would be bad for military discipline and respect. He will now never command the trust and respect necessary for the rank. Not now that this has resurfaced.

But that is just an old dinosaurs opinion.

He knew it was an exercise... I mean he's also told to "shoot" when they do practice A-A or A-G combat, right? But he doesn't fire his actual missiles or release his actual bombs, does he?

I think he was saying the exact phrase given to him always meant fire a live weapon, so he took it as such, and that normally in exercises they would not use that phrase.

I can't say one way or the other, but when you're carrying live weapons in what you know is an exercise, I think it's your responsibility to make sure you know what needs to be done before firing what you know is a live weapon at a friendly aircraft.

Does he get to log the kill? Did his Tomcat have an RF-4 kill marking on its side? Would you want one or any credit for that?

Nope.

v6,
boNes

Interesting story to say the least. I'm curious how this will develop.



Unlikely...very unlikely. Although it would be different if it had been an Iranian F-4, but then this situation wouldn't have appeared in the first place. Feel free to ask some Libyan pilots who flew Su-22s or MiG-23s in the 80s and tried to get too close to US Naval Forces...

From what I understand, the RF-4C's pilot had a permanent callsign change to "Squidbait". I'm not kidding.

Had it been any other officer that didn't have the Annapolis Protection Society looking after him, he'd have been cashiered.

If this non-hacker's daddy hadn't been skipper of America and on the short list for Admiral, his butt would have been bounced in 1987. His dad had a serious rabbi if he ended up as deputy CNO, and daddy's rabbi probably saved sonny boy's career. A lot of much better sailors and soldiers have been cashiered with bad conduct discharges for a helluvalot less. Admiral material? I think not. Some things you can't forgive. If this had been a *mistake*, a blue-on-blue in the heat of battle after mistaking a friendly for the enemy, that's one thing. But bird-dogging an RF-4C off the KC-135 and then spanking it with a Sidewinder, knowing what he was shooting at?

If you only knew. Go to http://www.militarycorruption and look at the articles. Seems Army issues are individual, but Navy, man that is a messed up organization.

Look at how many leaders they've had to fire last year, it's crazy.

Plus you have Holly Graf being protected:

http://www.militarycorruption.com/hollygraf13.htm

Thats part of why I made the comment. How many ships have had collisions, run aground, etc due to poor leadership in the past decade? Granted of course the Army, USMC, USAF don't tend to command ships, so their screw ups may be a little less obvious...

Check out this account, allegedly from the HUD video of Dorsey's F-14.

2500 feet out, so close the break-X lit up the HUD and so close he could see the "ZB" tail code on the RF-4C. When Sidewinder #1 malfunctioned he armed a second one and fired it. Wow. That's arguably a criminal state of mind.

http://www.fighterpilotuniversity.com/alumni-house/alumni-news/usn-downs-usaf/

Has anyone gotten a hold of the actual report of the incident? That might be interesting reading.

Cat, what account ?

Fixed it. Silly me, forgetting the link

Damn, my son is a Naval Aviator.

This crap is freakin scary! If I believe what I read, this guy shoud be greeting me at WalMart while he is delivering the broken carts, NOT being considered for Admiral.

edit: and he will be retired with O-6 pay and benefits....if it is true he should be reducd to E-1 and confined, then given a BCD.