An intriguing account of an encounter between Royal Navy Sea Harriers, F5Es, and F15s.

© Andrew Brooks. Courtesy Andrew Brooks Collection

Myself, Morts and a legendary character called Dave Braithwaite, flew our shiny new jets to the Aggressor base to do battle. There we were warmly welcomed by the Aggressors and three days of intensive fighter combat training began. USAF Aggressor Squadrons consist of specially selected USAF fighter pilots and were formed specifically to give the best possible fighter combat training to USAF squadrons throughout the world, and to NATO squadrons in Europe. They are highly regarded for their professionalism and expertise. They avow no bullshit in their post-flight debriefs and their simple aim is to improve the fighting capability of the squadrons that they work with.

On the first day, the two teams briefed each other about their own aircraft characteristics (the Aggressors flew the F5E) and then got airborne for 1-v-1 fighter combat. The F5E is even smaller than the SHAR, turns much better and can accelerate to supersonic speed extremely quickly in a nose low situation. Its armament is the same as that of the SHAR. Sidewinder missiles and guns. The results of the first three 1-v-1 combat sessions were: I had four kills and none against; Morts had three kills and one against; Dave scored two against two. The Aggressor pilots were astonished. Later that day, One of their staff pilots approached Mortimer. "Jesus Christ. Morts! Who are you guys? What's going on? Have you been sent here to evaluate us?"

Morts assured him that that was not the case. The Aggressors were intrigued that a fresh-from-formation squadron team could do so well against them. and so we agreed to try some special combat evaluation sorties with them to give them a better chance of understanding the SHAR. "What I suggest we do," I briefed, "is set up each combat with your F5s in a position of clear advantage over us. That is to say you can take up the "perch'. at about 2000 feet above us, about 800 yards on the beam and 2000 yards back. We shall commence each combat when you turn in On us. We'll be watching you and when you turn in we'll counter [turn] hard in towards you. At this point you will be able to track us and attempt to get an acquisition with your missiles. As you come into missile range we shall deny you a shot by hiding our jet exhaust from your missile.

In the SHAR that is relatively easy to do: we just drop about 30 degress of nozzle. This will pitch our nose up instantaneously about 20 degrees, diffuse the hot gases of our exhausts and hide the exhaust from you by placing our wing between your missile and the source of heat. You will still be able to track us with your nose and by this time you should have a lot of overtake, that is you will be closing in rapidly towards guns range. Before you get to guns range we will commence a high-G braking stop barrel roll which you won't be able to follow. This will allow us to roll over you and decelerate to a position behind you where you will be in our gunsights. That's the aim of the game, gentlemen; let's go and see if it works, and see whether you can come up with an answer to our moves."

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The combats went as planned with about the same ratio of kills as on the first sortie. Missile shots were denied to the F5s and as my own opponent closed in towards guns range I pulled the joystick fully back in my midriff and used a combination of aileron and then full rudder to corkscrew the jet into the vertical.

Breathing hard from the excitement, I relaxed the flight controls and swung the nozzles down and forward into the full braking stop position. Suddenly the F5 was no longer pointing at me but was being sucked and pulled down below me. Nozzles aft again and full rudder, aileron and elevator to pass through the inverted and then roll down behind the F5. The fight was over. Either with missile or gun, the Freedom Fighter was finished.

On day two of the detachment I flew against the Aggressor Boss and was beaten in one of the four combats that took place. The fight had progressed until both jets were near to base height, and slow. It was almost stalemate and in that situation I should have walked it.

But one of the F5's specialities is being moderately capable in the slow-speed regime, and although it can't fly as slow as the SHAR it can manoeuvre more freely at a slightly higher speed. Our two jets were crossing over each other in our attempts to point at the other aircraft and shoot (a manoeuvre known as horizontal scissors) when I momentarily let my jet's nose drop below the horizon.

I had briefed my team that on no account must they let this happen against the F5 or that fight would be lost. I was furious with myself as I had wanted to return to Yeovilton with a clean sheet. Nevertheless, it was a highly successful first look at dissimilar combat, with the team kill ratios against one of the best outfits around being 12:I, 9:3 and 6:6. making an aggregate kill rate of 27 to 10 in the SHAR's favour.

All the lads on the IFTU were delighted and I submitted a short paper to the MOD to report the detail of the Aggressor visit. It was an honest report. and it complimented the Aggressors on their professionalism and integrity But it pulled no punches on the score-line, or the capabilities of the Sea Jet.

As a matter of internal MOD courtesy, a copy of the report was passed to the appropriate RAF Harrier desk and from there it was passed on up the line to the hierarchy. It was apparent that the courtesy was neither welcomed nor honoured at higher level.

Within days of the initial report being submitted, an Air Vice-Marshal stormed into the Aggressor Squadron Commander's office at Alconbury, threw a copy of my report down on the table, and asked, "Have you seen this. Colonel?" Obviously, the Crabs didn't relish the idea of the SHAR being a successful fighter and were presumably trying to question the validity of the report. This rather underhand intrusion caused unnecessary embarrassment all round and was a most unwelcome gesture.

Go to Part II