Intel
The wordson the net
Brevity exists so a radio call costs a second instead of a sentence. None of it is decoration: every word below means one thing, and saying the wrong one sends somebody the wrong way. If you are new, read it once on the ground and you will not have to ask in the air.
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Mission types
Mission types
What the frag actually asks you to do.
- CAPCombat Air Patrol
- A fighter orbit flown to hold airspace shut. You are not hunting — you are standing on a piece of sky so nothing hostile crosses it. BARCAP sits as a barrier between the threat and whatever you are protecting; TARCAP holds over the target while the strikers work; RESCAP covers a downed crew until the helicopters are out.
- SEADSuppression of Enemy Air Defences
- Making the surface-to-air threat stop shooting. Usually that means threatening a radar with an anti-radiation missile until the operator shuts it down. Suppression is temporary by definition: the site is still there, and it comes back up the moment you leave.
- DEADDestruction of Enemy Air Defences
- Killing the launchers, radars and command posts outright rather than persuading them to blink. Slower, heavier, and it stays dead.
- CASClose Air Support
- Ordnance put on targets close enough to friendly troops that somebody on the ground — a JTAC — controls every pass and clears every release.
- StrikePlanned attack
- A briefed attack on a fixed target: the package, the timing and the weapons are decided before anyone starts engines.
- EscortTied to the package
- Fighters whose job is the strikers, not the kill. You go where they go and you come home when they do.
- AWACSAirborne early warning and control
- The radar picture and the controller behind it — Overlord, Magic, Darkstar. They see the fight you cannot.
- TankerAir-to-air refuelling
- Texaco, Shell and Arco on the kneeboard. The difference between a thirty-minute sortie and a three-hour one.
On the net
On the net
The callouts the tape scrolls, in the order you tend to hear them.
- FENCE INSet up for combat
- Fire control, Emitters, Navigation, Communications, Expendables — run the switches before you cross into the threat ring. FENCE OUT undoes it on the way home.
- PUSHINGLeaving the hold
- Off the hold point and on the run-in, on time.
- NAILSA radar is out there
- Radar energy on a bearing, not tracking you. Information, not yet a problem.
- MUD SPIKEA ground radar has me
- A surface-to-air radar is tracking you, called with the type when you have it — “MUD SPIKE SA-11”. This one is a problem.
- MAGNUMAnti-radiation missile away
- A missile is in the air at a radar site. Called honestly when one is, and sometimes called when one is not, because an operator who believes it shuts the radar down either way.
- TALLYI see the enemy aircraft
- With the count — “TALLY TWO”. Eyes on a friendly is VISUAL; eyes on the ground target is CONTACT. They are not interchangeable and mixing them gets people shot at.
- FOX ONE / TWO / THREEMissile away
- One is a semi-active radar shot, Two an infrared missile, Three an active radar missile. The number tells everyone else what your missile needs from you and how long you are committed.
- BUDDY SPIKEYou are locking a friendly
- Said by the one being locked, with their callsign. Break the lock before the next call is worse.
- SPLASHTarget destroyed
- With the count — “SPLASH ONE”.
- DEFENDINGI am out of the fight
- Reacting to a shot and no longer offensive. It is a request for help as much as a status.
- PADLOCKEDMy eyes are stuck on him
- You are keeping sight of the bandit and cannot look anywhere else, which means you cannot clear your own six. Somebody else has to.
- CLEARED HOTRelease is approved
- The controller has cleared you to drop or fire on this pass. Only a controller says it, and it is good for that pass only.
- WINCHESTEROut of ordnance
- Nothing left to shoot with.
- JOKERStart thinking about home
- The fuel state at which you begin working your way out.
- BINGOGo home now
- The fuel state that takes the decision away from you.
- RTBReturn to base
- Heading home.
Ready room
Say it the same way every time
Nobody is graded on it. The point is that when it matters, one word carries the whole meaning and everybody hears the same thing.