In 1998, retired US Air Force Colonel Mike "Starbaby" Pietrucha was an electronic warfare officer flying in an F-15E Strike Eagle, enforcing the northern no-fly zone over Iraq in the 1990s. In this episode, he brings listeners into the cockpit as he describes one particular mission during that deployment, when his aircraft was targeted by a radar guidance system for an SA-3 antiair missile. Not long after, the Iraqi surface-to-air missile was headed his way. After some rather hasty maneuvering, the F-15E crews in the air developed a plan with other coalition aircraft to strike back.
This episode features a story from Joe Ritter, an Air Force officer and MQ-9 Reaper pilot. The MQ-9, the largest remotely piloted aircraft in...
Many episodes of The Spear have featured stories of action at the tactical level. This episode departs from that pattern, as Capt. Pete Mitchell ...
Just six weeks out of flight school, Jordan Terry was in Afghanistan. On one of his first days flying, he took off on a...