René schrieb:
Sein Name wurde ja bis heute, aus verständlichen Gründen, geheim gehalten.
Dagegen spricht dieser ARtikel aus der De Telegraaf, 8 November 2003. Leider nur auf Englisch:
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De Telegraaf, 8 November 2003
I counted down to the explosion
F-16 pilot tells first at Top Gun-school in Norway how he shot down a Serbian MiG
At the Arctic Circle, pilots train on the Dutch-led high school for F-16 pilots. Only the best of the best count and they do everything to get the highly wanted title of weapon instructor. Comparable to the school for American naval aviators, made world famous by the movie Top Gun. Besides five Dutchmen, two Belgians and two Norwegian conduct mock dogfights with German Phantoms, American F-15 Eagles, French Mirages and Finnish Hornets. This newspaper was present last week at the Fighter Weapon Instructor Training (FWIT) and talked to the Dutch aviator who downed the first Serbian MiG-29 (in those days the most feared fighter of Russian origin) during the Kosovo war in 1999. Lieutenant-colonel Peter Tankink (38) never uncovered before how he struck with the Amraam-missile.
By Charles Sanders
Örland (Norway), Saturday.
It is a coming and going of ultramodern jetfighters at the NATO-base Örland in central Norway. The airfield is these days the battle scene of pilots who fight for the highest status in the F-16 world.
Majoor-vlieger Maurice Schonk, himself in possession of the sought instructors badge, guides the cracks who hope to graduate from this “F-16 University” after a half-year training. “It’s about getting to known as much as you can about yourself and your opponent”, Schonk tells, ”One Dutch pilot failed the course. Because no matter how good your technical knowledge is, it is equally important that you can pass on your knowledge to your squadron at home. If you do not possess those special skills, then your as chanceless as if you cannot control your plane to the fullest.”
And so these aviator, experienced pilots with 500 flying hours, get 180 hours of theory, 16 exams and 43 mission concerning dogfights, ground attack and intensive nightoperations.
To makes these fight as realistic as possible, their opponents are hired from the US, Finland, France and Germany. One of the course participants: “Our sparring partners are good, sometimes very good. But things must go very funny will we lose from a Mirage 2000. The same applies to the F18 Hornet, which might be a better plane then ours when it comes to flying performance. But when you’ve come so far, you’ve got to be the best. [In English] Up there, there’s price for second places.” (Comment: whatever idiot who wrote/translated this article doesn’t know his English: it is prize and not price).
The pilots trained on scenarios, which become more complicated each time. At first solo flights are made, then formations of two and later four aircraft, against the same amounts of enemies. These, in spite of the Cold War being history, still make plenty of use of East-block equipment. In practice this means making use of rigid formations, which leave no room for initiative. Exactly this is important during the Top Gun-training, The course is led by the Dutch because the Koninklijke Luchtmacht (Royal Dutch Air Force) are the first who started training their best pilots (Remark: probably the first in Europe, the US Navy has been doing this for some time now: Top Gun anyone?). First exclusively from the base at Leeuwarden, later from Norway because night flying is much easier than over a crowded Netherlands.
When we walk in the water-cold over the Örland field, two Belgian soldiers nudge and point to a Dutch flyer whose accomplishments are held in high regard by collogue flyers. It is luitenant-colonel Peter Tankink, who as the commander of the Leeuwardian 323rd Squadron also is host to the course participants here in Norway. Tankink wrote history by being the first NATO pilot to down a Serbian MiG-29 on the 24th of March 1999. The RNLAF, being media shy during the conflict, decided to hide Tankink from the media during the conflict. The man made world news when NATO secretary Robertson announced that a Dutch F-16 pilot had destroyed the first MiG. The picture on which the MiG-trofee was painted made all international newspapers, but the pilot in question was unknown at the time.
At the same F-16 with which Tankink claimed his victory on the 24 of March that year, registration J063, he first goes into detailed about that battle. “We got our briefing that afternoon at two o’clock and at that time we didn’t know for certain if we’d go to war or not. It was announced that MiGs wouldn’t pose any danger…”
That turned out to be different. Peter Tankink, Major at the time, and part of the 322rd squadron , was assigned a ‘sweep mission’ together with three other Dutch F-16s. The quartet would lead British, US and Canadian bombers, to clear their path from enemy jets, who would according to Intel not be present.
Tankink: ”We refueling in total darkness over Macedonia and flew land inward into Kosovo. We would wait thirty kilometers North of Pristina until the bombers would drop their ordinance over the capital and return to Italy. We were waiting when Awacs reported that three MiG-29 had taken off north of us. Then your hart starts to beat faster. I flew as No. 3 in the formation and number one picked up a target sixty seconds after the Awacs report. Then the electronic interrogation began to find out if we were really dealing with a Serb. We needed to have absolute certainty.”
It took long to get that. Combined with the intelligence data the high-flying Awacs was collecting it took four and a half minutes to determine that a Serb MiG was lurking about.
“The pilot came passing in front of us,” Tankink tells, Ït was immediately clear he was flying towards Nis to intercept NATO bombers. Later I heard that they were sent on some kind of suicide mission. [English]‘Go out and hunt’. Cause as much damage to NAVO bombers as possible was their assignment. Each pilot would receive a hero’s welcome if they downed one of our aircraft. The propaganda machine would then go around the Balkans.”
But it went differently. The MiG, usually equipped with Alamo missiles that have a range of 15 kms. Dived behind a ridge. The pilot descended until the F-16s radar could not pick him up. The first two Dutch fighters flew 5 kilometers in front of the number three and four, which formed a defensive line.
Tankink: “At first the number one would get the first shot, but he had to turn around with number two. We flew higher and when our two colleagues passed, I got a [English] ‘clearing’. It was the first time that a non-American fired an Amraam, Advanced Medium Range Air to Air Missile, in anger.”
Because Tankink pushed the button. He knew it would take a full second to ignite the missile engine, but because of the adrenaline it seemed to take half a minute. “I thought something went wrong”, he remember clearly, ”I looked at my left wing and thought ‘why doesn’t that thing leave the rails?” In the past I’ve fired Sidewinder, that leave the plane half a second after firing. The Amraam left and I looked right into the fireball of the rocket engine and I was temporarily blinded… the computer counted down until the explosion and when the timer hit 0 I looked in the right direction; I had turned my aircraft in the meantime. A flash could be seen, but I had the impression the 500.000 euro missile had hit the ground. Eight seconds later I saw red-glowing parts tumble earthward. I immediately knew it concerned a MiG-29. It gave a good feeling, since everything had functioned.”
There wasn’t much time for celebration, since Tankink and his three colleagues still had to stay in Kosovo skies for twenty minutes. During that time Serbian Air Defences fired SAM 6-surface to air missiles at the Dutchmen.
“One of those SAM’s shot up right through our aircraft and went at number two. He avoided it after which the missile went after number four. We tired those SAMs which chaff and our electronic disturbance pods (remark: Literal translation from Dutch, I know it is ECM). We performed defensive maneuvers until the missile ran out of fuel and fell to earth. In one night we experience everything in modern warfare, shooting and being shot at. With a positive end result.”
The Dutch aircraft return to the south Italian base of Amendola after a mission of three and a half hours, where Dutch ordinance loaders immediately noticed the gone Amraam. There was some confusion. Did they have to congratulate Tankink with his [English] kill, the first since the Dutch police action over Indonesia? (Remark: Funny, at the time I hard the last dutch kill was a German Focke-Wulf 190 shot down in may 45 by a Dutch Spitfire with RAF 322 sqn (the same one now). Anybody have more info?)
Commander Tankink: “This will be hard time if it goes every night like this, I though. At that moment I thought the Serb hadn’t survived. Later, in June that year, we read hero stories on the internet. The pilot had deceived NATO. He was shot down but his ejection seat had functioned. But if the man had died I wouldn’t have turned to a monastery… it would have been fine either. I read in a newspaper later that I would receive psychological treatment when I returned home. For mental support. Absolute rubbish. I had done my job, nothing more and nothing less. I have no problems talking about it either.
The ‘MiG-kill’has had little influence on his career, since he would have become the commander of the 323rd without the MiG-29 kills (NATO codename: Fulcrum). He was one of the first graduates of the Top Gun course in 1993.
