On the morning of 14 November 2004, Dave and his WSO launched into the clear blue Southern California sky about a hundred miles southwest of San Diego. Their Call Sign was FASTEAGLE 01. His wingman and WSO launched just after them in FASTEAGLE 02. They climbed overhead the ship and rendezvoused in normal fashion before setting off to their assigned work area in the open ocean south of
USS Nimitz. Normal day, normal ops for the pre-deployment work up cycle they were in the middle of.
...
Once the Air Wing’s planes arrived aboard Nimitz, the Fire Control team on
Princeton saw an opportunity to use those assets and eyeballs to help solve the AAV mystery.
...
At the same time FASTEAGLE flight was
wrapping up its scheduled training, the CO of Marine Hornet squadron VMFA-232, Lieutenant Colonel “Cheeks” Kurth, was completing a post-maintenance check flight not too far away. He was the first fast-mover contacted by
Princeton.
...
Princeton now wanted the E-2 to guide the
Super Hornets to an intercept with the AAV contact, currently hovering over their favorite spot, but now about 20,000 feet over the ocean.
...
The radar returns from the contact weren’t enough to generate a target track however, so
Princeton cut the E-2 from control and contacted FASTEAGLE directly. Though he was unable to lock up the AAVs, the E-2 controller remained on frequency and listened to the entire ensuing evolution.
...
Dave’s baffled WSO reported that all they had were two captive-carry training missiles. They were given bearing and range vectors to a set of coordinates and told to investigate an unknown aerial contact over that spot.
With no further information on the contact, they descended to the low 20s and scanned with radar, picking nothing up. Neither plane in this flight was carrying a FLIR pod, which limited the type of sensors they could search with; but,
both planes were brand new–in Dave’s words, “They still had that new car smell.” The APG-73 radars were both new and had performed perfectly
during the previous hour’s training.
.
