Four F/A-18C Hornets and one F-14B Tomcat launched as one flight of five. All Hornets launched without issue, but a technical fault forced a delay in the launch of the Dealer 1-5 Tomcat. Dealer 1-4 orbited over Beirut for a short time for 1-5 to work his issues, but eventually decided to push on as a four ship allowing 1-5 to catch up when able. Upon arrival over the target area, the military base compound was easily identifiable on the ATFLIR and as the flight got closer, multiple "Technical" type vehicles were located in revetments scattered throughout the entire base. A MQ-9 Reaper was also lasing targets in the area as well, but due to it's altitude, it was very difficult to see it's visible laser sparkle unless you were very close to the Reaper's orbit.
To avoid the threat of any mid-airs in the dark, each Dealer aircraft was assigned a different altitude to operate and were cleared to engage targets at will. Dealer 1 through 4 released multiple GBU-12's and scored multiple vehicles destroyed on the ground, including a batch of five BTR-80's shacked by Chaos. As the Hornets were finishing up with the last of their ordinance, Maniac arrived in the AO in his Tomcat, but had issues getting target identification via the LANTIRN pod and aborted his attack to return to the ship.
All Dealer flights returned to Mother for a full moon Case 3 recovery. One aircraft was lost near the ship due to fuel starvation. SAR operations are ongoing for the pilot.
One takeaway was to NOT send flights back to mother in two-ships or singles during Case 3 conditions as the multiple needed call ins to the carrier ATC resulted in a flurry of AI communications going on, often when pilots were either on the ball, or short final in the groove.
Overall, Mission Success despite the loss of one airframe.
DEALER 1:
1-1 Rhino - Ground Targets destroyed, trapped
1-2 Crash - Ground Targets destroyed, flame out-ditch into the water
1-3 Hedgehog - Ground Targets destroyed, trapped
1-4 Chaos - Ground Targets destroyed, trapped
1-5 Maniac - trapped.
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