Desert Hornets

Meeting With "Friends"

After reaching 30,000 feet I was informed by the coalition airborne forces commander that I was to change to heading 330 with my wingman to meet up with a flight of F-15C Eagles from Israel that will be helping us provide cover for a group of French Dasault Super Entendard strike jets. The French were flying from the Charles de Gaulle which is a carrier similar to american design but smaller and the landing area is at more of an angle. We met up with the French strike pilots over Dubai where they made a smaller formation below us. While during this mission the Super Entendards were originally designed to be fighters so they are carrying two AIM-9X Advanced Sidewinder missiles. About an hour later we met up with a KC-135 which was an American tanker where we found the Israeli pilots already refueling, waiting in line, or waiting for us to refuel. The tanker was carrying wingtip drogues for so either 2 French airmen and an Israeli airman or three French or American airmen could refuel at once. This majorly sped up the refueling process and we were done in about 10 minutes. As we broke away from the tanker and towards our targets in Kuwait we formed two formations. One formation made of the French strike pilots and one formation of us and the Israeli fighter pilots above them. This gave us an altitude advantage if they came to attack either below or on the same altitude as the Frenchmen and it also helped to get us to a closer altitude if we were attacked by Mig-25 "Foxbat" high altitude interceptors.