How Navy Fighter Pilots Joked With Russian Bears

Simply Outstanding

Commander Curt Dose talks about the interesting missions he experienced as a fighter pilot. He said that one of the things that they would do was to intercept bear bombers when they would come looking for a carrier in the North China Sea.

He says that the bombers would come looking for the carrier and they would rarely find it and they would join up on them with one F4 or F14 half a mile behind in a shooting. “The other F-14, the lead, would just go up and play around with the bear,” he details that the bear is a huge bomber with four contrarotating propellers you can hear in the cockpit, and would join up on the rear stabilizer where the tail gunner is.

Other times, Dose says, they would just flip their plane upside down and stick the tail hook up. He also says that the amazing thing about flying off an aircraft carrier is that it always starts and ends with a catapult shot and a landing.

“No matter how boring your flight was, you always came back and did a trap on the carrier and that was always fun.” Dose says, but not always fun at night because he says that every night trap is terrifying, yet he somehow always ends up surviving.