to a higher altitude to take advantage of the situation set up by the engaged fighter. More than likely the free fighter takes the first shot. The crews of Fast Eagles 102 and 107 had spent countless hours practicing this maneuver and they believed it was a great example of a good offense being the best defense. Kleeman banked twenty degrees to the right, starting a gradual turn that put him on the tail of the “bogey” (unidentified air contact), but the aircraft altered course and continued to close in on him. The VF-41 skipper altered course further to the right, but the Libyan plane, guided by ground control intercept (GCI) radar, again changed course to maintain an intercept on Fast Eagle 102. Unable to loop in from behind, Kleeman and Muczynski increased speed to 550 knots and proceeded directly toward the Libyan plane with Fast Eagle 102 flying at an altitude of eighteen thousand feet. They prepared to execute a demanding but effective combat maneuver known as an “eyeball-shooter intercept.” Kleeman, acting as the “eyeball,” steered directly for the contact while Muczynski, the “shooter,” jockeyed into a position from which he could aim a Sidewinder at the tailpipe of the Libyan aircraft.83 Still anticipating a routine intercept, Muczynski told Anderson to get his camera ready. They had taken pictures of Libyan pilots on the first day of the exercise and Muczynski believed that “there was no reason to expect anything different from the day before.”84
With a relative closing rate of eleven hundred knots (eighteen miles per minute), it was only a matter of seconds before the American aviators saw the Libyan aircraft. Kleeman spotted the contact when it was approximately eight miles away. What had been a single blip on the AN / AWG-9 radar repeater was actually a pair of Libyan planes flying less than five hundred feet apart in a tight formation known as a “welded wing” (in which the lead pilot performs the aerial combat while the wingman protects the leader). At a range of two to three miles the skipper identified the aircraft as Soviet-built Su-22 Fitter Js (single-seat, single-engine ground attack planes).85
The Su-22 was no match for the F-14 in combat maneuvering ability and firepower. The Fitter was considerably slower than the Tomcat and unable to turn as tightly. It was armed with two internal 30mm cannons and a pair of AA-2 Atoll heat-seeking, air-to-air missiles. Unlike the all-aspect homing capability of the Sidewinder, the Atoll could not be employed with any probability of success unless it was aimed directly at an opposing jet’s exhaust pipe. Ignoring the disproportionate odds in his favor, Kleeman carefully initiated an offset intercept of his unsophisticated foes.86
As Kleeman closed in on the pair of Fitters, Muczynski executed a hard left turn that placed him behind the Libyans. The rigorous maneuver pounded Muczynski’s and Anderson’s bodies with a force seven times that of gravity. At approximately 0718 Kleeman initiated a 150-degree turn to the left that would put him in an escorting position alongside the lead Fitter.87 At the instant the lead Libyan was one thousand feet in front of and five hundred feet below Kleeman, the Libyan radioed to his wingman: “I’m preparing to fire.” A fraction of a second later he called out: “I’ve fired!”88 Kleeman immediately noticed the area under the Fitter’s left wing erupt in smoke and fire. Shockingly, the Libyan pilot fired an Atoll missile at the tail of Kleeman’s F-14. Simultaneously Kleeman and Muczynski shouted that the Libyan had launched a missile, and the two pilots banked hard to the left to avoid the heat-seeking missile, which passed safely under the tail of Fast Eagle 102. It flew unguided until it ran out of fuel. Kleeman managed to send an urgent report to the Nimitz, notifying the carrier that a pair of Libyan Fitters had attacked the Black Aces. In accord with the Reagan ROE, Kleeman and Muczynski took immediate action to defend themselves. Without hesitation they performed a crossover maneuver.89 Kleeman told Muczynski, “You go for the guy that shot at us. I’m going for the wingman.” Muczynski replied, “Roger that.”90 Since the Libyans had fired once already, Kleeman figured they might try it again. Then he thought, “The only acceptable course of action was to shoot at them.”91
The moment the lead Fitter pilot carried out his desperate attack, the Libyan pilots broke their tight formation and headed in different directions. The leader executed a climbing left-hand turn then turned right toward the north. The wingman turned east in the direction of the morning sun. Satisfied that Muczynski was pursuing the lead Fitter, Kleeman settled in one-half mile behind the Libyan wingman but held off firing a Sidewinder lest the missile home in on the blazing solar disk instead of on the Fitter’s tailpipe.92 Kleeman knew he was not ready to fire. “I realized that that was not a good position to shoot,” he recalled. “I waited about ten seconds until he cleared the sun, [and then] fired my missile. . . . There was no chance that I wasn’t going to pull the trigger. It did go through my mind that it was likely to cause a ruckus, but I had no choice.”93 The AIM-9L streaked across the bright Mediterranean sky and slammed into the aircraft’s tailpipe section. Kleeman recalled that “the missile . . . struck him in his tailpipe area causing him to lose control of the airplane, and he ejected within about five seconds.” Kleeman observed the pilot descend in his parachute.94
Meanwhile, Muczynski streaked to a firing position one thousand yards behind the lead Fitter. He had to throttle back and apply his speed brakes to keep from flying past him. Muczynski hesitated for an instant before firing, debating in his own mind whether or not it was necessary to take out an adversary who was headed away from the action and no longer a threat to either Kleeman or himself. In his headset speaker he heard his skipper shout: “Shoot! Shoot! Shoot!”95 The Libyan made a couple of futile attempts to shake off Fast Eagle 107, but Muczynski fired a Sidewinder just as the Fitter initiated a hard bank to the right. The missile struck the Libyan aircraft in the tailpipe and the massive explosion a fraction of a second later severed the tail section and engine from the rest of the fuselage. Muczynski maneuvered immediately to avoid the cloud of debris produced by the disintegrating Fitter.96 “If you fly through this stuff, and it goes through your engine, you’re finished,” he recalled. “I said, ‘My God, I’ve just shot myself down!’ I just took the stick and buried it in my lap. I pulled straight up over the top, doing a seven-G pull-up.”97 Muczynski saw the pilot eject but never saw a parachute, which may have deployed automatically at a lower altitude.
Approximately three minutes after first detecting the Fitters the engagement was over. The air battle occurred approximately sixty miles off the coast of Libya and lasted barely a minute.98 At approximately 0719 Fast Eagle 102 and Fast Eagle 107 joined up and headed back to the Nimitz, watching each other’s “six” to ensure that no Libyan MiGs crept up behind them. While en route Kleeman reported the result of the engagement to the carrier: two Fitters shot down, both pilots ejected, one parachute observed. Muczynski remembered the understated reply from the carrier. “The admiral wants to talk to you, when you get back,” responded the voice on the radio.99
Muczynski activated the autopilot in his Tomcat and let it fly the plane back to the vicinity of the carrier, all the while attempting to settle himself down. “We were so pumped up . . . I literally was shaking uncontrollably,” he said.100 Muczynski landed on his first try, trapping the number three wire. Kleeman was also excited. Rated the best pilot in the squadron at carrier landings, Kleeman took two “practice bolters” before landing on his third approach. After landing safely the four aviators were given an exhilarating heroes’ welcome by a jubilant crowd of officers and sailors who instantly swarmed onto the flight deck.
The Libyans supposedly recovered their two hapless pilots, and later that day two fliers were presented alive and well on Libyan television. Meanwhile, the LAAF continued to probe the defensive perimeter of the battle force. A total of forty-five intercepts, including the two kills, were performed during the two-day exercise. Admiral Service concluded OOMEX on the afternoon of 19 August and withdrew the two-carrier battle force from the exercise area.
On 24 August, while anchored in Naples, Italy, the Nimitz provided the venue for a press conference attended by more than one hundred reporters representing news agencies from around the world.101 Kleeman and the other Black Aces described the short air battle in great detail and answered several
