Flight Examiner SAM

At Korat Royal Thai Air Force Base (Thailand) one would see pilots wearing a shoulder patch with that logo.  That was 1968 and we were flying F105 fighter bombers up to Hanoi twice a day, every day.  SAM in those days was SA-2, a not very mobile system.  A SAM battery consisted of several launchers, a couple of radar trailers, some hootches and "stuff".  The Russians had provided the more up to date tracked vehicle mobile SA-6 to the Egyptians in time for the 1967 war with Israel, but the North Viet Nam comrades didn't have it yet. 
   SA-2 was the SAM designed to get U-2 photo recon flights operating above 70,000 feet.  This resulted in a big rocket, about the size and dimensions of a telephone pole.  It took the rocket motor quite some time to boost this heavy missile up to real speed.  At low altitude, the F105 could out fly SAM.  Pilots who survived this feat of airmanship got to wear the patch. 
Once SAM was at altitude, with much of his fuel burned off, he was deadly fast, cannon shell fast, too fast to dodge, almost too fast to see.  So the effect of SAM was to force us down, into the ground fire.  Instead of going in at 25,000 feet, well above any kind of ground fire, we had to fly at  5000 feet.  One pilot put it thusly  "Even the kids have slingshots." 
  SAM was a radar guided beast.  No heat seekers for him.  We carried electronic countermeasures pods to confuse Mr. SAM.  The early ones were straight noise jammers.  The later QRC 160 pods attempted to spoof SAM by picking up his radar pulses, amplifying them, messing with them, and squirting them back at SAM's radar.   A weakness in QRC-160 was the occasional pod that started talking to itself.  The receiver would pick up a bit of noise, it would amplify the noise and transmit it.  The transmit antenna wasn't far from the receive antenna (how far away can you be when the whole pod was only ten feet long?)  The receiver would pick up the transmissions, amplify them again, transmit them again, and within seconds the pod transmitters would be blasting a full power signal.  This worried the aircrew, who feared that the comrades could track them and launch at them.  So the talkative pods were sent to my ECM shop to shut them up.  There was nothing in the technical order about loud mouth pods, fix there fore.  So after a lot of trouble shooting and testing, we resorted to ordering some parts that we knew base supply didn't have.  After waiting about 30 days for parts, we were allowed to ship the talkative pods back to depot, which got them out of our hair. 
   The SAM that took out the airliner is a descendent of  SA-2.  About third or fourth generation.  SA-2 was followed by SA-6.  SA-6 managed to pack 3 missiles and the radar into a single tracked vehicle.  SA-11, the one suspected of airliner shooting,  carried six missiles and must have had a new electronics and radar suite, came after SA-6.  I have heard of an SA-17, but know little about it.  SA-2 fifty years ago would hit airliners at 33,000 feet, no sweat.  The later models must be just as effective. 

F35 might be operational in 2015

Why do programs cost so much? Because they take so long.  F35 started 15 years ago.  We have built a couple of dozen of 'em.  It's been flying for a couple of years.  But.  All the missiles and stuff are software controlled.  And the software to run them isn't ready.  They think the software will be ready in another year.
   First mistake.  All the missiles and smart weapons should not require software support from the F35.  There is plenty of room to pack a million lines of code into each missile or smart bomb.  The missiles and smart bombs ought to be able to get a hit with no assistance from the launching airplane.   Benefit:  the missile or smart bomb will work on another aircraft, without requiring a five year software writing fandango. 
   The old F105 could fly into North Viet Nam, suppress the SAM's, jam enemy radar, dog fight with MIGs, and bomb every target in Route Pak 6.  And there was not a lick of software anywhere in that plane.  And, the old Thud went from paper spec to flying combat missions in less than 5 years.  And it was rugged.  It could take a direct hit from an air-to-air missile and fly back to base.