Macarena but you're engaging MiG 29s in your F 15 over Iraq

On January 19, 1991, three days after the official start of the Gulf War. While flying a defensive mission with three other F-15s, intelligence came in about a suspected weapons storage facility southwest of Baghdad. He and his formation headed that direction to help provide protection for a strike group. While en route, his radar picked up incoming MiG fighters about 12 to 14 miles away. Rodriguez and his wingman, Capt. Craig “Mole” Underhill, chased the MiGs north, until they got a warning that surface-to-air missiles (SAMs) were starting to track them—these enemy fighters might be trying to lure them into a trap. Just then, an Airborne Warning and Control System (AWACS) aircraft called them and said there were enemy fighters to the west, coming at them.

“Out of instinct,” Rodriguez recalled, he “slammed the throttles to full afterburner. I pulled 9-9.5g’s in the turn” towards the new threat. One of them, a MiG-29, got a lock on Rodriguez. He pulled away and started throwing chaff into the sky to shake the MiG’s lock on him as he told Underhill to lock onto the MiG. Underhill launched an AIM-7 Sparrow and the missile arced over Rodriguez and slammed into the nose of the MiG-29, erupting in a massive fireball. “He didn’t realize my wingman was better than he was,” Rodriguez recalled.

As they were announcing their victory, AWACS broke in again—more MiGs were flying to the north. Rodriguez and Underhill turned to find them and picked up the new target about 10 miles away. But there was a problem: Rodriguez’s system showed the target as hostile, but Underhill’s showed it as friendly. The only way to be sure to avoid a friendly fire incident was to get a visual ID. That’s when Rodriguez got close and pulled up to see the distinctive shape and markings of the Iraqi MiG-29, and their double-turn spiral towards the ground began.

As both aircraft pulled tighter in the circle, Rodriguez thumbed his switch to turn on the AIM-9 Sidewinder heat-seeking missile. There was too much interference from the heat of the ground to get a lock. The turn pulled nine Gs, pressing against his body with incredible force as he pulled in even closer and thumbed the switch to the AIM-7 Sparrow radar-guided missile. Straining against the G forces, Rodriguez was close – only 1,500 feet behind the MiG, close enough for guns, which rarely happens in modern aerial combat. But the ground was rushing up to meet them, the two aircraft chasing each other down. Now they were less than 1,000 feet above the rocks.

Suddenly the MiG inverted and dove down—what looked like the beginning of a “Split-S” maneuver. The MiG pilot was trying to escape, but must not have realized how close to the ground they were. Rodriguez was well aware of the approaching rocks and pulled up. The Iraqi pilot lit his afterburners and immediately slammed into the ground at full speed. “The fireball just rolled forever,” Rodriguez said. “It probably tumbled for a couple of miles.” He did not see the enemy pilot eject. Rodriguez had managed to defeat the Iraqi pilot through sheer maneuvering, without firing a weapon.

https://airandspace.si.edu/stories/ed...