Female F-15E WSO talks combat

5/29/2003 - OPERATION IRAQI FREEDOM (AFPN)  -- Maybe more than any other aircraft in the coalition inventory, the F-15E Strike Eagle used new tactics in combat to neutralize enemy forces and provide ground troops with air support.

Strike Eagle aircrew often took off on missions not knowing their specific targets or their coordinates. But they did know their mission: to take out key enemy military infrastructure and also provide critical close-air support against enemy troop concentrations on the ground.

First Lt. Julie Ayers, a 336th Expeditionary Fighter Squadron weapons system officer, deployed to an air base in Southwest Asia supporting combat operations.

Arriving as an aviator with less than two years in the back seat of the F-15E, Ayers now has as much or more combat experience than 50 percent of Strike Eagle navigators. However, being a junior officer and being a woman has not overwhelmed Ayers.

When I think about my personal contribution, its really a drop in the bucket, she said. Compared to the overall number of sorties flown every hour of every day of every week, my contribution was small. Being so young, Im just glad I got the opportunity to be a part of this.

While she takes pride in being a role model for women, that has no bearing on her responsibilities or performance when flying.

I dont ever think about it when Im flying, said Ayers. (Women) get treated exactly the same in the jet. There are certain tasks for the pilot to do and certain tasks for the WSO to do, and they are not gender-specific. When the pilot needs you, he doesnt have time to think about whether or not youre a woman.

Ayers said flying was constant during the weeks of the air war and just seeing the amount of firepower out on the ramp was incredible.

The 379th Air Expeditionary Wing was comprised of more than 180 combat aircraft and the F-15Es made up almost a quarter of that.

The wing aircraft dropped 3.2 million pounds of bombs, and with current calculations, would be responsible for destroying 60 percent of the Republican Guard.

Sometimes we would go to pre-brief and receive imagery and (intelligence reports) on targets -- especially in the beginning -- but a lot of times, our mission was to fly in support of coalition troops on the ground and look for targets of opportunity while were up there.

But almost always, the planes came back home without their bombs, she said.

The biggest difference about flying combat sorties during OIF as opposed to patrolling the Iraqi no-fly zone in Operation Southern Watch, was the massive amount of air power in the skies those first few nights, she said.

I definitely had some butterflies stepping to my jet after our brief for our first mission, said Ayers.

Ayers said she realized this was really big, was when she first flew over Baghdad and loitered in a very busy airspace, over enemy targets, multiple times.

We had to make a couple laps over Baghdad and eventually circle around back over the target -- and that makes it a little bit easier for the enemy to target you, she said.

A main focus during operations was to avoid civilian facilities and leave the country mostly intact so it would not have to be completely rebuilt.

The aircrew flying the missions were largely responsible for determining collateral-damage estimates and many times, the decision whether or not to bomb was up to them, Ayers said.

We were trying to leave as much of the Iraqi infrastructure in place as we could, she said. At the same time, we were really able to soften up the movable army, and I feel like our squadron was largely responsible for saving a lot of American and coalition lives.