Retired U.S. Air Force Brigadier General Rob Givens discusses the coordination and support involved in a massive mission like the recent B-2 bombing runs on Iran's nuclear sites. Aircraft from 3 continents came together to coordinate safety and access into and out of Iran undetected.
General Givens describes the tasks for the pilots as they spend more than 30 hours airborne to complete the mission. Plus, there's many other scenarios for decoy missions, what to do in case of attacks on the bombers, and the occasional open seas fly by activity by Russian and other hostile pilots.
General Givens describes the tasks for the pilots as they spend more than 30 hours airborne to complete the mission. Plus, there's many other scenarios for decoy missions, what to do in case of attacks on the bombers, and the occasional open seas fly by activity by Russian and other hostile pilots.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
You're with news radio eight forty whs. Terry Miners here.
I love talking aviation if you just show you know
that already. One of my besties in the aviation realm
is retired Brigadier General Rob Gibbons. It's good to see
you again, sir.
Speaker 2 (00:14):
Nice to see you too, Terry. Thank you for having me.
Speaker 1 (00:16):
Twenty seven years with the US Air Force. I just
wanted to invite you on. Obviously, all the eyeballs are
on what's going on here recently with bombing in Iran,
and we see the results onto the photos and the
comparisons and the arguing about I wanted to talk with
you just about the flight part of this, sure, just
(00:36):
because you know you've been in so many things in
terms of the aviation realm. My first question is, how
in the world do you get a couple of pilots. Well,
I know it's multiple aircraft, but a couple in each
of them, right, But that's a certain kind of a
brain right.
Speaker 3 (00:54):
Well, it is, and I mean we trained to it
obviously in the B two crews or the B fifty
two crews, long range strike crews. They will train to
these types of missions and they'll even do simulators that'll
be thirty hours long. I mean, a lot to condition themselves.
And there's a ton of tasks that have to happen,
so it's not as boring as one might think. It's
not like sitting in an airline or flying to Australia.
(01:16):
They are they're tasks to have to happen along the
way as part of the operation. They will take, you know,
they will take cycles in the you know, whether they're
awake or not. Obviously, as they get closer into the
combat zone, they're both going to be active and awake.
But in the transit time they can take breaks a
little bit to try and keep their minds fresh.
Speaker 1 (01:34):
I always like to tell but I love using the
expression on final approach, like when you're hosting this show.
To me, it feels like I'm on final for three hours.
I can't imagine someone really flying airplanes into a war. Yeah,
for that many hours and being sharp and also leaving
and departing and going home. You're still vulnerable, that's right.
Speaker 3 (01:54):
So and they they will they will practice that. The
flight in I am sure is there's a lot of
apple going on. I mean the times when I've done this,
not for thirty hours.
Speaker 2 (02:04):
But when it's been okay, the first day of the
First Gulf War.
Speaker 3 (02:08):
Ninety one, first day of the invasion of Iraq in
two thousand and three, you know you've got your target
at least twelve hours ahead of time. You know what
you're gonna go bomb, you know what time you're gonna
take off, you know what time you're over the target.
So these guys are doing that, and they're airborne while
doing that, and those have got to be some very long,
thoughtful hours. I feel relatively confident that's one of the
(02:28):
reasons why we still have manned aircraft like this, because
there's a person making the decision there at the time
of release. Now on the way coming home, it's a
huge adrenaline letdown, and so that's probably one of the
harder things to stay mentally focused and sharp, is just
flying home because you're you know, you're over the Atlantic
now you got nothing in front of you but friendly skies,
and that's probably where they start to come down and
(02:50):
have to really focus on being able to still land
the aircraft.
Speaker 1 (02:54):
We're speaking with Retire Brigadier General Rob Givens, US Air Force,
but the whole path of a bombing flight like this is,
you know, clearly worked on by a lot of people
in secret. Is the release of the bomb by the
actual pilots or do we live in a world now
where it's done remotely by someone somewhere else.
Speaker 3 (03:17):
Well, I can't swear to what happens in the cockpit
of a B two, but I feel pretty confident in
saying this as all the bombs that I ever dropped
on a strategic strike sorty into Baghdad, they're all done
by the pilot, by the crew, right, So in the
bomber it's a crew of two, which crew member has
the responsibility for.
Speaker 2 (03:35):
Dropping the weapon? You know that it could be the copilot,
could be the pilot, But I feel relatively confident. That's
one of the reasons why we still have manned.
Speaker 3 (03:43):
Aircraft like this, because there's a person making the decision
there at the time of release. Now that said, in
a modern bombing system where you're dropping a satellite guided bomb,
it isn't as much you aiming it as the pilot.
It's you making sure that everything is coordinated up and
the aircraft is in the proper position for the bomb
to release and hit the target. So there's a consent
(04:03):
switch versus an actual bomb switch. So you press the
consent switch and then the airplane says, when I'm at
the place where the bomb will hit the target, I
will let the bomb go. So it's not like in
the eight ten Days where you hit a button and
the bomb comes off right away.
Speaker 1 (04:18):
Bombs of this magnitude and power, there's no way that
some thing like the iron dome they have in Israel
could stop something like that. This is just too much
to overwhelm a system like that. What was dropped in airon.
Speaker 2 (04:33):
Would if you would.
Speaker 3 (04:35):
Drop a weapon like that against defenses like that, it
is possible they could shoot the bomb out of the sky.
Think about it. The iron dome is hitting ballistic missiles
which are hitting reentry going a lot faster than the
bomb coming off of an airplane at thirty five thousand feet.
So the fact that if Iran had had some type
of defense like that, could they have possibly shot the
(04:56):
bomb down.
Speaker 2 (04:56):
Sure, it's possible.
Speaker 3 (04:57):
I mean, we've got defenses now that will stop up
a tank round or a mortar round or that type
of thing. So you know, hitting a bomb from the
sky is not out of the realm technical ability, and
it's a big target.
Speaker 2 (05:09):
It's a big bomb.
Speaker 1 (05:10):
Pretty astounding. Okay, you've been trained thousands of hours over
the years. Would have had we know that this thing
appeared to be flawless, this whole sortie to Iran and
back to Missouri. What would happen if say Iran became
aware and jets came in the air would they are
they prepared in a B two to fight their jets
(05:34):
or was there other escort jets who would be alone
to take care of that business?
Speaker 3 (05:38):
So there were other escort aircraft. So think about the
magnitude of this strike. We had airplanes taking off from
three continents in North America, Europe.
Speaker 2 (05:47):
And Asia, possibly even Africa.
Speaker 3 (05:50):
I don't know what support assets might have come out
of Djibouti or not, but these aircraft all come together
at the right place at the right time, right, So
think about that. We've all had timing issues in Kentucky
between Central time and Eastern time going to the other
part of the state. But now you're taking global assets,
bringing them all together at one spot, and they have
(06:11):
a huge support package to go in with them. They
had unmanned aircraft. I feel pretty sure they had decoys,
they had fourth generation and fifth generation fighters going in.
So the way this would normally work is you'd have
the intelligence surveillance re connaissance aircraft monitoring the situation. Then
you have fighters like F fifteens or F twenty two's
(06:32):
going ahead of you to make sure that no Iranian
aircraft are going to fly. You have F sixteens or
F eighteens from the Navy with high speed anti radiation
missiles that can shoot down or can shoot enemy radars
to keep them from launching missiles. And then the smallest
radar object of all of that, the B two, comes
(06:52):
in and hits the target. And so it's very little
chance that anybody would even see the B two on radar.
They're not invisible to radar, but they're very very very
difficult to find.
Speaker 1 (07:01):
Pretty close to it, that's right. And then the decoy
you already used that word. I've found that fascinating too,
that things were launched to in case someone's watching. Well,
there are eyeballs on everything that goes on worldwide. They
send up a decoy to make somebody what, to rattle
somebody's cage and go, oh, what's happening here? And that's
just a complete trick to get people fixated on something
(07:23):
that's happening elsewhere, like a magician does well.
Speaker 2 (07:26):
So we like to call that in the military tactical deception.
Speaker 3 (07:29):
And there's been no operation that the US military has
done that I've been a part of where we have
not used tactical deception of some form. Some levels of
tactical reception will be classified for forever. Others become evident
after the fact. You know, you do things like in
a normal training and exercise and bases where you'll have
four airplanes take off, you'll have two airplanes land and
the other two airplanes will land somewhere else, to see
(07:50):
if you can slowly get airplanes off your base without
people knowing. You'll do different things like pick different call signs,
like different flight patterns, do anything that you want to
print upon an enemy, and then do something different when
it comes time to do it. So that happens all
the time. The enemy does us, we do to them.
It happens all the time.
Speaker 1 (08:09):
Yeah, on a different subject, we oftentimes see, you know,
Russian jets fly by our aircraft carriers along. I mean,
what keeps the US or any other power, I guess
from shooting down somebody who's messing with you.
Speaker 3 (08:23):
Well, the urge is probably there, but you know, normal
human restraint. I mean, these are common show of force
operations that are done in a lot of ways that
they're almost collegial. In some areas they're not. It could
turn deadly, like the episode that happened with the the
P three Orion with the Chinese in two thousand and one,
where a Chinese pilot was flying too close to P three,
(08:46):
tried to do some acrobatics that I guess he was
not qualified to do and bumped the P three and
the Chinese aircraft went down. That pilot died, and then
our aircraft did an emergency landing into Hainan Island, if.
Speaker 2 (08:58):
You remember that. So there's a lot of there's a
lot of restraint on both sides.
Speaker 3 (09:04):
On all sides international airspace, there are all kinds of rules,
and even in those show of force type operations, aircraft
will follow the rules. For example, you do not cross
the bow of a warship. That is an aggressive act.
You can fly alongside the warship, but you don't cross
the bow. It's an aggressive act.
Speaker 1 (09:20):
You're just messing with him though, but still.
Speaker 3 (09:22):
Right, and so you know they know you know you're
being messed with, they know they're messing with you, and
it's almost it's not you know, it's not without its dangers,
but it's it's all very controlled.
Speaker 1 (09:33):
Seems like it would be a death wish, you know,
you know, it's like, dude, how did I know he
didn't have nefarious intentions?
Speaker 3 (09:41):
There's a bit of a gut check, but there's also
a level of you know, a bolt out of the
blue is probably not coming along those lines.
Speaker 1 (09:49):
Well, I'm fascinated to see what comes on if this
piece that's holding right now the ceasefire continues. But that
was certainly a statement made by the United States and
Israel in the last so many But there's a lot
of people doing amazing things in the military that I
think only get displayed every now and then.
Speaker 2 (10:08):
Well, let's be thankful for that.
Speaker 3 (10:10):
But yeah, when you take a look at what our
military just pulled off again, aircraft from three continents all
showing up at the same place, same time, under command
and control. And I guarantee you that strike was very,
very heavily watched and controlled all the way from takeoff
to landing. Just for the significance of it, it's impressive.
What we're able to do out of that, and as
(10:31):
far as the piece goes, you know, the whole purpose
of any military operation is to make a better state
of peace. So you know, we had the courage to
drop the bombs. Let's hope we have the moral courage
now to find a way to make the peace, because
that will be the ultimate resolution if we can find
a peaceful way forward with the Uranians and the Israelis.
Speaker 1 (10:49):
General Rob Gibbons, great to see you again, my friend.
Speaker 2 (10:51):
Thank you. Good to see as well.
Speaker 1 (10:53):
Coming right back on news radio. Wait forty whas M
You're with news radio eight forty whs. Terry Miners here.
I love talking aviation if you just show you know
that already. One of my besties in the aviation realm
is retired Brigadier General Rob Gibbons. It's good to see
you again, sir.
Speaker 2 (00:14):
Nice to see you too, Terry. Thank you for having me.
Speaker 1 (00:16):
Twenty seven years with the US Air Force. I just
wanted to invite you on. Obviously, all the eyeballs are
on what's going on here recently with bombing in Iran,
and we see the results onto the photos and the
comparisons and the arguing about I wanted to talk with
you just about the flight part of this, sure, just
(00:36):
because you know you've been in so many things in
terms of the aviation realm. My first question is, how
in the world do you get a couple of pilots. Well,
I know it's multiple aircraft, but a couple in each
of them, right, But that's a certain kind of a
brain right.
Speaker 3 (00:54):
Well, it is, and I mean we trained to it
obviously in the B two crews or the B fifty
two crews, long range strike crews. They will train to
these types of missions and they'll even do simulators that'll
be thirty hours long. I mean, a lot to condition themselves.
And there's a ton of tasks that have to happen,
so it's not as boring as one might think. It's
not like sitting in an airline or flying to Australia.
(01:16):
They are they're tasks to have to happen along the
way as part of the operation. They will take, you know,
they will take cycles in the you know, whether they're
awake or not. Obviously, as they get closer into the
combat zone, they're both going to be active and awake.
But in the transit time they can take breaks a
little bit to try and keep their minds fresh.
Speaker 1 (01:34):
I always like to tell but I love using the
expression on final approach, like when you're hosting this show.
To me, it feels like I'm on final for three hours.
I can't imagine someone really flying airplanes into a war. Yeah,
for that many hours and being sharp and also leaving
and departing and going home. You're still vulnerable, that's right.
Speaker 3 (01:54):
So and they they will they will practice that. The
flight in I am sure is there's a lot of
apple going on. I mean the times when I've done this,
not for thirty hours.
Speaker 2 (02:04):
But when it's been okay, the first day of the
First Gulf War.
Speaker 3 (02:08):
Ninety one, first day of the invasion of Iraq in
two thousand and three, you know you've got your target
at least twelve hours ahead of time. You know what
you're gonna go bomb, you know what time you're gonna
take off, you know what time you're over the target.
So these guys are doing that, and they're airborne while
doing that, and those have got to be some very long,
thoughtful hours. I feel relatively confident that's one of the
(02:28):
reasons why we still have manned aircraft like this, because
there's a person making the decision there at the time
of release. Now on the way coming home, it's a
huge adrenaline letdown, and so that's probably one of the
harder things to stay mentally focused and sharp, is just
flying home because you're you know, you're over the Atlantic
now you got nothing in front of you but friendly skies,
and that's probably where they start to come down and
(02:50):
have to really focus on being able to still land
the aircraft.
Speaker 1 (02:54):
We're speaking with Retire Brigadier General Rob Givens, US Air Force,
but the whole path of a bombing flight like this is,
you know, clearly worked on by a lot of people
in secret. Is the release of the bomb by the
actual pilots or do we live in a world now
where it's done remotely by someone somewhere else.
Speaker 3 (03:17):
Well, I can't swear to what happens in the cockpit
of a B two, but I feel pretty confident in
saying this as all the bombs that I ever dropped
on a strategic strike sorty into Baghdad, they're all done
by the pilot, by the crew, right, So in the
bomber it's a crew of two, which crew member has
the responsibility for.
Speaker 2 (03:35):
Dropping the weapon? You know that it could be the copilot,
could be the pilot, But I feel relatively confident. That's
one of the reasons why we still have manned.
Speaker 3 (03:43):
Aircraft like this, because there's a person making the decision
there at the time of release. Now that said, in
a modern bombing system where you're dropping a satellite guided bomb,
it isn't as much you aiming it as the pilot.
It's you making sure that everything is coordinated up and
the aircraft is in the proper position for the bomb
to release and hit the target. So there's a consent
(04:03):
switch versus an actual bomb switch. So you press the
consent switch and then the airplane says, when I'm at
the place where the bomb will hit the target, I
will let the bomb go. So it's not like in
the eight ten Days where you hit a button and
the bomb comes off right away.
Speaker 1 (04:18):
Bombs of this magnitude and power, there's no way that
some thing like the iron dome they have in Israel
could stop something like that. This is just too much
to overwhelm a system like that. What was dropped in airon.
Speaker 2 (04:33):
Would if you would.
Speaker 3 (04:35):
Drop a weapon like that against defenses like that, it
is possible they could shoot the bomb out of the sky.
Think about it. The iron dome is hitting ballistic missiles
which are hitting reentry going a lot faster than the
bomb coming off of an airplane at thirty five thousand feet.
So the fact that if Iran had had some type
of defense like that, could they have possibly shot the
(04:56):
bomb down.
Speaker 2 (04:56):
Sure, it's possible.
Speaker 3 (04:57):
I mean, we've got defenses now that will stop up
a tank round or a mortar round or that type
of thing. So you know, hitting a bomb from the
sky is not out of the realm technical ability, and
it's a big target.
Speaker 2 (05:09):
It's a big bomb.
Speaker 1 (05:10):
Pretty astounding. Okay, you've been trained thousands of hours over
the years. Would have had we know that this thing
appeared to be flawless, this whole sortie to Iran and
back to Missouri. What would happen if say Iran became
aware and jets came in the air would they are
they prepared in a B two to fight their jets
(05:34):
or was there other escort jets who would be alone
to take care of that business?
Speaker 3 (05:38):
So there were other escort aircraft. So think about the
magnitude of this strike. We had airplanes taking off from
three continents in North America, Europe.
Speaker 2 (05:47):
And Asia, possibly even Africa.
Speaker 3 (05:50):
I don't know what support assets might have come out
of Djibouti or not, but these aircraft all come together
at the right place at the right time, right, So
think about that. We've all had timing issues in Kentucky
between Central time and Eastern time going to the other
part of the state. But now you're taking global assets,
bringing them all together at one spot, and they have
(06:11):
a huge support package to go in with them. They
had unmanned aircraft. I feel pretty sure they had decoys,
they had fourth generation and fifth generation fighters going in.
So the way this would normally work is you'd have
the intelligence surveillance re connaissance aircraft monitoring the situation. Then
you have fighters like F fifteens or F twenty two's
(06:32):
going ahead of you to make sure that no Iranian
aircraft are going to fly. You have F sixteens or
F eighteens from the Navy with high speed anti radiation
missiles that can shoot down or can shoot enemy radars
to keep them from launching missiles. And then the smallest
radar object of all of that, the B two, comes
(06:52):
in and hits the target. And so it's very little
chance that anybody would even see the B two on radar.
They're not invisible to radar, but they're very very very
difficult to find.
Speaker 1 (07:01):
Pretty close to it, that's right. And then the decoy
you already used that word. I've found that fascinating too,
that things were launched to in case someone's watching. Well,
there are eyeballs on everything that goes on worldwide. They
send up a decoy to make somebody what, to rattle
somebody's cage and go, oh, what's happening here? And that's
just a complete trick to get people fixated on something
(07:23):
that's happening elsewhere, like a magician does well.
Speaker 2 (07:26):
So we like to call that in the military tactical deception.
Speaker 3 (07:29):
And there's been no operation that the US military has
done that I've been a part of where we have
not used tactical deception of some form. Some levels of
tactical reception will be classified for forever. Others become evident
after the fact. You know, you do things like in
a normal training and exercise and bases where you'll have
four airplanes take off, you'll have two airplanes land and
the other two airplanes will land somewhere else, to see
(07:50):
if you can slowly get airplanes off your base without
people knowing. You'll do different things like pick different call signs,
like different flight patterns, do anything that you want to
print upon an enemy, and then do something different when
it comes time to do it. So that happens all
the time. The enemy does us, we do to them.
It happens all the time.
Speaker 1 (08:09):
Yeah, on a different subject, we oftentimes see, you know,
Russian jets fly by our aircraft carriers along. I mean,
what keeps the US or any other power, I guess
from shooting down somebody who's messing with you.
Speaker 3 (08:23):
Well, the urge is probably there, but you know, normal
human restraint. I mean, these are common show of force
operations that are done in a lot of ways that
they're almost collegial. In some areas they're not. It could
turn deadly, like the episode that happened with the the
P three Orion with the Chinese in two thousand and one,
where a Chinese pilot was flying too close to P three,
(08:46):
tried to do some acrobatics that I guess he was
not qualified to do and bumped the P three and
the Chinese aircraft went down. That pilot died, and then
our aircraft did an emergency landing into Hainan Island, if.
Speaker 2 (08:58):
You remember that. So there's a lot of there's a
lot of restraint on both sides.
Speaker 3 (09:04):
On all sides international airspace, there are all kinds of rules,
and even in those show of force type operations, aircraft
will follow the rules. For example, you do not cross
the bow of a warship. That is an aggressive act.
You can fly alongside the warship, but you don't cross
the bow. It's an aggressive act.
Speaker 1 (09:20):
You're just messing with him though, but still.
Speaker 3 (09:22):
Right, and so you know they know you know you're
being messed with, they know they're messing with you, and
it's almost it's not you know, it's not without its dangers,
but it's it's all very controlled.
Speaker 1 (09:33):
Seems like it would be a death wish, you know,
you know, it's like, dude, how did I know he
didn't have nefarious intentions?
Speaker 3 (09:41):
There's a bit of a gut check, but there's also
a level of you know, a bolt out of the
blue is probably not coming along those lines.
Speaker 1 (09:49):
Well, I'm fascinated to see what comes on if this
piece that's holding right now the ceasefire continues. But that
was certainly a statement made by the United States and
Israel in the last so many But there's a lot
of people doing amazing things in the military that I
think only get displayed every now and then.
Speaker 2 (10:08):
Well, let's be thankful for that.
Speaker 3 (10:10):
But yeah, when you take a look at what our
military just pulled off again, aircraft from three continents all
showing up at the same place, same time, under command
and control. And I guarantee you that strike was very,
very heavily watched and controlled all the way from takeoff
to landing. Just for the significance of it, it's impressive.
What we're able to do out of that, and as
(10:31):
far as the piece goes, you know, the whole purpose
of any military operation is to make a better state
of peace. So you know, we had the courage to
drop the bombs. Let's hope we have the moral courage
now to find a way to make the peace, because
that will be the ultimate resolution if we can find
a peaceful way forward with the Uranians and the Israelis.
Speaker 1 (10:49):
General Rob Gibbons, great to see you again, my friend.
Speaker 2 (10:51):
Thank you. Good to see as well.
Speaker 1 (10:53):
Coming right back on news radio. Wait forty whas M
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