8 Seconds to Save my Wingman | Operation Midnight Hammer | F-16 Wild Weasel "Glitch"
The Afterburn PodcastShow Notes
Operation Midnight Hammer through the eyes of the people who flew it. "Glitch" was one of the youngest F-16 pilots in the formation, flying his first combat deployment with the Wild Weasels who flew Suppression of Enemy Air Defenses ahead of the B-2 strike on Iran.
Watch the three-part documentary series on Afterburn Defense:
Part I: https://youtu.be/MgQ_X3Td8a4
Part II: https://youtu.be/GzdL6NMYDso
Part III: https://youtu.be/Xc22-2RaGSY
This is the full interview.
He was woken up at ten at night and told to pack a bag. In this conversation, he talks about the night over Yemen when a surface-to-air missile came off the ground at his formation and he had seconds to respond, why Rough Rider frightened him more than Iran did, the drive out to the jets before the strike, and the call he made to his girlfriend when he could not tell her where he was.
Before Iran, the 55th Fighter Squadron fought over Yemen in Operation Rough Rider, a sustained air campaign against Houthi surface-to-air threats. What they learned there is the reason the F-16 Block 50 and the AGM-88 HARM were part of the strike package on June 21st, 2025.
These interviews were recorded between December 2025 and January 2026 and preserve firsthand accounts from pilots, maintainers, intelligence officers, and logistics airmen who were there.
0:00 Becoming an F-16 Pilot
2:06 Preparing for the Spring Deployment
3:19 A Threat Environment Nobody Trained For
5:18 What the Outgoing Squadron Warned Them About
8:46 Flying the SEAD Mission in Combat
11:01 First Combat Sortie Over Yemen
12:32 A Missile Launch on My Scope
14:09 Watching a SAM Fired at My Formation
17:28 Getting the Call for Operation Midnight Hammer
21:17 Mission Planning for the Iran Strike
24:23 I Can't Tell You Where I Am
26:15 The Drive Out to the Jets
31:41 Why Yemen Scared Me More Than Iran
35:28 Employing Over Iranian Airspace
37:57 How Tight the Fuel Was
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