Inspirit / Gate Three Drop Four in General

Inspirit / Gate Three Drop Four

Lola is playing her Grand Piano on a beach on a beach on the island of Brač, Croatia.

I am familiar with this island. Although from altitude it wsn’t nearly this pretty.

In 1994 the Bosnia conflict was in full swing. To get in and out of Bosnia we had to fly over part of Croatia. There was a line that started from the northeast corner of Vis, through the Southeast corner of Brač, over a strip of Croatia and into Bosnia. The line terminated over a spot in the air to the southeast of Tomslavgrad.

That line was called “Gate Three Drop Four.” Gate three being the beginning of the line and Drop Four being where we “dropped” into country.

There were five sets of Gates and Drops, and the only reason most of them didn’t have the same number was because one of the gates had two drops, so it threw off the numbering schema.

For those old enough to remember Air force pilot Scott O’Grady was shot down over Mrkonjić Grad. That would have been Drop two or three.

We learned radar navigation extensively in flight school, but truthfully never used it except going through the gates and drops. We didn’t have GPS yet, and our INS was not nearly accurate enough to keep us in a 1NM corridor Croatia demanded.

So we’d drop the radar cursor where we needed to go, adjust heading until our course was on line with the boresight of the radar and go about our business.

Coming out was the reverse. Draw the line between the islands and go back to the boat.

Always at night.