By lex, on November 20th, 2007

Obviously the military places great store in obeying the orders of properly constituted authority – we can’t very well go around having a council of war at every different level once the whistle blows. But for all things there is a time, and for every rule an exception.

When I was a lieutenant I had a CO who used to warn us about the risks of ‘flathatting’ thus: “Don’t do it – if I catch you doing it I’ll kill you. If you’re going to do it anyway, then at least for God’s sake brief whatever it is that you’re going to do. I’ll still kill you if I catch you, but that’s better than having some stray wire cross inside your skull provoking you into an unconsidered act which not only kills you but also destroys one of my airplanes. If you at least brief it, think it through beforehand, you’ve got a much better chance of surviving – at least until you get home. You’ll be just as dead either way, but if I can’t make you think of your own life, wife, friends or family, I want you to at least think of the taxpayer.”

Clear guidance. Made sense.

The pre-flight brief, you see, is a binding contract. It’s what you say you’re going to do with the $40 million piece of equipment that government has lent you, and by implication, what you’re not going to do. If you find yourself having to call an audible in flight, it meant that the brief had been insufficiently thorough. Which is itself a “debrief point” – a rather benign sounding term which carries the connotation of having screwed something up.

Came to pass one night that I was up at beautiful Fallon, Nevada, getting a refresh ride in the FA-18 after my tour as an adversary pilot in Key West. I was all rigged out in my best go-fast gear and ready to rain death and destruction – well, 25 pound practice bombs with smoke charges anyway – on the circular bullseye at Bravo 20. High angle bombing it was, 10,000 foot AGL roll-in, 45 degree dive at 475 knots true airspeed and a 3000 foot AGL minimum recovery altitude.

The target was not so much illuminated – this was before night vision devices had become in vogue – as it was outlined by a cross-shaped series of lights. The trick was to roll in, hurtle yourself to the deck at ever increasing speed, align the dim symbology of your heads up display with the vertical axis of the target lights glimmering out of the gloom, place your weapons symbology at the theoretical intersection of the lateral axis and drop your MK76 into the pitch black hole in the middle. And then pull 4-5 g’s (which at night always ended up being more like 5-6 g’s – one each for momma and the kids) to avoid following your bomb into the target. Points on for accuracy, points off for breaking the minalt, game over for plowing in.

We tend to be simple people. We like simple rules.

Our flight lead and instructor pilot was a USAF major on exchange with the Navy. I was junior time-in-grade among the three mid-grade officers in my flight. Besides myself (dash-2) there was another lieutenant commander also on his way to a department head tour in dash-3. Since we were all relatively experienced pilots, the pre-flight brief was mercifully short: Start, taxi, take-off, rejoin, enroute, break-up, bomb, rejoin overhead, battle damage check and return to base for a 10-second break and landing. Emergencies and hung ordnance. Before too long we were airborne, joined and heading to the target.

Flight breakup, pattern entry and mud moving went exactly as briefed, with your humble narrator bearing away the prize for accuracy. Which it’s my story, innit? So I get to tell it any way I like, and that’s the way I remember it. As far as you know.

Rejoined overhead the target and checked my lead’s wings clear of ordnance. Three provided the same courtesy to me. Lead called on the radio to say that we should take cruise formation, since it was his intent to drop down to 500 feet AGL and surveil the lights around the target bullseye. On a dark night – darker than a hat full of *ssholes, as they say. Darker than six feet up a cow’s… well, you follow me I think: Dark.

In mountainous terrain. Without night vision devices. Did I mention that it was dark?

I briefly considered my options. The flight lead was in a position of authority, and he hadn’t asked us our opinion – he’d told us what to do. But this was not anything we’d even hinted at in the brief and suffice it to say it was a significant deviation from normal operations. I waited a bit for the more senior Navy guy in dash-3 to say something, but it remained quiet on the net. Finally I had to break the silence:

Your humble scribe: Do what?

Flight lead: You know, just drop down, take a look. Check it out.

YHS:

FL:

YHS: I’m detaching, I’ll see you guys back on deck.

FL: Say again?

YHS: We didn’t talk about this in the brief and I haven’t got the least intention of dropping down to 500 feet at night until I’ve got my wheels and flaps down on final approach to land. Good luck, though.

Now, I’ve always been a devil-take-the-hindmost kind of a guy, and nobody likes to be thought of as a “non-hack.” But neither are there any posthumous awards or citations attached to augering in on a training flight. I couldn’t order my seniors to abandon what I considered a stupidly risky idea with zero upside, but being in actual command of the aircraft I’d been loaned I could choose not to participate in it. In the end, the flight lead abandoned his scheme, I rejoined the flight and we headed back to the field for landing.

In the debrief I was fully prepared for some of that characteristic fighter pilot ululation, chest-thumping and high energy ego management, but as it turned out everyone was pretty thoughtful instead. It had been a pretty stupid idea.

I think maybe all of us learned about flying from that.

By lex, on October 2nd, 2007

Pictures of Arleigh Burkes refueling Russian Federation destroyers brings back memories that even in the bad old days, we still managed to have some fun. I’ve written before about the Bear Box and Gate Guard missions but may have failed to share a story I heard about that occurred during one ship’s transit through.

This particular ship was to start her transit of the box on Christmas Day, which was – in honor of the holiday – scheduled to be a day of relative rest. Holiday routine and a no-fly day to give the flight deck a day off. Since they were entering the Box and didn’t want to be caught flat-footed by long range bombers, they had changed course slightly, stood up alert 5 and 15 fighters and raised the EMCON status to increase the circle of uncertainty – they’d never be found!

Right.

Anyway, in celebration of the upcoming day and – secure in the knowledge that 1) There was no flight schedule to sweat, 2) they could sleep in a bit on holiday routine, and 3) even those godless communists wouldn’t dare come out on Christmas Day, many of the junior air wing bubbas decided to participate in miniature Christmas parties right there in their own staterooms. Complete with simulated adult beverages, the real thing being of course proscribed aboard ship by naval regulation. In celebration of the birth of Our Savior. And because Christmas at sea is kind of the suXx0r.

But there were two things about simulated adult beverages: 1) The power of suggestion is a remarkable thing. So much so that even simulated beverages invoked effects which the outside observer might have difficulty distinguishing from the real thing, and 2) You still needed ice. Lot’s of it.

The net effect of which was that one junior pilot, whom I shall call “Wes” – a man who, by 2330 or so, had probably had enough simulation for the evening – decided that, no: More ice was required. If only to ensure the continued high fidelity of the simulation. Those who loved him best might have prevented him from leaving the safety of his hootch, for simulation or not, if the Big XO were to find him out and about it in a simulated state it might very well mean the End of His Naval Career. Rules being rules.

Yet Wes was not to be dissuaded. Boldly he went forward to the dirty shirt wardroom with plastic bag in hand, and again, the disinterested observer might have noted from his gait that the ship seemed to pitch and roll more in his presence than it did for those both before and abaft him.

The air wing commander hisself – the “CAG,” a Navy captain and a man like all of his species both antiquated and humorless – was in the wardroom having his evening converse with the maintenance tong when our man Wes manuevered to the ice machine for to fill his little plastic bag. But what with all of the little simulated Christmas parties going on, the ice machine, she was empty.

These are industrial size machines, the kind that had not, in the memory of the Republic, ever gone empty before. Not in cold waters, anyway. So perhaps you could forgive Wes his first 45-60 seconds of breathily leaning on the dispense button. The machine loudly emitted evulsive sounds which precluded all conversation, but with all the will in the world it could not bring forth ice when there was none. The moment stretched on for a bit with the CAG forced to suspend his conversation while the machine fruitlessly bumped, coughed and wheezed.

Eventually he turned to Wes and with a hard look in his eye he nevertheless asked in a quiet voice, “What’s the matter, son? Have you wrenched your knee? Or something?”

Wes, who was not so fully simulated as to be unaware of the gravity of his predicament, made quick excuses before making an even more hasty exit. CAG, being a clever man as well as a post-graduate student of human nature, considered the sordid little tableau he had just witnessed in company with the protestations of the helplessly empty ice machine and decided that it would be best if he was to man the dawn alert 5 fighter himself.

From which position, at 0615 on Christmas Day, he rattled down the catapult and into the rosy-fingered dawn, the Communists having chosen to prove their godlessness by sending forth bombers in search of the task force.

Having intercepted the Bear at the appropriate distance from the carrier, he was riding shotgun in starboard cruise when a Soviet crewman pressed a sign up against the glass observation blister back by the stern gun. CAG pulled closer to read the sign which, as it turned out, spelled “Merry Christmas!” with a little smiley face.

The CAG directed his RIO in the back seat to make a little sign of their own. When it was complete, he moved closer to the Bear’s gunner and raised his own little personal salute to go with the sign in the back.

Which combination emphasized, “Fork You.” Or something very like it.

Good times.

By lex, on December 3rd, 2007

Training Command CQ aboard the USS Lexington, AVT-16, back in the late 80′s. The Lady Lex – as contrasted to your correspondent – was a wee, bitty thing with old fashioned equipment: A catapult that was “instant on” – none of your gradually increasing acceleration aboard the Lex – and arresting gear that required due diligence from the pilot and LSO combination to land on centerline, without any drift, since (unlike modern day arresting gear) it had no centering mechanism to keep Dilbert from getting dunked, if he landed in a drift.

Nossiree, at a mere 33,000 tons dripping wet, there wasn’t a lot to the old girl, and if a man wasn’t careful he might miss her entirely. It was all very well and good for student naval aviators to set out to land aboard her in the day time, not knowing any better. But even back in the day of such bantam weight vessels as the Coral Maru and Midway, the salty fleet veterans tended to purse their lips thoughtfully at the notion of conducting CQ aboard the last wooden deck carrier in the Navy, and the F-8 guys rushed out in a clutch to update their wills when the word came down that they’d be hurling themselves at the back end of the “Blue Ghost.” At night.

In an F-8.

(You’re probably not going to watch all of that. The F-8 ramp strike – day time – is the first video clip, and demonstrates how the Vought fighter could go from being on-and-on one second to you’re-forked-low in another. After that, well. You’re probably not going to want to watch all of that. I warned you.)

So. Anyway.

Dilbert was having a pretty good day of it, all things considered, flying his trusty TA-4J Skyhawk in his final Training Command CQ. Until that moment came when he fixated on the Fresnel lens – the technical term is “glomming”, as in “he glommed on to the ball” – neglecting his responsibilities in the article of line-up control. Paddles did their best, but it was to no effect. Our man landed left, drifting left. He stopped with his left main landing gear kissing the deck edge.

People got excited, too, which only contributed to our man’s already moderately advanced sense of unease. What with all the screaming and shouting. The Air Boss finally got through to him on his third or fourth, “Power back, power back – we’ve got you!” piece of friendly advice. At the top of his lungs.

When Dilbert finally did reduce his throttle the Boss asked him to look down and to his left, asking, “See that?”

Upon looking to his left, our man had to admit to himself that there was nothing between himself and the devil but the deep blue sea. “Yes sir,” he replied, his voice quavering a bit.

“You don’t want to see that,” the Boss finished.

“Tough love,” we calls it.