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aviation

When a Pitts Special Nearly collided with RAF Jaguar Display Pilot

by Till Daisd November 23, 2021

“For a microsecond, time stands still. The huge red letters on the top wing and fuselage of the Pitts Special spell the name of a well-known cigarette. They sweep past my canopy in slow time. An open-mouthed, white-faced pilot looks across the incredibly small gap between us,” Ian Smith, Former RAF Jaguar Display Pilot

A portion of Flight Lieutenant Ian Smith’s story, “Showing It Off,” from Ian Hall’s book Jaguar Boys is included in the following article.

Speed 100kts decreasing; top of wingover.

It’s the 1979 RAF Innsworth display, and I’m operating out of Rhoose airport.

Fuel check; yes, just enough for the final high-speed pass.

Hard pull back down, and there’s the crowd line over my shoulder. Should get 600kts plus on this pass; not too much G on the pullout, don’t want to bleed off the speed. Radalt height 300ft, 200, 100; push forward to stop it from climbing as the speed continues to increase. Best not go too low on my first display; as well as all the brass, the aircrew appointers work here and I’d like a good posting at the end of this tour.

Background static coming through the headset: “Pitts positioning from hold to display point overhead at 8,000ft.”

“Pitts, hold off. Jaguar high-speed pass and display climb complete in one minute, acknowledge.”

“Roger.”

Perfect; timing spot on. There’s crowd center; 7g; pulling like a bastard into the vertical; quick check left, right, yup that’s vertical; boot full of rudder and aileron to get a vertical roll going; 5,000ft, 6,000ft, 7,000ft, 8,000ft; looking good. Where’s Rhoose? There’s the Bristol Channel, it will be somewhere over that way then.

Whoosh!

Airshow Close Call: That Time a Pitts Special Nearly Collided with RAF Jaguar Display Pilot Doing his Final High-Speed Pass

What the hell’s that?

For a microsecond, time stands still. The huge red letters on the top wing and fuselage of the Pitts Special spell the name of a well-known cigarette. They sweep past my canopy in slow time. An open-mouthed, white-faced pilot looks across the incredibly small gap between us. In an instant, he’s gone, leaving a shocked and very grumpy Jaguar pilot. I swear, if it had been one-to-one aerial combat I could have shot him twice in the head with a 9mm pistol, it was that close.

The Pitts pilot had ignored display protocol and ATC’s implicit instructions to hold off and had maneuvered, unobserved, into the overhead. The consequences of a mid-air crash over the display don’t bear thinking about.

However, no time to dwell on that, I’ll be able to have a frank and meaningful discussion with him later. I now need to head back to Rhoose, that high-speed pass had used up more fuel than I thought. A quick calculation; from my altitude of 20,000ft an idle/idle approach shouldn’t use up much fuel. An idle run-in and break, and there’ll be enough fuel to taxi onto the ramp where the ground crew waits to get the aircraft turned round for the Rhoose display in the afternoon.

“How did it go, Sir?” asks Mac as I sit in a trance, locked silently in my thoughts at 8,000ft over Innsworth, musing about what could so easily have been my premature demise.

“What? Oh, no problems. Well, nearly no problems. Where are the bloody Pitts team parked?”

Former RAF Jaguar pilot tells the story of when he was shot down by a RAF Phantom interceptor

What a start to the first display of my first season of Jaguar display flying. During this and the following two seasons, I can honestly say I never got closer to early retirement to the big crew room in the sky. I learned my first lesson in display flying on that sunny day; never ever relax until the jet is in the hangar and you are in the bar.

Photo by Tim Felce (Airwolfhound) and Rob Schleiffert from Holland via Wikipedia, and Flickr

November 23, 2021 0 comment

History

Recalling the tragic 1983 U.S. attack on Lebanon

by Till Daisd November 23, 2021

written by Till Daisd

Lt. Mark Adam Lange, a member of the A-6 crew, was injured during the ejection and passed away shortly after. After being handed over to Syrian forces, B/N Lt. Bobby Goodman spent many weeks in a detention facility close to Damascus

During the Vietnam War, the Grumman A-6 Intruder served as the “Main Battery” of carrier aviation. It was still in use by the US Navy and US Marine Corps in 1996. The A-6 was still the most potent strike aircraft on a carrier flight deck during the 1983 American attack on Lebanon because it was a true all-weather, day/night precision bomber.

The USS Independence (CV-62) continued after Operation Urgent Fury in Grenada in 1983 and eventually replaced USS Eisenhower (CVN-69), which was departing for home. These were still the days when the Sixth Fleet had two carriers assigned, and CV-62 joined USS John F. Kennedy (CV-67), which had CVW-3 — the first “dual A-6” air wing — onboard, as explained by Rick Morgan in his book A-6 Intruder Units 1974-96. Vice Adm. Jerry O. Tuttle, a renowned naval aviator with a background in light attacks, served as both the commander of Carrier Group Two and the commander of the Battle Fleet Sixth Fleet while serving as the senior officer on board CV-67.

The collapse of Lebanon, formerly known as “the Paris of the Middle East,” was at the forefront of world events at this time as many parties engaged in violence and disorder while citing various religious reasons. In order to help stabilize a fast destabilizing situation, the U.S. government sent Marines ashore in Beirut out of concern for a much larger battle involving Syria and Israel. To demonstrate the nation’s resolve, it also positioned two carriers offshore.

According to one of Turtle’s staff officers, Lt. Cdr. Joe Hulsey, ‘we had been on constant alert for weeks, with one carrier being in “alert 30” with aircraft fully loaded and crews briefed, while the other flight deck conducted normal flight ops. This changed every 24 hours in order to share the load. The force was ready, having prepared more than 300 potential targets in the region. We had timing and weapons loads planned for all of them, and all of this information was sent up the chain to Sixth Fleet and CINCEUR [Commander in Chief, US Forces Europe] so that they’d know what we were prepared to do. On top of that, we had Jerry Tuttle in charge. He was exactly who you’d want in that position if you were going over the beach.’

Up until around December 1, when the carriers got orders to stand down from constant alert, the hair-trigger state persisted. Then, at around 03:30 on the morning of the third, a Flash order from Sixth Fleet arrived with a four-hour time on target (ToT) for carrying out strikes against six particular targets in Lebanon. The staff initially thought the order had been sent inadvertently, but as voice and message traffic emerged between the ships and Sixth Fleet, it became clear that “somebody” much higher had ordered military action without giving a damn about what it would take for the operational forces to actually carry it out.

The right ordnance was not loaded, the crews were not briefed, and the aircraft were not ready or correctly spotted on the flight deck. Additionally, only one of the six designated targets had really been prepared by the ships, and the other five were brand-new and were thought to have no military significance. While the ships rapidly woke up, it was confirmed that the ToT was an absolute that had to be met, which led to an all-hands effort to carry out their orders.

What followed was a disaster.

Remembering the ill-fated 1983 U.S. strike on Lebanon — Vought A-7E Corsair II aircraft of attack squadrons VA-15 Valions and VA-87 Golden Warriors of Carrier Air Wing Six (CVW-6) line the flight deck of the aircraft carrier USS Independence (CV-62) in December 1983. The carrier was operating off the coast of Lebanon in support of the multinational peacekeeping force in Beirut. In October 1983 Independence took part in the invasion of Grenada.

Kennedy launched 12 Intruders, of which seven were from VA-85 and five were from VA-75. Independence also put five Intruders up in the air, along with several KA-6Ds (from VA-176). Along with the Tomcats and Prowlers from both carriers, the ‘Indy’ A-7Es also participated. Due to time constraints, ammunition loads were sometimes limited for their intended targets, Syrian tanks, and AAA sites in Lebanon’s Bekaa Valley, near the Syrian border. Only one Kennedy Intruder managed to escape with a full bomb load. At middle altitude at dawn, aircraft lost contact with the ground and were quickly surrounded by missiles and AAA. The sky was replete with infrared-guided weapons that were immune to the Prowlers’ magic, while EA-6Bs seemed to render any radar-guided SAMs useless.

Buckeye 556 (BuNo 152915), the only Intruder that was fully loaded, had to work hard to keep up with the rest of the formation. Both B/N Lt. Bobby Goodman and pilot Lt. Mark Adam Lange were present on board. As aircraft attempted to dodge the SAMs rising from the ground, the sky was flooded with flares and infrared decoys. A Syrian 9K31 Strela-1 or Strela-2 infrared-guided SAM shortly struck “Buckeye 556,” most likely. Lange soon passed away from wounds sustained during the crew’s ejection from the aircraft. Goodman was handed over to Syrian forces and subsequently jailed for several weeks not far from Damascus. After a flurry of diplomatic activity, including Reverend Jesse Jackson’s attendance, he would be freed.

The Intruders and Corsair IIs delivered weapons through the hail of fire, with VA-176 particularly dropping 25 Mk 82s, 23 Mk 83s, and 30 Rockeyes on its designated targets.

While flying VA-15 A-7E “Active Boy 305” (BuNo 157468), CAG-6 Cdr. Ed. Andrews assumed control of the search and rescue operation for the downed Intruder. He was shortly struck by an infrared-guided SAM himself and was forced to eject. He was later picked up by a helpful fisherman and transferred back to the U.S. Navy. A VA-15 Corsair II called “Active Boy 314” (BuNo 157458) was also struck, but its pilot was able to board Independence and make a full recovery.

Here's how A-6 Intruder crews dodged SAMs and MiGs in the skies over Vietnam

As stated by Lt. Cdr. Hulsey, ‘even six more hours would’ve made all the difference in the world, but they wouldn’t give it to us. We found out later that the source (presumably out of Washington, D.C.) didn’t even get the time zone conversion right in the message, which cost us at least two more hours to prepare.’ As the saying goes, ‘Success has a thousand fathers while failure dies an orphan.’ In this case, it is still unclear who chose the target and ToT. Even though the bombing results were deemed “effective” in official reports, there was a rapid and long-lasting bitter taste of the strike on both ships and across carrier aviation. Professionally, the incident was regarded as nothing less than a failure. As a result, several modifications were made, including the establishment of “Strike U” at Fallon to create and disseminate more successful air wing tactics.

Photo by U.S. Navy

A-6 Intruder Units 1974-96 is published by Osprey Publishing and is available to order here.

November 23, 2021 0 comment

Cold War

A crewless RAF Tornado flew away after the Navigator ejected himself and his pilot from their serviceable aircraft

by Till Daisd November 23, 2021

written by Till Daisd

We may only imagine the front-seater’s feelings as, from his parachute, he watched his Tornado disappear over the horizon

The following article contains excerpts from Group Captain Ian Hall’s story titled Blind and Deaf which appears in Ian Hall’s book Tornado Boys.

Over the years, there have been all sorts of odd instances of aircraft being left without the optimum number of crewmembers. I recall a Phantom navigator ejecting, believing his aircraft to have some kind of terminal unserviceability, only for the fault to rectify itself and for the pilot to return to base solo. Early in the Harrier’s life in Germany, a pilot suffered a catastrophic power loss following a compressor stall.

Try as he might, he was unable to clear it, so was left with no option but to eject. As he floated down in his parachute, you may imagine his surprise when he saw his Harrier merrily accelerating away. Presumably, the rocket efflux from the ejection seat had restored order to the airflow through the engine intake. As soon as he’d returned to earth, our sharp cookie phoned base from a nearby farmhouse to inform them that an unmanned aircraft was now powering its way around Germany.

As you would imagine, this caused consternation; would it crash onto a city? So much so that the authorities considered launching a QRA Lightning to shoot it down. But, given that it was impossible to predict exactly where it would land after being shot down, this option was discarded. Eventually, the wretched aircraft ran out of fuel and crashed happily without any catastrophic consequences. The staff recommendation after this? If pilots have time, they should shut down the engine before ejecting.

That time a crewless RAF Tornado flew away after the Navigator ejected himself and his pilot from their serviceable aircraft

The Tornado wasn’t exempt from similarly unfortunate events, and a notable occurrence derived from one of the aircraft’s foibles. Not for nothing was it known as the ‘electric jet’, and one of its primary systems was the CSAS — the control stability augmentation system. This was designed to make an airframe that was somewhat unstable into a flyable machine. But when the CSAS failed it was a real handful.

Early in the Tornado’s career crews became aware of occasional unexplained control inputs, and after a while and a bit of data analysis, these perturbations pinned down to the CSAS reacting to transmissions from radio masts. So much that low-flying charts began to sprout avoidance circles around the worst of these — known as HIRTAs — high-intensity radio transmission areas.

A chap on my squadron had previously fallen victim to this, in combination with another of the jet’s peculiarities — its command ejection system. The Tornado has a system whereby, in just such an eventuality (it was designed primarily with combat damage in mind) the nav may eject both crewmembers. But pilots are a conservative bunch and enabling this system had not, at that time, been standard, practice.

Naturally, that event prompted much head-scratching, and its aftermath caused a change in procedure, with the command ejection system subsequently being enabled as a matter of routine. But the law of unintended consequences was never more apparent than in my friend’s accident. One fine day he was trundling happily down through Germany at a low level when he became aware of a USAF A-10 Thunderbolt crossing his nose at fairly short range. Short enough to cause him to take evasive action. His trusty back-seater, surprised by this violent maneuver, glanced out of the window. Spying a large transmission mast nearby he assumed that the CSAS was being interfered with and that the jet was out of control. Whereupon he decided that the only way was out, and without further ado, he pulled his yellow and black handle.

That time a RAF Tornado made an emergency landing at F-117's top-secret Tonopah Air Force Base

It now is the standard operating procedure, his command ejection lever had been selected to ‘both’ — so his pilot followed him out in short order. We may only imagine the front-seater’s feelings as, from his parachute, he watched his perfectly serviceable Tornado disappearing over the horizon. Whether or not the A-10 pilot claimed a kill, we may only surmise. But the lesson from that accident was obvious; technology is a marvelous thing, but crewmembers still needed to talk to each other.

Photo by Kate Yates, BAe Heritage Centre and Mike Freer – Touchdown-aviation via Wikipedia

November 23, 2021 0 comment

Cold War

When Cuban-flown Angolan MiG-23 “accidentally” fired two missiles at a BAe 125 carrying the president of Botswana

by Till Daisd November 19, 2021

written by Till Daisd

For unknown reasons, the Angolan MiG-23 fired a missile, which blew the starboard engine clean off the BAe 125. A second missile hit the same engine after it had already left the aircraft

In exchange for South Africa withdrawing from the First Angolan Civil War and agreeing to hold UN-supervised elections for a new government in South-West Africa (SWA), Cuba and the Soviet Union agreed to a gradual withdrawal from the conflict in the middle of 1988. Then, the latter would gain independence and become Namibia. With this agreement, South Africa stopped directly supporting UNITA (União Nacional para an Independência Total de Angola), the country’s second-largest political party and the last major military opposition group, which was heavily supported by the United States, China, and South Africa.

FAPLA (Força Armadas Populares de Libertaceio de Angola, the Angolan military) and UNITA continued to fight when Cuba, the Soviet Union, and South Africa withdrew from Angola. To the surprise of many observers, the combined withdrawal did not spell the end for either organization. UNITA was able to continue operating because it had the continued support of the United States through Zaire and was well-protected by extensive minefields that South Africa had placed during its withdrawal. Additionally, MiG-23s from FAPA-DAA (Força Aérea Popular de Angola—Defesa Anti-Aviones, Angola People’s Air Force and Air Defence Force) kept up their vigorous patrols over the skies over southern Angola, attempting to intercept some of the several transport aircraft transporting supplies for insurgents.

Similar events occurred on August 6, 1988, when a MiG-23 intercepted a Botswana Air Wing BAe 125-800 over Angola, carrying the president of Botswana and eight other passengers at 35,000 feet (10,668 meters). The business jet’s starboard engine was completely destroyed by a missile fired by the Angolan interceptor for an unidentified reason. Once the missile departed the aircraft, a second one struck the same engine. At Kuito, Angola, the pilot regained control and executed an emergency landing. The Luanda government expressed regret for the error and covered the costs of the harm done.

In their book African MiGs Volume 2 Madagascar to Zimbabwe, Tom Cooper, Peter Weinert, Fabian Hin, and Mark Lepko received the following description of the events from Arthur Ricketts, the co-pilot of the Botswanan BAe 125-800 that the Angolan MiG-23 flown from Cuba intercepted and damaged:

“On 7 August 1988, Botswana. Defense Force Air Wing BAe 125-800 (serial ranger OK-1) was tasked to fly His Excellency J. K Quett Masire, President of Botswana, and eight other government officials from Gaborone to Luanda. The aircraft was crewed by Col Albert Scheffers, CO of the Air Wing, and me, Arthur Ricketts, employed as a transport and training captain with British Aerospace. Col Scheffers had completed his type conversion in the UK and I was continuing his line training in Botswana. I had been employed on the test program of the 125 series of aircraft for the previous eight years.

“The aircraft was cruising at FL 350 [10,668m] and had just passed a position report to Luanda after crossing over Kuito Bie. Without warning, the starboard engine of the aircraft was hit by what was later discovered to be an AA-2 Atoll missile fired from a MiG-21 of the Angolan Air Force. A second missile fired was assumed to have hit the engine after it departed the airframe. When hit, the aircraft was on autopilot. This tripped out with the impact of the missile and the aircraft pitched violently upwards, a shower of turbine and fan blades being seen by myself before I instinctively took control of the aircraft manually, rolling it off the top of a stall.

That time a Cuban-flown Angolan MiG-23 accidentally fired two missiles at a BAe 125 business jet carrying the president of Botswana — British Aerospace C-29A (BAe-125-800FI)

“At the point of impact Col Scheffers was rendered incapacitated by the instantaneous application of approximately 33g (calculated by the BAe stress engineers later on, based on damage to the fuselage frames), which threw him hard against the port cockpit wall, and he played no further part in the recovery of the aircraft. Also at this time the engineer traveling with us was thrown into the cockpit from the cabin. The aircraft sustained damage to the pressure cabin that resulted in an explosive decompression. At least one window was shattered by shrapnel from the engine, approximately a ton and a half of fuel was lost from the damaged starboard wing tanks, all radio navigation systems failed, and the cabin oxygen masks failed to deploy automatically.

“My first instinct was to regain control of the aircraft by rolling it away from the vertical and establishing a stable descent, which I achieved by the time we reached FL 280 [8,534m]. Initially, we were descending at about 6,000ft [1,829m] a minute, which gave me almost six minutes to sort everything out before arriving very hard in Africa! In that six minutes, I managed to transmit two Mayday calls, one to Luanda, which was apparently not received or understood, and the other on HF radio which was picked up and acted upon by Santa Maria in the Azores.

“I had substantial previous experience of flying in Africa and assessed that there was probably an airstrip of sorts at Kuito Bie, some 25 miles [40km] behind the point at which we were hit. During the descent, I had assessed the aircraft systems remaining and had made the decision to leave selecting flaps and landing gear until shortly before landing, not expecting them to work. However, when the engine departed the airframe, the quick-release couplings on the hydraulic pump, starter/ generator, and alternator did their job and I was able to have the use of flaps, undercarriage, and brakes, certainly necessary as the damage demanded a landing speed of approximately 150-160kt.

“Several passengers received injuries in addition to the crew, and these were attended to at the hospital in Kuito Bie, before we were eventually uplifted by a Gulfstream III (registration D2-ECB), to Luanda. President Masire was injured by a fan blade that penetrated the cabin and then his seatback. He was subsequently flown to England by the RAF for treatment.

“The captain’s name on the flight to Luanda was Pereira, and he kindly allowed me to fly the aircraft from the co-pilot’s seat. I was repatriated to Botswana by Beech King Air 200 (registration D2-ESO) via Luena Air Base in Angola, where I saw various MiG-17s and MiG-21s, but no MiG-23s as I remember. The base was a shambles, with hangars flattened and aircraft upside down all over that very large area. But, that — as they say — is yet another story!

“The aircraft that intercepted us was said to us to have been a MiG-21. It should have fired two AA-2 Atoll missiles. The information I have about that plane and the missiles is current as of the time when this happened. I can’t recollect the source but have never seen anything different quoted.

“This is the first and only account that has been written … As you can imagine, this was a ‘hot potato’ at the time, which is why I never commented on various reports of the incident. The only other account I am aware of is the record of an interview I gave to Air International News at the NBAA [National Business Aviation Association] show in Dallas, in 1989…

“I was subsequently awarded the Diploma of Outstanding Airmanship, in 1989, by the Fédération Aéronautique Internationale, an honor which is awarded only once a year.”

With regards to the same incident, Teniente-Colonel Eduardo Gonzalez (DAAFAR, Defensa Anti-Aérea Y Fuerza Aérea Revolucionaria, Cuban Revolutionary Air and Air Defense Force, ret.) provided the following commentary:

“During Operation Second Congress, in 1985, I personally intercepted (with GCI support), twice a month and in broad daylight, a huge Douglas DC-10 from Mozambique, flying over Mavinga and bound for Luanda. We were very pissed off because that airway was closed for all commercial traffic – or at least we asked a number of times for it to be closed to the ATC authorities in Luanda since it was a combat zone. Documents on this matter were signed but to no avail.

“I do not want to act as a ‘prophet of the past’ now, but at those times I was sure an incident involving a civilian airliner would happen sooner or later because violations of the war zone occurred almost on a daily basis. Remember that only two years earlier, the Soviets had shot down the South Korean Boeing 747, and only three years later — i.e. in the same year the interception of that BAe 125 occurred —an US cruiser shot down an Iranian Airbus. A responsible aircrew will never accept a flight plan that overfills a combat zone. I was terrified that if a passenger aircraft would enter that zone at night, my pilots and I could not establish a visual ID.

“We [Cubans], as the `world’s black sheep’, could not afford such a mistake. That’s why I instructed my pilots already in 1985 that before launching their missiles at any such target in daylight, they always had to establish a visual ID. Thus, I feel it must be told to Mr. Ricketts that it was a gross mistake for them to fly across a location known by every ‘newspaper in the universe as a war zone. Even more so with a VIP on board.

“The aircraft in question first came under fire from an Angolan SAM site near Cuito Cuanavale. They were in full readiness and attempted to identify the ‘bogie’. There was no ‘friendly’ answer and a ‘clear to fire’ order was issued. They fired four missiles but all missed: they were out of tune with the fire-control radar… Meanwhile, the information was forwarded to Menongue AB, and a Cuban pilot, Capt Albert Olivares Horta, scrambled in MiG-23ML C-479. He accelerated to Mach 1.9 to catch the intruder but never established a visual ID of the BAe 125 before opening fire… Horta fired two missiles. The first was an R-24T from the left-wing station no. 3. This scored a hit, and that was when Horta sighted his target for the first time. He then fired an R-24R from the right-wing station no. 4. To the luck of the crew and passengers in the targeted aircraft, this missile went astray…

“The name of the doctor who took care of all the injured was Ransin Cruz Mendez… I was not in Angola at the time, otherwise, I would keep hammering those cabrones [‘bastards’ in Cuban slang] to insist on visual ID before launching…

“C-479 was later lost due to engine-related problems. 1st Lt Eladio Avila ejected safely.”

Photo by U.S. Air Force and Torsten Maiwald via Wikipedia

November 19, 2021 0 comment

Cold War

Ex-C-5 pilot recounts the “Cockpit Cat Fight” between two female navigators on their first FRED mission

by Till Daisd November 16, 2021

written by Till Daisd

“Sandy, the pretty one, and Penny, the interesting one, hunched over the scope on the navigators’ station behind the pilot. Their voices rose in volume and their tone turned argumentative and aggressive,” Jay Lacklen, former C-5 pilot

Jay Lacklen is a former C-5 pilot with 12,500 flying hours and the author of two books, Flying the Line: An Air Force Pilot’s Journey and Flying the Line: An Air Force Pilot’s Journey Volume Two: Military Airlift Command. He’s working on the last book of the trilogy.

Women Enter The Cockpit, 1982

A significant change in Air Force culture began for me in 1982 when women entered the cockpit, in this case, as C-5 navigators. It began curiously for me.

On an early mission in my C-5 career as a copilot, two female navigators showed up on the flight. I’m not sure why we had two, but it caused problems on the segment coming out of Dhahran, Saudi Arabia, en route to Frankfurt, Germany.

I know this was early in my C-5 experience because we still had the band weather radar that wasn’t worth a damn. It showed dim spokes on its fished-out screen as it scanned the sky ahead and showed returns as ghostly, imprecise shadows with no color gradations to show intensity.

At this time, navigators were losing their mission. Inertial Navigation Systems (INS) had severely encroached on the navigator’s space on the crew and would soon eliminate them as Flight Management Systems (FMS) provided almost all the information navigators had previously provided to the pilots.

But in the early 1980s, navigators controlled the weather radar and processed information from the triple (INS) setup. This trek across the northern portion of the Saudi peninsula, of all the hundred times I made it, had the worst weather I ever saw over this terrain. Thunderstorms were everywhere, some visible, some not when we flew into a cloud deck. This is when near-fisticuffs broke out between the two female navigators.

Sandy and Penny, both first lieutenants, seemed to be getting along well up to this point, but interpreting the K-band returns under pressure progressively led to a raging argument about which way we should turn the aircraft to avoid storm cells.

Sandy, the pretty one, and Penny, the interesting one, hunched over the scope on the navigators’ station behind the pilot. Their voices rose in volume and their tone turned argumentative and aggressive.

We pilots grew frustrated with the argument; we just needed someone to tell us which way to turn. We were flying blind as the argument behind us grew in intensity. Being of equal rank and crew qualification, neither seemed to be in charge. Finally, one of the women stalked to the back to check her forms to see who held the earliest date of rank between them. That finally settled who would call the shots. I can’t remember which one it was, but we finally got information in a timely manner. Not an auspicious introduction to women in the cockpit as a catfight erupts on my first mission with the fairer sex.

Another indicator that things had changed in the crew force happened as we checked into our rooms at the Rhein-Main hotel. Sandy and I shared the same bathroom that joined our two rooms, early shades of a unisex privy. True, each of us could lock the other’s entry door, but doing so, noisily, announced that any of the various performances were about to begin. After a long flight, one of those would probably be one neither would want to share with the other but would have to.

Unfortunately, while we were diligent in locking the door in such situations to avoid a potentially unfortunate face-to-face in the bathroom, were less diligent about unlocking the other’s door when we left. This could prove catastrophic in the middle of the night when you arose in dire need of relief only to find your bathroom door locked. You could pound on the door or get semi-dressed and go out into the hallway to the other’s room entry do and knock on that, dancing in the hallway trying to hold it (and don’t for your key!).

The true catastrophe arrived when the other person had locked your bathroom door and left their room. Now you were truly screwed and would have to use the public bathroom in the lobby or find a housekeeper to enter their room and unlock your door.

And then, lascivious possibilities would arise in the mind. Such as, instead of locking the bathroom door, one of us would open it and step through instead—a rare possibility, I admit, but who knows what fantasy might lurk in Sandy’s libido? Since she was married, that limited the possibility even further, and she did not. But I had a string of such “limited possibilities” that actually happened to me previously with Air Force wives, so who knows?

The incredible story of the C-5 crew that performed three night air refuelings during a storm

And, besides, Penny was the more interesting of the two, so if I got to choose, I’d have selected her. But as with 99% of such fantasies, none of these happened except in my mind. Just as well.

Photo by Senior Airman Zachary Cacicia and Brett Snow / U.S. Air Force

November 16, 2021 0 comment

Cold War

A wife had her wedding ring flown at Mach 3

by Till Daisd November 10, 2021

written by Till Daisd

“Suddenly the wife began sliding her wedding ring off and handed it to me. She said, ‘I would love to have my ring flown at Mach 3,’” Richard H. Graham, SR-71 pilot

The following story appears in Col. Richard H. Graham’s book Flying the SR-71 Blackbird.

At a Wife’s Insistence

Sometimes visitors would ask if we would take a personal trinket of theirs on a Mach 3 flight. Some of the items I’ve taken up with me are coins, dollar bills, American flags, unit patches, and pilot wings.

Once at Det 1, a husband and wife were watching Don and me suit up for a mission. After all the pressure-suit checks were done, I casually asked if there was anything they would like me to take up for them. They looked at each other with a blank stare for a second or two, when suddenly the wife began sliding her wedding ring off and handed it to me. She said, “I would love to have my ring flown at Mach 3.”

I sensed the husband was uneasy with this. He emphatically said, “No!” as he reached out to get the ring back from me. Not wanting a family argument in PSD [physiological support division], I handed it to him and said, “It’s probably best anyway; it looks expensive and could get lost or damaged.”

I thought that was the end of it. She took the ring from him and proceeded to hand it back to me! This time I was smart enough to know not to reach out for the ring. She looked him square in the eyes and said, “My ring is going to fly at Mach 3!” She handed me the ring again, and this time hubby backed off. He knew she was getting serious, and this wasn’t the time or place for a family feud. I wrapped her wedding ring in a protective cloth and zipped it in one of my pressure-suit pockets. I’m not a good judge of diamond ring quality, but it was an impressive stone. The mission went well and the Mach 3 ring was returned to its happy owner!

Photo by U.S. Air Force photo by Tech. Sgt. Michael Haggerty

November 10, 2021 0 comment

Cold War

B-52D Diamond Lil tail gunner explains how he scored the last confirmed kill by a tail gunner in wartime

by Till Daisd November 10, 2021

written by Till Daisd

“I fired at the bandit until it ballooned to 3 times in intensity then suddenly disappeared from my radar scope at approximately 1,200 yards, 6:30 low. I expended 800 rounds in 3 bursts,” Airman 1st Class Albert Moore, B-52D Diamond Lil tail gunner

The B-52 Stratofortress close to the north gate would have a great Christmas Eve tale to tell if the landmarks at the U.S. Air Force Academy could speak.

That day in 1972, the crew of the B-52D, tail number 55-083, took off from Utapao Royal Thai Naval Airfield, as explained in the article Records detail MiG kill by ‘Diamond Lil’ tail gunner. Their mission was to bomb the North Vietnamese railroad yards at Thai Nguyen as part of Operation Linebacker II, which took place Dec. 18–29, 1972.

However, unlike present-day bombing missions, Diamond Lil’s crew faced enemy airpower. A North Vietnamese MiG-21 raced to intercept the B-52, callsign Ruby 3, and her crew. The Buff’s tail gunner, Airman 1st Class Albert Moore, noticed the MiG’s approach.

“I observed a target in my radar scope 8:30 o’clock, low at 8 miles,” he wrote six days later in his statement of claim for enemy aircraft destroyed. “I immediately notified the crew, and the bogie started closing rapidly. It stabilized at 4,000 yards at 6:30 o’clock. I called the pilot for evasive action and the EWO (electronic warfare officer) for chaff and flares.

“When the target got to 2,000 yards, I notified the crew that I was firing. I fired at the bandit until it ballooned to 3 times in intensity, then suddenly disappeared from my radar scope at approximately 1,200 yards, 6:30 low. I expended 800 rounds in 3 bursts.”

Here's how B-52 tail gunners made of the BUFF a MiG killer

Tech. Sgt. Clarence Chute, another gunner, verified the kill in his report.

“I went visual and saw the bandit on fire and falling away,” wrote Sergeant Chute, who was a gunner in Ruby 2. “Several pieces of the aircraft exploded, and the fire-ball disappeared in the undercast at my 6:30 position.”

The kill of Airman Moore is the last confirmed kill by a tail gunner employing machine guns in wartime, and one of only two confirmed kills by a B-52D during the Vietnam War.

Following the MiG kill, Airman Moore said, “On the way home, I wasn’t sure whether I should be happy or sad. You know, there was a guy in that MIG. I’m sure he would have wanted to fly home too. But it was a case of him or my crew. I’m glad it turned out the way it did. Yes, I’d go again. Do I want another MIG? No, but given the same set of circumstances, yes, I’d go for another one.” Moore died in 2009 at age 55.

Linebacker II brought the North Vietnamese government back to the negotiating table after earlier talks had broken down. A month after the campaign, North Vietnam and the United States signed a ceasefire agreement.

Diamond Lil kept on flying even after the Vietnam War had ended. Overall, it logged more than 15,000 flight hours and participated in over 200 combat missions between its commissioning in 1957 and its decommissioning in 1983. It came to the Academy shortly after it was decommissioned.

Photo by U.S. Air Force photo/Staff Sgt. Don Branum

November 10, 2021 0 comment

History

Carmine Vito: the only U-2 pilot to fly above Moscow

by Till Daisd November 9, 2021

written by Till Daisd

“I learned later that the Soviets launched at least five fighters to intercept my flight. Two planes took off initially. The lead plane aborted takeoff ran off the runway and exploded. The wingman went through lead’s flames and then bailed out. Two more airplanes scrambled and were refueled in the air. Those airplanes got lost or collided. The pilots bailed out. A fifth plane scrambled but couldn’t find the tanker. He was lost and never found to this day,” Carmine Vito, the only U-2 pilot to fly over Moscow

The first flight of the original U-2A, which Kelly Johnson and the Lockheed Skunk Works built with total secrecy, took place in August 1955. The president and other U.S. decision-makers received crucial intelligence about Soviet military capacity during the first flights over the Soviet Union in the late 1950s. Its employment was kept a secret until Francis Gary Powers’s U-2 was shot down by a surface-to-air missile on May 1, 1960, when it was conducting a reconnaissance trip over Soviet territory.

The only U-2 pilot to fly directly over Moscow was Carmine Vito, one of the original six pilots trained to operate the high-altitude reconnaissance aircraft for the CIA. His journey, which the pilots referred to as a “hot flight,” was the third operational flight into a possibly hostile country, as explained by Eric Hehs in his article Carmine Vito: U-2 Pilot for Code One Magazine. On June 20, 1956, Carl Overstreet made the first U-2 flight of its kind. East Germany and Poland were included in the mission.

After that, on July 4, Hervy Stockman flew over Soviet territory, traveling as far north as Leningrad to photograph naval shipyards and then west to the Baltic States to photograph bases for jet bombers. Marty Knutson, Glen Dunaway, and Jake Kratt piloted the fourth, fifth, and sixth missions. All were successful.

The story of Carmine Vito, the only U-2 pilot to fly over Moscow — Early U-2 pilots had to resign their military commissions before joining the CIA as civilians, a process they referred to as “sheep dipping.”

“The Russians launched planes to intercept Overstreet on the first flight,” notes Vito. “But they couldn’t reach him.” Soviet radar also picked up Stockman’s flight. Many MiG fighters sprang into action to intercept him as well. The intercepts, like earlier flights, were unsuccessful. Soviet fighters were unable to get close to the necessary height to bring the soaring U-2 down.

When the orders to fly came, Vito’s selection for the Moscow mission was more a result of chance than of planning. Twelve hours before takeoff, headquarters would generally send an alarm message to the Wiesbaden U-2 detachment. Normally, the message arrived before 5:00 p.m. The ground staff and pilots prepared for the flight throughout those twelve hours. The aircraft, engine, and cameras underwent ground inspections by teams from Lockheed, Pratt & Whitney, and Kodak. To combat the effects of rapid decompression, pilots put on their specialized partial pressure suits and breathed pure oxygen (the bends). Before being granted the all-clear to take off, U-2 pilots had to spend at least two hours “on the hose” to expel nitrogen from their blood.

“Without a go signal from headquarters, everyone headed for the club after five that evening,” explains Vito. “On that particular weekend, the 4th of July, most everyone was celebrating. When the late go came down from headquarters, I was the only one who had had only one drink. So, even though our order of mission flights had been predetermined by drawing straws, I was selected for the mission.”

After recalling this specific U-2 mission for 46 years, Vito is unsure if he is speaking from true memories or memories of earlier descriptions. Whatever the case, he recalls the fireworks display that kept him up that night and the required steak and egg meal the next morning. “They always fed us steak and eggs before a flight,” he says. “I didn’t want steak and eggs at two in the morning, but they were on the checklist. So I had to eat.”

Vito went through Krakow, Poland, before continuing to Brest and Baranovici in Ukraine. On his trip to the Soviet capital, he continued along this east-northeasterly course while flying over Minsk.

The mission began in bad weather. “We had about 200 feet of visibility on the ground,” recalls Vito. “The sky was clear at 3,000 to 4,000 feet, but I had undercast halfway inbound.” The weather cleared as Vito followed a railroad line from Minsk to Moscow. At an altitude of more than 66,000 feet, he listened to Peter and the Wolf, a Russian musical composition with narration, transmitted from a Soviet radio station. Small mosaic fields from the collective farms passed below him. “Those fields reminded me that Russian farmers tilled the land by hand,” he says. “I couldn’t get mad at people who work that hard. I was never mad at the Soviet people themselves, just at their government.”

Vito’s mission carried him directly over Moscow and the vast array of recently constructed air defenses that encircled the city in three concentric circles at a distance of twenty, forty, and sixty miles. The metropolis was hidden by a hazy sky. “My bubble burst,” Vito recalls. “I thought, Gee I came all this way for nothing. But the filters on my camera cut through the haze. A year or so later, I learned that the resulting film picked up some remarkable detail.”

A CIA history of the U-2 claims that Vito’s flight captured photographs of the Fili airframe facility, where the Soviets were constructing their first jet bomber—known to the West as the Bison—as well as a bomber arsenal in Ramenskoye, a rocket engine plant in Khimki, and a missile plant in Kaliningrad. He turned north toward the Baltic coast from about east of Moscow before turning back south toward West Germany.

“I learned later that the Soviets launched at least five fighters to intercept my flight,” says Vito. “Two planes took off initially. The lead plane aborted takeoff ran off the runway, and exploded. The wingman went through the lead’s flames and then bailed out. Two more airplanes scrambled and were refueled in the air. Those airplanes got lost or collided. The pilots bailed out. A fifth plane scrambled but couldn’t find the tanker. He was lost and never found to this day.” Vito never received credit for five aerial victories. “After all, I never fired a shot,” he says.

On his way back to West Germany, the Canadian radar came on the air: “Lone Ranger, this is Tonto. Keep heading the way you are going. You have twenty-two minutes to touchdown.”

“I knew they were talking to me because they had the best radar around and had picked us up on previous flights,” recalls Vito. “But U-2 pilots had to observe complete silence on the radio. To this day, I wish I could have replied, ‘Ti Ee Kemosabe.’”

Vito logged over 450 hours on about 65 flights in the U-2 between 1955 and 1959. In the first U-2C at Edwards AFB, he made his final flight. In August 1960, he left the CIA’s U-2 headquarters.

Photo by Lockheed Martin

November 9, 2021 0 comment

Cold War

Ex RAF Jaguar pilot recounts being shot down by an RAF Phantom interceptor

by Till Daisd November 9, 2021

written by Till Daisd

“Giving up on the medics, we decided it was time for the bar and he offered me a lift home. Only on the way back to Brüggen did I find out what had happened. The Phantom I had seen fly over the farmer’s field had shot me down!” Group Captain Steve Griggs, former RAF Jaguar pilot

The following article contains excerpts from Group Captain Steve Griggs’s story titled With Friends Like These which appears in Ian Hall’s book Jaguar Boys.

Bang! The aircraft was yawing violently to the right, and not responding to the controls; I heard the canopy shattering. I hear Paddy’s voice from the other aircraft yelling “Eject! Eject!” Thought process — he must know what is going on because I certainly don’t! Result — I eject.

There was a violent explosion, my head was driven down to the breastplate of my lifejacket, I had a vision of the floor of the cockpit dropping away, a snatch of a parachute opening, wrenching pain in my right hand (fool, let go of the seat handle!), then a moment of blissful quiet before the ground below began approaching rapidly. Now, what did the physical training instructors tell us about parachute rolls on landing? Can’t remember in time and — thump, I land completely out of control in a field — and it hurts. Look up and think, momentarily, that I might be in heaven (I was a young, bachelor flight lieutenant at the time) as a blonde vision of loveliness dressed in tight-fitting jodhpurs ran over to me, followed her father (blast!).

“It must be your birthday,” Gerd Molleken (ex-cavalry officer) said. Still distracted by the vision of Germanic loveliness peering (fondly?) at me, I somewhat confusingly replied, “no, that’s not until September”, which seemed to perplex them both.

I was being helped to my feet and gathering my parachute and various bits together when alone Phantom flew overhead, very low down.

“Did you see what happened?” I asked the farmer.
He did not, and neither did I know what had happened, except that I thought that it was odd for the F-4 to be alone — they normally flew as pairs. Could I have had mid-air with his mate? They were questions for later since a bottle of brandy had now been produced and hospitality offered (not my daughter, unfortunately). Pausing only to make a quick phone call to Brüggen to relay the news (apparently disturbing the station commander during the annual formal inspection lunch) we attacked the bottle. Remember, this was in the years before compulsory ‘medicals’ following accidents; i.e. I would have compromised the blood test. Still, morale, welfare and not offending the farmer were much higher priorities in my mind at the time — as well as his daughter.

The farmer seemed quite unperturbed by the whole event. Little did I know that he was quite used to having aircraft crash into his fields. A Harrier had ended up there a few years earlier, and his cash register was already ringing up the latest invoice for compensation. Several glasses of brandy later (not sure if they went onto the bill), the sound of a chopper was heard, and a lift back to Brüggen given the courtesy of the German air force. I was rushed to the medical center for a quick check-up, to be met by Paddy and other members of 14 Squadron (I was in Staneval Weapons at Brüggen and was flying with 14 Squadron that day) with bottles of beer stuffed in their pockets. I was waved off for a rather wobbly ride to Wegberg Hospital for X-rays, etc; at that point, there was still no news of what had occurred. Even Paddy was in the dark; he had just happened to look back at me in time to see the aircraft explode and had had the presence of mind to immediately call for me to eject.

Wegberg Hospital was worse than useless. Having arrived in casualty covered in mud and with a cut chin, there was not a soul in sight, even though they had been told to expect me. Finally, I found someone who told me to go down the corridor and book in for an X-ray. That over, I sat around seemingly for ages waiting to see a doctor. I was getting bored and feeling in need of another beer, when, on cue, I walked Flight Lieutenant Brian Newby (I had been flying his ‘named’ aircraft Jaguar GR1 XX963). Giving up on the medics, we decided it was time for the bar, and he offered me a lift home. Only on the way back to Brüggen did I find out what had happened. The Phantom I had seen fly over the farmer’s field had shot me down!

So how did it happen? There I was minding my own business at 1,350ft, returning to Brüggen after a forward air controller training sortie as number two to Paddy Mullen, when the radar unit we were using warned of conflicting traffic ahead. The RWR lit up, which was not an unusual event in the corridor routing aircraft to and from the training areas to Brüggen and Wildenrath. Aircraft went out at 750ft and back at 1,350ft for deconfliction. The F-4s from Wildenrath often ‘painted’ aircraft to ensure their separation. What was unusual this time was that the CWI-band vector moved from front to rear. “Might not be a Phantom then,” I thought, “I could be picking up the Hawk surface-to-air missile site to the north – although that would be a fair distance away.” In the meantime, I saw a German F-104 pass down the starboard side — more of him later.

Hours before this the hooter had sounded at RAF Wildenrath (the Phantom FGR2 base) in the early hours of the morning for a station exercise. Aircraft and crews had been generated, and the aircraft loaded with live weapons in accordance with the normal policy for exercising quick-reaction forces in NATO. Once the required number of live-armed aircraft had been achieved, the aircraft was then de-armed prepared for training sorties loaded with acquisition rounds (inert missiles with real, heat-seeking heads). Crews were then to stand by to fly missions as directed by the SOC for training. For the purpose of such exercises, other RAF Germany aircraft were generally regarded as hostile targets, with fighter controllers scrambling the F-4s to intercept targets for training.

One crew, who shall remain nameless, was scrambled for such a mission in Phantom FGR2 XV422. They took off from RAF Wildenrath to mount a combat patrol under the control of the SOC. At approximately 1247 hrs, they were vectored onto a pair of Jaguars and told to engage the ‘hostile’ aircraft. Following standard procedures for a simulated attack, the Phantom closed on the Jaguars, and, when in an ideal position to complete what until that moment had been a typically routine engagement, the pilot pulled the missile release trigger. This should only have produced a witness mark on the radar film to record the intercept. Instead, as the pilot said later, the growl from the missile seeker transferred to his other ear (now indicating the missile on the other wing), and the first missile was launched.

Dumbfounded he watched, powerless to influence the outcome, (the Sidewinder being a fire-and-forget weapon) as the missile exhaust trail headed off towards my aircraft. He was not even on the same radio frequency as me, and we in turn had not been made aware that we were to be intercepted for training. The AIM-9G missile hit my aircraft, with my complete tail section behind the wing breaking away and the front part of the aircraft (with me still inside) entering a flat spin.

I cannot begin to imagine what was going through the poor guys’ minds on their way back to Wildenrath; it is a bit difficult to explain away returning to base after a training flight with one missile fewer than when you started out! Indeed on the way back, I understand that they had some difficulty in convincing agencies of the reality of the event. At least they had the reassuring knowledge they had seen me eject safely.

Since I was well, with only a slight cut to the chin and not even back pain (I will be able to play golf the next day — albeit with a sore head), I decided to celebrate my lucky escape in the traditional way by putting on a barrel of beer in the mess. Since I did not know the F-4 crew, I invited them to attend to show that there were no hard feelings. To their credit, they entered into the lion’s den and came along, apologizing. It was later that evening that the Brüggen station commander discovered they were in the bar with me, and pointed out that this would not look good for the subsequent board of inquiry — since we could be accused of collaborating. Indeed the ‘party’ was subsequently misreported in the press as us ‘celebrating’ the loss of one of Her Majesty’s aircraft, a fact I tried to correct by a letter to The Telegraph.

At any rate, we split from the mess, with members of 14 Squadron taking the F-4 crew away for beers at the married quarters, and me being royally entertained by the combined efforts of members of 17, 20, and 31 Squadrons elsewhere on the patch.

Obviously, the accident was the result of a monumental cock-up. The board of inquiry found the crew of the Phantom to be negligent, but were they solely to blame? Having read the accident report, and spoken to those involved, the crew seemed to me to be the last link in an unbroken chain that was destined to result in an accident.

The crew had been called out late and had missed the start of the exercise. They were briefed hurriedly and were the last to be allocated an aircraft, which was live-armed. A simulated bomb incident forced them to evacuate the aircraft shelter and they were allocated another, which was also still armed with live weapons. The navigator noted that this aircraft had no red tape over the master armament switch, which would have denoted that the aircraft was live-armed. Halfway through a pee-break (flying and NBC kit hindering a speedy execution of this maneuver), they were scrambled by the SOC, which was also on exercise. The accident train was underway.

The report of the board of inquiry revealed that all of the safeguards provided for in the command and station operating and engineering orders relating to the carriage of live missiles were either ineffective or had not been complied with. The circuit breaker for the firing circuit was found not to be an effective device, even though it had been pulled to render the system inactive. The SOC fighter controller had not made a ‘check switches safe’ call because he had not been informed that the aircraft was carrying live weapons. Indeed, the operations officer at RAF Wildenrath had not passed the information to the SOC because he was not aware of it himself.

Despite these factors and the absence of the vital tape on the master arm switch, the crew was deemed by the board of inquiry to be negligent and (eventually) faced a court-martial which resulted in their being found guilty of negligence. The severe reprimand was given by the court, which was the lightest punishment possible, suggested that the court acknowledged that the crew was not solely to blame. The organization behind them was seen to be at fault, and following a comprehensive review, numerous changes were made to procedures.

The accident may seem unbelievable but vividly illustrates how pressure on individuals, combined with poor organization and inadequate orders, can lead to mistakes being made.

Photo by Rob Schleiffert from Holland via Wikipedia, MSgt. Don Sutherland / U.S. Air Force, Pinterest, Crown Copyright and Todd Pormealeau via sepecat.info

November 9, 2021 0 comment

Cold War

That time an RAF Tornado made an emergency landing at Tonopah AFB, home of the top-secret F-117

by Till Daisd November 7, 2021

written by Till Daisd

“The guys at Tonopah had a sense of humor after all, for the silhouette of an F-117 had been stenciled on each side of our tail fin,” Squadron Leader Wally Grout, former RAF Tornado navigator

The following article contains excerpts from Squadron Leader Wally Grout’s story titled Still Learning After All Those Years which appears in Ian Hall’s book Tornado Boys.

So there I was, just approaching my 40th birthday and all fired up to participate in my first Red Flag exercise in the States. After just four missions, my pilot and I were tasked as the lead crew for the package on 9 April 1990. I had spent my earlier years on the mighty Vulcan, having been posted from nav school as a navigator radar, and was lucky enough to be one of the first to cross over to the Tornado GR1 in January 1982. Red Flag was, at that time, a distant dream.

I was now on my second Tornado tour; I had 440 hours on type and, together with my pilot, was now to lead the planning and execution of a typically complex mission into the heart of Red Flag territory. I had come a long way.

Our mission was to penetrate the defenses and drop two inert 1,000 lb bombs into an airfield target using a loft maneuver. All Red Flag aircraft are fitted with telemetry pods and, much like Formula One racing cars, can transmit information back to the HQ so that supervisors and spectators can watch the progress of the ‘war’ on a big screen in real time.

We were airborne on time and proceeded to Caliente, our holding point for entry into the Red Flag area. Whilst orbiting, checking maps, timings, and aircraft systems we detected a fault; fuel was not feeding on the wings into the fuselage tanks. This problem was not insignificant and, although the checklist gave advice and possible solutions, the fault could lead to serious fuel imbalance and possible mission abort.

We were approximately three minutes from our push time; just sufficient to go through the initial actions from the checklist. But we had no time to see if the problem was cured.

We completed the pre-target checks, found the initial point, and performed the attack. Job did, bombs on target, time to recover. Once settled we did a routine op check. As we covered ‘fuel’ our heart rates increased. We had not cured the fuel transfer problem; both of us having been fully tied up with the mission, we’d not double-checked. It was now clear that we didn’t have enough usable fuel to get back to Nellis, even in a straight line.

The next few minutes seemed to last forever. From the map, Tonopah was our nearest diversion, and I gave my pilot the relevant track information. Simultaneously, we transmitted to Red Flag control that we were diverting with an emergency. In fact, with the telemetry pod ‘big brother’ probably knew already — but that call seemed to set the cat amongst the pigeons. Tonopah at that time was home to the USAF / Lockheed ‘skunk works’, a highly secret development site for the stealth bomber program. We all knew about the F-117 but, as yet, it hadn’t been officially cleared for public consumption.

You can now imagine the reaction over the radio. “Why do you need to go there? You cannot get there. What exactly is wrong with your aircraft? Why can’t you go to Indian Springs?” (a less sensitive diversion airfield). We even had our detachment commander quizzing us. All the time fuel was reducing and we were getting closer to Tonopah. Between us, we convinced all and sundry that our only alternative to Tonopah was an ejection over the desert. That shut them up, and we now got a period of relative quiet on the radio while we concentrated on getting our aircraft safely on the ground. We hadn’t really thought about what would happen after that.

After touching down we were instructed to clear the runway, stop, and shut down. We complied, made the seats safe, and raised the canopy.

What happened next is the stuff that makes Hollywood great. Several vehicles formed up in front of the aircraft, including one full of armed soldiers. Steps were brought and we climbed out. A USAF major greeted us; he confiscated the film cassettes from the HUD and the data recorder, told us that the aircraft would be looked after, and escorted us under armed guard to the operations center. Good job that I didn’t on this occasion have the 35mm camera I usually carried with me or they really would have thought we were spying! He guided us to a windowless room with blank walls and minimal furniture. We sat down, wondering what would happen next. We both felt reasonably relaxed, apart from the armed guards — after all, we had saved the aircraft and felt justified in our actions.

The major then explained our predicament. Landing at a top-secret establishment in the USA is not an everyday occurrence and we were now going to be questioned — or, as it later turned out, interrogated. Our interlocutor asked all the standard questions: name; rank; squadron; nationality; why we landed at Tonopah. And some more personal: marital status; family background; and educational qualifications. All the while, two large military personnel armed with carbines stood by the door.

Having finished with his questions the major left the room. After a few minutes, another male entered the room, dressed casually in civilian clothing. No introduction, no name given, just more questions. It was almost a repeat of those we had already answered. However, erring on the side of, ‘let’s not make waves’, we both answered them.

He left and we sat chatting about our situation while the guards remained in the doorway. It was now time for my bladder to complain; a post-flight comfort call was needed. I told the guards I needed the `john’. The response took me by surprise; a guard would have to escort me — I assume to prevent me from running amok. He duly stood a few races behind me as I took relief. I was escorted back to the room and we waited some more.

I then recall a further interrogator asking the same questions and getting the same responses. The major returned to tell us that our aircraft was now confiscated and that we would be flown back to Nellis in one of theirs. We would be told when we could have ours back, and we would be the only crew allowed to return to pick it up. He left us to puzzle why.

Soon we heard the sound of aircraft taxiing. We asked a guard if the F-117s were flying this afternoon, to which he shrugged. I said, “I suppose you have to wait until the surveillance satellites are clear before you fly the 117?” His response was standard USAF: “I do not know what you are talking about, sir.” Further questions elicited similar responses. We gave up. More aircraft noise from outside; more flying tonight? It was getting late in the afternoon.

Eventually our ‘friendly’ major returned with news that, for operational reasons, we would not be flying back to Nellis but it would be a road trip instead. We asked if the operational reason was the fact they were flying the F-117. He gave a non-committal smile.

More waiting, but then we were told that transport was available and asked to get our kit together. The next move stunned us both; we black cloth bags put over our heads. We were led out of the room and outside; we could hear the sound of jets but thought it better not to ask more questions. We were helped into the rear seats of a vehicle. As the doors closed, our guards in the front seats had a few words for us to digest. “Do not remove your blindfolds, we are live-armed.” “OK,” we said; the understatement of the year.

We drove in silence for what seemed an age. The bags had not been tied under our chins and I made a conscious effort to get a handle on the direction of travel by looking down and using the shadows; it was now getting close to sunset and I estimated that we had been traveling west for the majority of the time. When we finally stopped and the guards told us to remove our blindfolds, I turned around and could just see a tiny speck in the distance, which I assumed was an F-117 in the circuit. We were at the main gate and the aircraft must have been about fifteen miles away. What a main street to an airfield!

For our journey back to Nellis we were given brown paper ‘sacks’ of sandwiches, chocolate, and fruit juice — courtesy of the Tonopah fire department dinner lady. That was about the only friendly gesture we’d had all afternoon, and boy was the food welcome.

The welcome at Nellis was cool but not hostile. It came as rather a surprise to the RAF commander that we would be told when we could have our jet back. We hadn’t serviced the aircraft, but NATO air forces regularly exercised on each other aircraft so we assumed our ‘hosts’ had a capability. Furthermore, strange as it may seem, there was an RAF pilot on an exchange tour on the F-117 at the time. Indeed, digressing slightly, during the Iraq War an ex-Tornado pilot took an active part in operations, flying an F-117. But did we think we had got away with it?

The next day a telephone message told us to get over to the other side of Nellis field, where a USAF Beechcraft was waiting to take us to Tonopah. We were met by a very young USAF pilot; we boarded, made ourselves comfortable while the crew gave us a quick safety brief, and off we went. The pilot wanted to know why and how we had gone to Tonopah, and also asked if we needed anything doing to our aircraft.

As we approached the field the pilot informed us that we would have to be airborne in less than forty minutes after arrival. He couldn’t say why, but he let on that there would be jets out for flying. We were not allowed to see them but, as we broke into the circuit, he hinted that if we looked out of the starboard window we would get an extremely good view of two ‘invisible’ aircraft. Shame that I’d left my camera behind!

He dropped us close to our aircraft and, once again, armed guards watched us; our friendly major was on hand to see us off, repeating that we had forty minutes to get airborne. As we did an inspection we noticed that the guys at Tonopah had a sense of humor after all, for the silhouette of a stealth fighter had been stenciled on each side of our tail fin. And in the cockpit, tucked under the windscreen, was a police parking ticket for illegal parking on US military soil. We had with us a couple of squadron prints, one for operations and one for the fire department. As we gave these to our major he presented us with a print of the F-117, even though it didn’t officially exist. The last time I had the chance to look, the print was still on the walls of the crew room at Marham.

That’s not quite the end of the story. Having debriefed the engineers about our fuel problem, they did their investigation and found that the transfer valve was indeed not working. Hurrah, at least we got that bit right. However, in hindsight, that well-known exact science, we should have monitored the fuel flow more closely and, if necessary, aborted the mission. But you know how it is — leading the pack, adrenaline rush, must complete the task, and all those other excuses for not giving up. All very well in peacetime to press on — but what about real war?

Update: Mike Crutch, author of the book CVW: US Navy Carrier Air Wing Aircraft 1975-2015, brought to our attention that “a RAF Phantom FGR.2 (F-4M in the US speak) diverted there also during a RED FLAG, arriving back at Nellis with a day glo F-117 sticker and legend DON’T ASK. The diversion took place on Nov. 9, 1989, and the aircraft was Phantom FGR.2 serial XV476 (coded ‘S’ with No.56 Squadron, based at RAF Wattisham, UK but was part of a mix of airframes from UK and RAF Germany units as crews changed during RED FLAG). The zap was applied to the port engine intake.” Unfortunately, we couldn’t find any photo of this aircraft with the F-117 Zap.

Photo by Crown Copyright via Ian Hall, U.S. Air Force, and Mike Freer – Touchdown-aviation via Wikipedia

November 7, 2021 0 comment

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