Was conversing with a flight school buddy of mine, and discussing our different flight experiences during the war. I finally took the time to write about one of the more pain-in-the-ass events, among many, that were thrown my way during that time. With a combination of a little skill, some luck, and some good outside people (other aircraft, ATC), the events took the turn for the good. For example, we had a jet nearly hit the ground during a night instrument approach. As the pilot was being directed to final for a non-precision (ATC radar out, reporting points in use); he'd had a long night mission and was pretty fatigued. After reporting established on the arc, he was given approach clearance, report FAF inbound. He commenced a descent from there and turned from the arc onto final (dark night, IMC). Unbeknownst to him his crosscheck had broken down, and as he was concentrating on the TACAN (VOR) intermittently breaking lock as he was trying to roll out on the inbound course, he missed the fact that he just blew through the intermediate altitude, and was headed at 1500 fpm to the ground below. The PAR radar was down, and some workers were doing maintenance on it. A PAR radar, unlike a terminal radar, has a very limited field of view up the glidepath (much like an ILS localizer)....it can't see traffic outside that, nor does it want to....it's job is to direct one aircraft at a time down the final approach path to a precision landing. Anyhow, the workers get the part installed that they need, and fire up the PAR scope. A 19 yr old Airman ATC apprentice, is up on approach frequency to coordinate with approach about their out-of-service surveillance radar. The PAR scope comes on, but it's only getting tested, so he's not paying too much attention to it, but he notices a secondary blip (the IFF of the A-10 on approach), just as it comes into the edge of his scope. The PAR radar had been down, since it had been giving erroneous target data from radar returns. The Airman sees the blip reading 5100' and descending. Not knowing if this is correct so far as the radar goes (whether it's working or not), but knowing full well that the altitude (if correct) is well below MVA, puts out a call on Guard "On Guard, aircraft approaching final, altitude alert, check altitude, terrain alert. Climb to 6400 immediately." The pilot in the A-10 hears this and, cross-checking his altitude, sees that it's him that's being talked to. He commences a pull while simultaneously rolling wings-level, and bottoms out at 150 AGL, it's later determined.
One of the situations I had that was one of the worst for me, both experience-wise, and workload-wise, was returning from a target that me and my wingman couldn't find due to WX in the target area, and crappy WX all over the AO. A KC-10 did a TCAS-rejoin onto us in IMC, and that was one of the ballsiest moves I'd ever witnessed. Strange, since IMC rendevous is only done with fighter aircraft that have radar. Non-standard, but necessary since I and #2 were extremely skosh on fuel and RTBing in IMC after being unable to get to our target due to the same WX. Field was down below mins, and the alternates were the same (unless I wanted to divert to Iran....). KC-10 said it was clear at 310 and above, but no way I was going to be able to make it up there, much less fuel up there. KC-10 picked us up on TCAS, rejoined on my six at 2 miles trail/1000' above and took about 30 knots overtake. Crossing above me, tanker AC says she's right overhead....I look up and can't see her through the clouds. She says he's going "Christmas tree" (turn on every light, bright-flash....if you've ever seen a tanker at night in peacetime, those damn things are lit bigger than Vegas). Still can't see her...only bright lights I've got are the bright-yellow "MASTER CAUTION" and two bright-red "L MAIN FUEL LOW' and "R-MAIN FUEL LOW lights staring me in the face. So she's overhead in the KC-10, co-heading and co-speed. I say I'm going to climb 500' and see what I can see. Climb and no-joy. Close the altitude to 300 feet vertical separation with the KC-10 right above me, and begin to make out a large white glow. All this time, wingman is tucked in close and flying off my slime lights as they disappear in and out of the clouds and rain. Close the distance to 200 feet vertical, and I can begin making out the lights clearer and the shape of the bottom of the KC-10 begin to take form. Pull it up to 100' vertical distance, and I can make out the KC-10 in the driving rain.
Now, mind you this was vertigo hell. Trying to look directly above me out a canopy in IMC, while still trying to maintain a heading, altitude, airspeed.....in essence, basic IFR flying...was painful. Moving the head around like that from horizontal at the instrument panel, to vertical looking at nothing and back again....the strangest cross-check I've ever done, was severly spatial-D inducing. It kept feeling like the plane was "falling-off" on the left wing, and my arm kept trying to roll me to the right to counter this false-feel. It was really difficult to have to physically keep my arm from trying to steer me into a right roll based on the false perceptions, regardless of what my attitude indicator was saying. In some situations, the "just follow your instruments" is easier said than done. There are situations where that's very difficult.
Anyhow, with us cruising 100' below the tanker and co-speed (try THAT crosscheck.....night/IMC/now formation....it was utterly painful). I slowly bleed off speed by 10 knots and "back us up" from underneath the tanker to behind the boom, while simultaneously keeping slight climb in order not to lose sight of the tanker. If we lose sight of the tanker in the WX right now, all bets are off......likely nylon letdown time. I don't even kick off my wingman to the tanker's wing, since I don't want him to possibly go lost-wingman while making that maneuver. The boomer comes on frequency and says she's got me in sight and to move right and aft to pre-contact so she can plug us, and asks us who needs to go first (this KC-10 was 2 male, 2 female crew.....female AC and boomer, male co and FE). I radio a quick "ops check" with fuel and determine that I'm still far lower than my wingman, since he had 600 pounds extra from the previous fueling (he wasn't paying attention to how much he wa taking on at the time with the KC-135 and took 600 pounds over fragged...an inattention error that was paying off in spades now, since he only had one "FUEL LOW LIGHT", and the other one was only flashing intermittently now). I sight the boom lights (a series of colored lights/markings on the boom itself for night ops) and its at mid-point indicating ready to fuel. I go to plug and overshoot the first try, nearly taking getting the boom bounced into the front canopy; clouds and rain are still rusing by giving a "Star Wars" effect, and the turbulance isn't helping either. I back up about 5 feet and move in again, mindful of the "FUEL LOW" warning lights staring me in the face like a bad dream that refuses to go away. As I approach the boom, in the heat of the moment, I'm unknowlingly focused only on the boom and trying to plug into it myself, disregarding the director lights on the bottom of the tanker that are telling me that I'm moving too far forward for the boom limits. I miss again, and feel the boom "clunk-thunk-thunk" as it hits the side of the nose of my plane. Sensing my trouble, the boomer comes on freq and says "1, just stabilize it into contact, follow the director lights, and I got you from there." I mentally kick myself for not being smooth at this critical point, and settle down. I move back into contact staring only at the director lights underneath the KC-10 and disregarding the refueling boom. Up/down light is steady green, while the fore/aft light is flashing yellow with the yellow "A" illuminated indicating I need to move aft about 2 feet. (On the tankers, there's two sets of lights underneath the jet, sorta a VASI if you will, the left set indicate down/up, the right set indicate fore/aft. Read from left to right..and back to front of the tanker, they read D-F-U-A....or an easy acronym to remember their meaning since they're not always clearly marked : Don't F*** Up Again). I move the throttle back a knob width and start drifting aft until the right director light goes from yellow to a steady green. I then see the boom maneuver into the nose receptacle, and with a CLUNK, I feel the hook up and see the "READY" status light next to the HUD change to "CONNECTED". I focus on flying good formation with the tanker and take a quick glance down and to my right to the fuel totalizer and see it increase by 100 lbs. I call "good flow", and the JP begins flowing. Soon, the "L MAIN FUEL LOW" light flickers and goes out, followed about 10 seconds by the other one for the right. I take 1000 more pounds above this, putting me at 2600 total, and punch the disconnect button on the stick, separating from the boom. I move out to the right, and make room for my wingman to connect. He moves into contact and misses once, settles, and connects with the boom on the second try. He goes ahead and tops off, while I move to a position abeam and slightly aft so I can be back in when he's complete. The flow rate is running slow for him filling up, or so it seems to me at least, but the boomer finally calls "no flow" indicating he's topped off. He disconncts and moves left and aft to take up a bastardized observation position. I move back in, and a little less stressed now, hook up the first time with 2300 showing on the totalizer. We were only fragged to take 6000 pounds of fuel each, but the tanker generously let us take what we needed. I was able to fill up from here, 11,000 pounds total. I disconnected, and thanked the tanker crew for the double-save, telling them they did a [censored]-hot job, drinks are on me it I ever make it to their base (they were based out-of-country). I get the "all in a night's work....now back to the boredom of the holding pattern....have a good night and happy hunting." With that, I began a descent to gain 2000 feet separation from the tanker so I could separate my own flight into a station-keeping formation. I glance up as the tanker disappears into the clouds and rain, climbing back to it's designated holding track and up into VMC to await the next customer....likely F-15s or 16s that can actually make it up to altitude where the WX is VMC to refuel.
I separate my wingman into a 2-4 mile trail and 1000' altitude stack, and we head to the IAF at our primary field and hold to wait out the WX. 45 minutes of holding in driving rain, IMC, we get approach clearance since WX has supposedly increased to viz mins (ceiling and viz are required, ceiling was barely good, we were awaiting the viz). My number 2 is 1000 feet lower than me in the hold, so he penetrates first and 5 minutes later, I get approach clearance. I hear him call the missed as I'm coming down the intermediate segment from the 20 DME arc to final (this is a non-precision TACAN. PAR is down). I get down the final leg to MDA and drive it into the VDP, seeing intermittent ground, but resisting the urge to duck-under, especially seeing as how I still had another 1+10 of fuel still; definately no need to pull crazy stunts. I look through the NVGs and look underneath them to see if I can "see" through the WX any better with one or the other, but still see nothing. Passing the VDP, I stay level and drive it to the missed approach point. Commencing missed at that point, I catch a quick glance of some helos parked on the ramp under the dim glow of the field below me. As soon as I see it, it's gone as I commence my missed and climb. #2 decides to get radar vectors back to final, and I follow him into the radar pattern. He gets vectored back, and I hear him land and rollout on approach frequency (we're the only two planes flying at 0200). I come down the final approach path and passing FAF, drive it down to the MDA quick-like to get the maximum time to find the runway. About 0.5 miles from the VDP, I see the field through the NVGs, and commence descent passing the VDP. I touch down in the rain and rollout, noting that the braking action is fair as the jet cruises through puddles of standing water on the runway. I tell approach good night and let them know I'm changing to ground as I clear at the end of the runway. Taxiing into dearm, I have my first chance to relax. I note the takeoff time, and come up with 5.3 total, 4.9 actual instrument, 4.0 NVG, 2 air refuelings, and 2 instrument approaches. I'm physically beat as the dearm crew hooks up to my jet and states "all switiches off/safe/normal, sir? So how was your night, anything exciting?"
I never did find out who that tanker crew was. If I can, I have some primo bottles of hootch, ala Gentleman Jack and more, that I need to give them.
If there's two groups of pilots/crews that never need to buy drinks, and are at the top of the list of importance, IMO, that's tanker crews and rescue crews. They're the ones that deserve the press and glamour, as do other crews for the fine job they do. No transports, no tankers, no rescue...ain't no fighters going to be able to prosecute any war.
One of the situations I had that was one of the worst for me, both experience-wise, and workload-wise, was returning from a target that me and my wingman couldn't find due to WX in the target area, and crappy WX all over the AO. A KC-10 did a TCAS-rejoin onto us in IMC, and that was one of the ballsiest moves I'd ever witnessed. Strange, since IMC rendevous is only done with fighter aircraft that have radar. Non-standard, but necessary since I and #2 were extremely skosh on fuel and RTBing in IMC after being unable to get to our target due to the same WX. Field was down below mins, and the alternates were the same (unless I wanted to divert to Iran....). KC-10 said it was clear at 310 and above, but no way I was going to be able to make it up there, much less fuel up there. KC-10 picked us up on TCAS, rejoined on my six at 2 miles trail/1000' above and took about 30 knots overtake. Crossing above me, tanker AC says she's right overhead....I look up and can't see her through the clouds. She says he's going "Christmas tree" (turn on every light, bright-flash....if you've ever seen a tanker at night in peacetime, those damn things are lit bigger than Vegas). Still can't see her...only bright lights I've got are the bright-yellow "MASTER CAUTION" and two bright-red "L MAIN FUEL LOW' and "R-MAIN FUEL LOW lights staring me in the face. So she's overhead in the KC-10, co-heading and co-speed. I say I'm going to climb 500' and see what I can see. Climb and no-joy. Close the altitude to 300 feet vertical separation with the KC-10 right above me, and begin to make out a large white glow. All this time, wingman is tucked in close and flying off my slime lights as they disappear in and out of the clouds and rain. Close the distance to 200 feet vertical, and I can begin making out the lights clearer and the shape of the bottom of the KC-10 begin to take form. Pull it up to 100' vertical distance, and I can make out the KC-10 in the driving rain.
Now, mind you this was vertigo hell. Trying to look directly above me out a canopy in IMC, while still trying to maintain a heading, altitude, airspeed.....in essence, basic IFR flying...was painful. Moving the head around like that from horizontal at the instrument panel, to vertical looking at nothing and back again....the strangest cross-check I've ever done, was severly spatial-D inducing. It kept feeling like the plane was "falling-off" on the left wing, and my arm kept trying to roll me to the right to counter this false-feel. It was really difficult to have to physically keep my arm from trying to steer me into a right roll based on the false perceptions, regardless of what my attitude indicator was saying. In some situations, the "just follow your instruments" is easier said than done. There are situations where that's very difficult.
Anyhow, with us cruising 100' below the tanker and co-speed (try THAT crosscheck.....night/IMC/now formation....it was utterly painful). I slowly bleed off speed by 10 knots and "back us up" from underneath the tanker to behind the boom, while simultaneously keeping slight climb in order not to lose sight of the tanker. If we lose sight of the tanker in the WX right now, all bets are off......likely nylon letdown time. I don't even kick off my wingman to the tanker's wing, since I don't want him to possibly go lost-wingman while making that maneuver. The boomer comes on frequency and says she's got me in sight and to move right and aft to pre-contact so she can plug us, and asks us who needs to go first (this KC-10 was 2 male, 2 female crew.....female AC and boomer, male co and FE). I radio a quick "ops check" with fuel and determine that I'm still far lower than my wingman, since he had 600 pounds extra from the previous fueling (he wasn't paying attention to how much he wa taking on at the time with the KC-135 and took 600 pounds over fragged...an inattention error that was paying off in spades now, since he only had one "FUEL LOW LIGHT", and the other one was only flashing intermittently now). I sight the boom lights (a series of colored lights/markings on the boom itself for night ops) and its at mid-point indicating ready to fuel. I go to plug and overshoot the first try, nearly taking getting the boom bounced into the front canopy; clouds and rain are still rusing by giving a "Star Wars" effect, and the turbulance isn't helping either. I back up about 5 feet and move in again, mindful of the "FUEL LOW" warning lights staring me in the face like a bad dream that refuses to go away. As I approach the boom, in the heat of the moment, I'm unknowlingly focused only on the boom and trying to plug into it myself, disregarding the director lights on the bottom of the tanker that are telling me that I'm moving too far forward for the boom limits. I miss again, and feel the boom "clunk-thunk-thunk" as it hits the side of the nose of my plane. Sensing my trouble, the boomer comes on freq and says "1, just stabilize it into contact, follow the director lights, and I got you from there." I mentally kick myself for not being smooth at this critical point, and settle down. I move back into contact staring only at the director lights underneath the KC-10 and disregarding the refueling boom. Up/down light is steady green, while the fore/aft light is flashing yellow with the yellow "A" illuminated indicating I need to move aft about 2 feet. (On the tankers, there's two sets of lights underneath the jet, sorta a VASI if you will, the left set indicate down/up, the right set indicate fore/aft. Read from left to right..and back to front of the tanker, they read D-F-U-A....or an easy acronym to remember their meaning since they're not always clearly marked : Don't F*** Up Again). I move the throttle back a knob width and start drifting aft until the right director light goes from yellow to a steady green. I then see the boom maneuver into the nose receptacle, and with a CLUNK, I feel the hook up and see the "READY" status light next to the HUD change to "CONNECTED". I focus on flying good formation with the tanker and take a quick glance down and to my right to the fuel totalizer and see it increase by 100 lbs. I call "good flow", and the JP begins flowing. Soon, the "L MAIN FUEL LOW" light flickers and goes out, followed about 10 seconds by the other one for the right. I take 1000 more pounds above this, putting me at 2600 total, and punch the disconnect button on the stick, separating from the boom. I move out to the right, and make room for my wingman to connect. He moves into contact and misses once, settles, and connects with the boom on the second try. He goes ahead and tops off, while I move to a position abeam and slightly aft so I can be back in when he's complete. The flow rate is running slow for him filling up, or so it seems to me at least, but the boomer finally calls "no flow" indicating he's topped off. He disconncts and moves left and aft to take up a bastardized observation position. I move back in, and a little less stressed now, hook up the first time with 2300 showing on the totalizer. We were only fragged to take 6000 pounds of fuel each, but the tanker generously let us take what we needed. I was able to fill up from here, 11,000 pounds total. I disconnected, and thanked the tanker crew for the double-save, telling them they did a [censored]-hot job, drinks are on me it I ever make it to their base (they were based out-of-country). I get the "all in a night's work....now back to the boredom of the holding pattern....have a good night and happy hunting." With that, I began a descent to gain 2000 feet separation from the tanker so I could separate my own flight into a station-keeping formation. I glance up as the tanker disappears into the clouds and rain, climbing back to it's designated holding track and up into VMC to await the next customer....likely F-15s or 16s that can actually make it up to altitude where the WX is VMC to refuel.
I separate my wingman into a 2-4 mile trail and 1000' altitude stack, and we head to the IAF at our primary field and hold to wait out the WX. 45 minutes of holding in driving rain, IMC, we get approach clearance since WX has supposedly increased to viz mins (ceiling and viz are required, ceiling was barely good, we were awaiting the viz). My number 2 is 1000 feet lower than me in the hold, so he penetrates first and 5 minutes later, I get approach clearance. I hear him call the missed as I'm coming down the intermediate segment from the 20 DME arc to final (this is a non-precision TACAN. PAR is down). I get down the final leg to MDA and drive it into the VDP, seeing intermittent ground, but resisting the urge to duck-under, especially seeing as how I still had another 1+10 of fuel still; definately no need to pull crazy stunts. I look through the NVGs and look underneath them to see if I can "see" through the WX any better with one or the other, but still see nothing. Passing the VDP, I stay level and drive it to the missed approach point. Commencing missed at that point, I catch a quick glance of some helos parked on the ramp under the dim glow of the field below me. As soon as I see it, it's gone as I commence my missed and climb. #2 decides to get radar vectors back to final, and I follow him into the radar pattern. He gets vectored back, and I hear him land and rollout on approach frequency (we're the only two planes flying at 0200). I come down the final approach path and passing FAF, drive it down to the MDA quick-like to get the maximum time to find the runway. About 0.5 miles from the VDP, I see the field through the NVGs, and commence descent passing the VDP. I touch down in the rain and rollout, noting that the braking action is fair as the jet cruises through puddles of standing water on the runway. I tell approach good night and let them know I'm changing to ground as I clear at the end of the runway. Taxiing into dearm, I have my first chance to relax. I note the takeoff time, and come up with 5.3 total, 4.9 actual instrument, 4.0 NVG, 2 air refuelings, and 2 instrument approaches. I'm physically beat as the dearm crew hooks up to my jet and states "all switiches off/safe/normal, sir? So how was your night, anything exciting?"
I never did find out who that tanker crew was. If I can, I have some primo bottles of hootch, ala Gentleman Jack and more, that I need to give them.
If there's two groups of pilots/crews that never need to buy drinks, and are at the top of the list of importance, IMO, that's tanker crews and rescue crews. They're the ones that deserve the press and glamour, as do other crews for the fine job they do. No transports, no tankers, no rescue...ain't no fighters going to be able to prosecute any war.
