Some things I learned about Night Ground Attack Tactics

This is a testPart Three

More Night Flying

Just for the fun of it… (you pick out the parts that are true)

It wasn’t very hot that very early morning in September of 1965, a gentle breeze kept the humidity so low it was noticed by Nguyễn Van Chu and Nguyễn Van Tông. The two middle brothers of the Nguyễn family had just returned home from working most of the night. The job was the same as it always was. The same as it had been for months - even when their oldest brother was home. He was gone now, a proud member of the NVA. He was liberating land stolen after the first Indo Chinese War. Their part of the liberation was done for this day. The sun would rise in three hours or so. It would spoil the pleasant coolness of the moment. One more cigarette and time to get to bed.

Tran Lao Bao was a minor city located near the DMZ just north of the Xe Pon River, which is 3 feet deep and 100 yards wide. The river formed an impressive obstacle to the flow of materiel eastward along route nine. The valley that had been cut by the river over time was fairly steep and most of the land along the slopes was covered by bamboo and teak. The ancient groves had never been harvested. The indigenous peoples just worked around the monster trees which had seen war since they were saplings.

Chu and Tông were tasked, along with the other youth of the town, to repair the maze of bridges which spanned the river. Wooden bridges, built a foot or more under the surface, were difficult to see from the air. The bridges were built with a complex plan, resembling the Nile Delta as it works its way to the Great Sea. Bridges that couldn’t be destroyed with just one bomb, nor two. It would take ten direct hits spaced over a hundred yards along the rivers flow, to stop the trail of rice and guns so needed down south, where the eldest was serving to bring honor to the family.

That night would prove to be different from all the other nights when the brothers had slept in the family house, under the trees in the safety of the canopy.

The sound of the Phantom was not unknown to the brothers. Almost daily airstrikes had been impeding movement along the trail across the bridge at Tran Lao Bao. A lone aircraft flying over was unusual though. The straight and level path seemed odd and the pop, pop, popping noise which accompanied the whine of the jet overhead had never been heard before.

When the first flare illuminated with all its brilliance, the brothers couldn’t believe that they could suddenly see all the way down to their village. When the other five flares lit up, it was high noon in Xe Pon river valley.

Fifteen thousand feet above the river, traveling along at three hundred and fifty knots, Fuzz lead could see the flares’ light in the two rear view mirrors attached to the canopy bow. 

(ed note: OK, OK, so my callsign was/is “Fuzz”. I was given the name by my drinking instructor Major Jesse Locke. Not only was I the lowest ranking front-seater in the 68th TFS, I was also one of the few, if not only, USAF 1LT flying the AC position in SEA at the time. An administrative error probably. I checked out because my AFSC in the Deuce was 1115 and someone assumed that I was, in fact, an AC. For the record, in the recounting of this fictitious mission, I have put myself in the lead and I used my very own call sign. So there! I was more often found flying two or four.)

 Usually the mirrors weren’t good for much except for admiring ones’ self attired in fighter pilot garb. Tonight, however, they reflected the brilliance of the flares just released. I had to begin a climbing turn, maneuvering and accelerating to get to a perch somewhere north or south of the river below. While turning, Bill, in the back seat, was straining to see whether he could pick up the target that had been fragged for the evening. We both had to admit that this was pretty exciting. We had never done this before, either in a training environment or over hostile territory. What was new to us, was new to every flight crew member that had gone out that night.

Fuzz two was about five miles in trail a little higher than we were. They were surprised by the flares’ intensity as well. Once they figured out that they could see the valley floor and the river as if it were daylight, the search for the target began.

(Another ed. note:You may have guessed that I, now old and creepy looking, have had no long romance with those whose intellect fragged bamboo bridges. The daylight bombing of these river crossings, out in the hinterlands, was sometimes hairy enough (see “Milk Run”, same blog). Night interdiction well, you figure out what I think).

Only five hours before, we had all been sitting in the briefing room.

Part Three, getting there is some of the fun.

There were twenty or so of us in the briefing room that evening. Normally, the flight assignments went up the day before and one could slightly plan for the day’s activities. Volleyball, etc., salty dogs (need the salt for balanced, good health) and sleep. This was the first time we had briefed at 2200 hours for a midnight take-off. There was only so much one could say about what we were about to try. Night interdiction of the trail. Bombing under flare illumination.  Approaching the target in trail. Two ship flights over the target instead of four. Night flying in itself was nothing new for most of us in the squadron. We had flown the deuce as a part of PACAF’s Air Defense plan at Itazuke AB, in Fukuoka Kyushu Japan. The 68 F.I.S. had a long history going all the way back to WWII. And as I have said before, the motto was “we get ours at night.” Night flying was a constant part of that PACAF routine. Now everyone was beginning to get comfortable in this new airplane, even though we had only been flying in the North for less than a month.

There was a perceptible air of excitement as the C.O. began the talk about what was to become the major portion of my tour in SEA. In fact, I wound up flying 80% of my “counters” after dark. Everything had been pretty well thought out and we were a standardized bunch of flyers. This new twist on the job didn’t seem that hard. It turns out it wasn’t. It would have, however, a few things that were definitely different. Weather, intel, weapons, specifics and a brief. Flight leaders gave a start-up time, pretty much as any mission. I was glad that my flight commander had flown the P-80 in Korea (as had our Squadron C.O.). He had flown at night, as well, and had a few great ideas about this new category of missions for us.

I am trying to remember which lights and warnings didn’t get dimmed with the master warning light. It doesn’t matter. Jesse (you may recall, my drinking instructor from Itazuke) told us all how to get some plastic electrician’s tape and cut it half length-wise to make some long strips. We spent some time in the cockpit masking over the lights that we knew would come on as a result of a routine flight. I can’t remember what they all were, but it seems to me there were quite a few. Once all of that got done on the airplanes, some remained on night ops and some you had to “re-mask” every night. (ed note: my G-d how those ground crews kept their airplanes running! I can’t believe how devoted they were to their airframes and power plants. I wish that we could have taken them up for rides more often. What a bunch of good guys. At Itazuke, we had our “own” plane. At least our name got on them. I understand that the concept really wasn’t practical in Ubon, but it was a bone of contention amongst the guys. Especially when you see the brown shoes flying around with their names on the canopy rails!)

Start up and taxi out were always pretty much routine (see ref to ground crews, above). The arming area near the end of the active runway was always bustling with guys pulling pins and checking stuff. Our hands out of the cockpit, of course. The lead armorer would give a thumbs up, holding a fistful of pins and red flags. Everyone or both of us, as the case might be would check in, go back to ground frequency, if we’d changed to tactical or discrete for some reason. Canopies would be shut and lead would call the tower for takeoff. Reminds me - our Squadron C.O.  (who had been a POW in Korea) used to really get aggravated if anyone’s canopy would start down before lead’s. That got to be a real thing later on and we got to lookin’ pretty sharp as the canopies would kind of do a “wave” on the way down. (IMHO)

When the Phantom was scheduled for a hi-cap mission over Hai Phong and elsewhere, it seemed like all you had to do was pull back the stick at eighty-five knots and it jumped off the ground. With bombs for peace and other stuff in a daylight mission, it came off nicely, but sometimes it seemed to take a second or two longer. At night, the same Phantom, weighed down as much as possible took another several seconds - or so it seemed. I have been trying for some time to figure out what words I should use to described the “unstick”, that is actual take-off, feeling on a grossed-out mission. The pilot would pull the stick back at eighty-five, like I said, and the airplane didn’t do much. Then, when it had decided to fly it came off with the sensation that wasn’t really ready, but everything is working fine, so here goes. Wallowing, rolling slowly from side to side, for just a moment, then picking up a cleaner response, but feeling heavy, oh so heavy! So, off we go, Bill and I into the dark. Willie and Huck, a few seconds behind. Turning North, out of traffic, on the heading for the rendezvous with the tanker, we’d look back to be sure that our wingman had got himself on a good intercept heading. Right turns out, they’d always pray. So he comes in and joins up (Oh Lord, do not overshoot!). The tanker would be an hour or less away.

Night refueling was always fun (liar!). The guys in SAC who were running the operation and those who were flying the KC’s knew what they were doing. Even at night. Over my career, I wished I could have bought a lot more rounds for the aircrews, but alas, never was able. Once you were at altitude and on a heading for the orbiting tanker, the KC guys would give headings and such that would bring the flight of four or in our story, two, airplanes together in the most expeditious way. As I recall, we would head right at each other, offset some and at a different altitude. The tanker AC would give us a turn that brought us just in trail of the big KC 135 (a Boeing 707/720 type aircraft). Once the tanker was radar acquired, you got good info on closing rates (whoa Dude!, don’t overshoot, but I repeat myself), then a visual on a couple of blinking lights. We approached slowly, mostly, and hooked up according to the briefing. Flying underneath the tanker you referenced its control lighting (forward, back, up, down). You tried to keep them green, not amber, or RED. The receptacle on the Phantom was behind the GIB, so you really didn’t have a good sense sometimes as to how close the boom was. The boomer in the tanker would fly the refueling probe to the correct position just ahead and at the proper angle, then “KA-CHUNK” you hear and sometime feel the probe connect. Then all you had to do was maintain a position relative to the tanker. You don’t go low, you’ll snap it off. You don’t go high, you’ll torque it out. Same with left and right. The worse thing you could do was go forward and down and try to bend the boom and possibly damage your receptacle.

As an aside, over the Pacific, on a sunny day of hi flying the airplanes from George AFB to Korat Thailand (with stops). I got too close and damaged the receptacle on my aircraft. It was pointing up, instead of at the forty-five degree angle it had to have to receive the probe. A combination VERY EXPERIENCED (as opposed to me) boomers were able to whack it back to the correct angle and I didn’t have to divert to Clark AB, Philippines. I had already been there anyway. I have pictures of that excitement at home somewhere. I heard the boomer got a medal. Me, a terse (being polite here Sarge) debrief many hours later. The boomers knew exactly when to disconnect and retract their boom out of harm’s way.

Back to night refueling. Well actually, this next thing happens at night and any other time we’d have a grossed out Phantom. Once hooked-up, the fuel transfer would begin and it wasn’t long until you had received what fuel there was for you. Most of the time, toward the end of the process, the aircraft would run out of throttle.  That is to say you’d be up against the stops at full military power and there was no longer enough power to stay on the boom. This, because of the increasing gross weight. You had to use afterburner on one engine. So, when you got to that weight, you would crack the throttle of the number one, left hand engine, into minimum burner and immediately pull number two way back to compensate for the overkill in thrust. We always fought the PIO (pilot induced oscillation) that generally occurred. That process gave you enough power control, with number two engine being the variable one, to fly on the boom until the off load was complete. It was always quite a sight at night to see one of the burners light up on the refueling bird.

It doesn’t take to long to get all the gas we’d need for this morning’s visit to Tran Lao Bao.

Traveling and Such…

Good grief! It has been almost two months since I have posted anything at all to this blog. It's not writer's cramps or blank paper syndrome. It's laziness and the bothersome details of life in the three score, ten and several more area of existence.

Some things have happened.

We sort of got settled into our new home about as far away from Santa Cruz as you can get. So far in fact that they moved North so that it is to my left, looking out to sea. We bought a car (newly used) for the first time since 1999 (Toyotas last, man).  And we are reacquainting ourselves to eating boiled, spiced, shrimp at Snack Jacks in Flagler Beach.

I came to use some space to PRAISE the VA. The Veterans Administration. I finally got down to registering mainly to get a card that would get me 10% off at certain places and a free lunch occasionally. From start to finish it took about five weeks. (to get the card). I have NOTHING bad to say about the experience at all. From the first time I showed up at the Daytona Beach FL offices, to receiving the card in the mail (photo embossed thereon), there were no mistakes, only a few minutes of waiting and courtesy, courtesy, courtesy. Oh, and a desire to know my "last four". The process of scheduling my various appointments (which I didn't  know I needed) was almost automatic. All they asked was for a suggested time and date. Then they said "OK". I got a real letter reminding me of each appointment a day before (no emails, they get lost, you know).

I had a thorough medical history taken (about an hour's time), a thorough poking, jabbing and mashing encounter with an MD (yes, he looked like he could be my grandson). We spoke of agent orange. Now I'm scheduled for a hearing exam to prove I flew jets.

Here's the thing. I almost felt embarrassed in the waiting room. Now I'm older, certainly gray and somewhat scuzzy looking. I have never figured out how guys now a days with the five o'clock shadow seem to attract those good looking girls. On me, it looks like I should be on the streets. No offense meant. I am in  good health, not shape.

But anyway, what I was going to say was how heartbreaking to see so many of our finest youngsters missing so many extremities. Most with legs missing (yes, plural) a few with an arm gone. Most smiling, being treated well as they walked about, chatting to others while waiting, and getting in and out of their vehicles in the parking lot as if nothing were wrong. Don't get me wrong. I am not dismissing the pain they are in, nor the trauma they've gone through. It is horrible. My point is, that, in their docker cargo shorts and tee shirts, they have regained a remarkable degree of mobility, some normality. They seem to be able to deal with what's going on in their lives. I was very impressed with these brave young people. I am mostly infuriated at these several past administrations for causing them so much pain and suffering.

I will not go into my political mode here because this post is to honor the VA and those who have served and been hurt so profoundly. If you're reading this, you probably know that I hate being at the service of our elected leadership.

One scary note to leave. In the giant waiting room (servicing many different areas of care, seating maybe fifty), there was a sign which said in big bold letters,

"If you have an appointment, we know you are here. 

You do not need to sign in. Please sit down and wait." 

That was the scariest thing I've read since I mustered out.

On Night Flying, part one of several…

A day without sunshine is like, you know, night. (Steve Martin)

Steve Martin has it right. The night brings on a whole new set of rules that don’t apply in the daylight.

It all goes back to 1963 and the build-up of the notion that we could make a difference in South-East Asia and save the world from the Asian hoard. There had been some secret stuff going on down South, way South, of Itazuke. Not everyone was selected for this mission and those who came back from it were so tight-lipped that they didn’t even talk about it on Friday nights at the Club. Some of the information began to come out years later and that’s why I can write about it now (plus, it’s on Wikipedia). This is an introduction to what I’m really going to write about later. Back then, there were some folks who wanted Viet-Nam to be reunited as one nation. They busied themselves all night long, moving supplies and ammunition, weapons and people down from the North to aid and assist the guerrilla style conflict that was just getting started.

Along with the special forces advisors, enter the mighty TF-102 Delta Dagger, side-by-side, luxury seating and quick as “bob’s your uncle” over the tree tops in South Viet-Nam. It seemed to someone, way back East, that flying along the tree tops at rapid speeds, one guy looking for bad folks, conflict materiel and stuff, using the ground mapping radar, the other guy looking for tree tops and then calling in “Spooky”(aka “Puff, the Magic Dragon”) to fatally deal with said findings, (inhale) would be a good idea. Anyone see anything wrong with that premise? No, OK. Well that’s what they did for a while way back in the days of the Kennedy presidency when we were everyone’s friend and we were willing kill anyone who called us on it. Did I mention that this was at night? But I digress. So here are the fearless PACAF aviators whizzing along the jungle’s canopy-top hoping to get a return on something that looked suspicious. I suspect that the guys inwardly hoped the “Puff” wouldn’t be available so they could use the 24 2.75” FFARs in the fuselage bay doors. Oh, “Folding Fin Aerial Rocket”. What a night it could have been! If only to perch, arm, turn in and squeeze ‘em off! Here’s a picture of the widened front end/cockpit of the TF-102…

Now let’s fast forward to 1965 (can I say that?), and many of the same guys, in the same Squadron, (more or less, now a TFS, instead of an FIS), same wing 8TFW, nicer, newer airplane (factory fresh F-4Cs). We had recently flown our new Phantoms over the pond from George AFB to Thailand.

Someone out East thinks that this time the Asian hoard can REALLY be stopped at night. So here comes a frag saying kill that  bamboo bridge, again, the one in package five or somewhere up there, in the North. Only this time guys, do it at night so that the materiel will be tossed into the river by your bodacious bombing skills. We were just learning about daytime bombing at the time. We were just learning about the bridges that had five or more, underwater, approaches to one span. We were just learning about how the first two guys piss ‘em off and the last two better not use the same approach to the target. We had learned that jinking was good and flipping the switch to make the inertial nav point to Ubon was even better.

I have to admit though, the Squadron’s motto was “We get ours at night”, and it had been that since the Korean war.

Several O-4s and 5s got together and came up with a scenario for approaching the targets and illuminating them at night. It seemed like a reasonable way to do it, so they decided to try it. (ed. note, my memory has completely failed me on whether these sorties were in four ship or three, or two. Nevertheless, disregarding the facts, I will continue) 

The idea was to take-off, so far so good, with lead armed with a mixed load of flares and bombs. Number two would have the normal load of bombs for peace. We would hit the tanker, that’s another story, and then proceed to the target area. Some distance out, must have been fifty miles or so, number two would slip back into a trail position keeping the formation via radar (or, in the early days by looking at the AB igniters, but that’s another story as well). I don’t remember how far back we’d go (see above for excuse), but it must have been quite a way. So, lead finds the area of interest via the inertial nav (+ or - 50 feet!) let’s down to a briefed altitude in some G-d forsaken valley (watch out for the granite and karst) that has a stream running down the middle, over which has been built a wooden bridge which supports the nightly transportation of materiel and troops and stuff for the NVA operating down south. This was not as scary as it might seem to the uninitiated. Primarily because having flown for so long a time to get to the target area and since one had the cockpit lights all taped over with electrical tape, beacon and wing lights off for the last hundred miles, you could see by moonlight and even sometimes starlight on a good clear night. 

Over the North, in the dark of night, in a valley, looking for a wooden bridge - what could possibly go wrong?

On Single Engine Commercial Flying

 As I’ve belabored before, there is a certain amount of energy available in every flight condition. The idea is to learn how to manipulate this energy so you get what you want when and where you want it. All this to say that it works in Phantoms and it works in Boeing 737’s.

OK Lt Fuzz, the Phantom Phyler, the wife and baby boy are hungry, so you’re an airline pilot now. You’ve got nearly twice the weight (up to 115K pounds), not so much thrust to push that weight around with two of the PW JT8-Ds. You help to pilot the thing closest in this business to what you have been flying - the Boeing 737-200. They don’t shoot at you any more.

Let’s picture a take-off from good ole sea-level Los Angeles International. A warm summer day and the people want, no, they need to get to ‘Vegas. You pack them in - all hundred or so of them - three flight attendants (“stewardesses”, in those days) and even a TWA pilot in the cockpit, trying to get home on the jump seat. Maybe a 100K pounds or so. LAX says your cleared to go on Runway 25R, you run the throttles up, holding the brakes ‘til the engines are spooled up real good, then start the roll. What sometimes seems like a few minutes later, who ever isn’t flying calls out “eighty knots”. Well that’s good, time to let the rudder control the steering and keep on accelerating. Now there’s something called a “V-1” speed. It’s that speed at which an engine can fail and you can safely  continue with the take off and expect a controllable airplane. If there is an engine failure at any speed below V-1, you abort the take off and theoretically you stop before the end of the runway. Somebody figured this all out for various temperatures, pressure elevations and gross weights. He, by the way, has never been in an airplane and probably has a seat belt on his chair in a basement office somewhere.

On this previously pleasant day, at a speed just below “V-1”, about a hundred fifteen or so, the mighty Pratt and Whitney, twin spooled engine of the millennia, number two, on the right side, quit. Not to worry, we stopped without incident, and even taxied back to the gate area. Those were the days when you could taxi all the way back to the gate on one ground control, AND miracle of miracles (by today’s standards), the gate would still be open! We were still within limitations for brake use and heat build up so there wasn’t really anything wrong except it was better to use both engines all of the time, if available. The CSRs and Flight Attendants got the people off the plane. Some transferred to the next flight to Las Vegas (there was one about every thirty minutes at times), some left the airport, never to return, and others simply waited for us (probably sensing extraordinary expertise in the flight crew). The mechanics were soon swarming over the engine. Cowls were opened, wrenches grasped, discussions held, supervisors paced looking at their watches and management types administrated. The whole thing was over in a hour or less and the lead mechanic assured us that some gizmo had been found to be out of adjustment (probably a clerical error) and he personally had brought it back into tolerance. The engine was fixed and the airplane was cleared to go.

The people got back on, some new, some who had been with us on the first attempt, the jump seating TWA guy, the three ladies flying with us and the brave pilots. We had been topped off in fuel and there wasn’t any weather to consider - everything was a good as it gets. Cleared to go. Running down the runway in our newly certified-as-safe Boeing 737-200, eighty knots goes by and the engines are humming, V-1, rotate, V-2 (the target safe flying airspeed), and we’re airborne. One hundred and ten or so people on their way to newfound riches, home and one step closer to finishing another work day. At about fifty feet in the air the number two engine, still on the right side, quits.

This, as you’ll easily imagine, is more of a problem. Grossed out in weight, now under powered somewhat, we perform the procedures we’d been trained to do. The airplane performs well and the although I think it was straining, the one engine transport gains altitude and we turn north to a down wind at Los Angeles International. The tower yells over the radio, “Where do you guys think you’re going?” and I simply state we’re going to land. They say you can’t do that! I say watch me. Anyway, after some explanation (once safely on downwind with fifteen hundred feet of altitude), those good guys in the tower cleared out of our way all the big boys coming in from New York, Honolulu, Paris, ‘Vegas, of course, and all of the other places they came from, here to Los Angeles. Probably a thousand passengers got a ten-minute delay in their flights that day.

One hundred ten souls on our flight received a watershed moment - “Should I ever fly again?” The little Boeing that could, did. Throw a significant amount of left rudder trim. Use max power on the good engine. We flew downwind and made a reasonable base and final. We put her down on 24R, cleared the runway without incident and released the emergency crews. We actually taxied to the ramps again.

The mechanics were soon swarming over the engine. Cowls were opened, wrenches grasped, discussions held, supervisors paced,looking at the watches, shaking their heads this time and management types administrated. This time, a higher level of management was noticed and the mechanics seemed somehow more mature. The bottom line is, that there was small piece of plastic bag inside one of the pitot lines leading to the fuel control mechanism and at a certain speed or pressure differential, or something, it signaled that the engine had been turned off, and fuel was no longer required.Therefore, the fuel distribution to that engine ceased. Once the plastic bag part was found and removed I guess the engine worked fine. We got a new airplane.

The hundred or so folks on their way to ‘Vegas? Well we got them there three hours late. Some shaking their heads, others having fun relating the experience, still others never doubting their system for riches at “twenty-one”. They all deplaned in the desert city. Most thanked us, as is the polite thing to do, others just got off as if nothing had happened. The TWA guy? He was just thankful that he was a jump seater and not the pilot - paperwork, you know.

YNGTBTS!

The key to accurately expressing what goes on in a fighter squadron is to somehow figure out how there can be so much professionalism and so much trust amongst men with such varied backgrounds. The one thing that linked us all (and still does) is our love of flying and love of country. Jeanie and I went to a reunion of the 68th TFS, 8TFW and all of the guys who were there still speak of our Vietnam days as if they were only a few years back, not nearly five decades.

Discipline is the thing that makes it all work. There is a defined “peck-order” i.e. rank, that is not questioned without serious repercussions. You had better be right. Fighter pilots are trained from the beginning to realize that if something goes terribly wrong, it is on their shoulders, and theirs alone. Make it right, or perish. It sounds dramatic, I know, but it is a valid concept. There is no one to help you when you are flying and something doesn’t work correctly. So you need to know the aircraft and its systems inside and out because is the air, you are the maintenance man and crew chief combined. The systems need to be second nature as does the emergency check list. In the 60’s, the technologies involved in the F4 were pretty straight forward but not as sophisticated as modern jets, where one pretty much actuates the switch next to that feared red light when it comes on (at least in the newer Boeing products I flew). Today, many of the systems are highly automated. We had wonderful equipment, but there was still some skill involved in managing emergencies in the air. The 727, too. Thinking three-phase AC here.

A typical mission was based upon everyone’s standardization. That is to say, everyone pretty much understands and knows what’s going on and each pilot is capable of leading a multiple ship mission. This allows briefing to be somewhat standard, and as guys fly together over long periods of time through many sorties, the briefings get shorted and shorter, in fact we used to say, “everything is standard, start engines at 0845, any questions?” And that was it.

 I am speaking here of the routine flying, joining up, refueling, target acquisition and return to base. More so in my earlier years in the Deuce than in the Phantom because of the bad guys and the necessity of intel, weather and understanding the concept of sortie rate in Viet Nam flying. Requirements working with JASDF (JapanAir Self Defense Force) were sometimes different. They had a lot of older equipment which needed occasional external inspection, such as the "bubble check" (depicted above). In the picture, you can't see the GCI radar enclosure (the bubble) just to the left of the guys in the orange flight suits. And yes, the photo is photoshopped. I took out most of the scratches on the slide (!), but I didn't move, add or change the TF-102 overhead.

Of course there had to be individualized “mission briefings”. These consisted of weather in detail, target, and forecast recovery conditions were always covered. But the thing about combat (as opposed to flying for Delta Airlines) was that you were going to go anyway, regardless of the weather on either end or in the middle. I must admit though, if the takeoff weather was too bad, there would be a delay period or some effort would be made to suggest ways of getting out of there and getting joined up once you got on top. I can’t remember whether we took off in formation (two at a time) or not. I think that if we were loaded down with bombs for peace, we took off singly with about six second delay, not really sure of the time, joining up in a wide turn over the base, always heading north (oh, please make it a right turn). The reason for the single-ship take off is obvious. If one had to abort, and jettison the bombs and hardware, you didn’t want your wing man to have to transition to flying whilst maneuvering through ordinance, MERs, TERs, smoke and ground level flack all over the place. I didn’t see that much, but once an F105, fully loaded, had to abort and it was really messy.

If we were to go on an escort mission (Hi-Cap) where the ordinance was air-to-air only, no bombs and such, we took off in pairs with about ten second spacing between numbers one and two, and three and four. The weather wasn’t as much of a factor if you were slated for an escort mission. Numbers three and four could track you on the radar and join up on top. 

We were very used to flying in horrific weather in two ship formations. One of the fondest memories I have (well not fondest maybe, but really memorable) is landing on the wing of my leader in foggy conditions and being a little surprised when we touched down, not having seen anything but his aircraft for the past thirty minutes or so because of the night weather conditions. This experience also demonstrates the trust we had in each other’s ability to maneuver the aircraft in a standard, safe manner. Standardization, again, and trust, that’s it. There were no surprises when it came to the everyday operation of the aircraft. I think I’m rambling, excuse me.

For no good reason…

…except for the fun of it. Ready, set, (sound up) play!