Viper Pilot: A Memoir of Air Combat (23 page)

There. I’d just created an instrument approach. Several key points had to be spelled out so everyone would do it the same way and not overrun the jet in front of him. Air-to-air radars made it nice, but I’d still seen it chowdered up in the past. This way, everyone would leave Customs House at identical airspeed and head to the same location. At the next point, called the final-approach fix, everyone would slow to another set airspeed, and put the gear down. Then they’d fly the approach course to the left runway until the vertical steering, called a glide slope, indicated a descent.

“Slow to final approach speed at three miles and call full stop with Ali Tower. All ROMANS acknowledge.”

And they did. All nine of them, with no questions. It was good to fly with fighter pilots.

“Ali Tower copies all.” Ah. A sharp controller.

I glanced at my HUD and it showed eleven miles to Customs House. “Ali Tower ROMAN 75, flight of ten, will commence the approach in three minutes. We’ll need a follow-me truck in EOR and confirm transient alert has been notified.”

“ROMAN . . . affirmative on all.”

I crossed Customs House heading east at 250 knots. Fanning the boards, I dropped the nose ten degrees and said, “ROMAN One flight, pushing. 5.1.”

“Pushing” meant I was outbound from the briefed point, and the low man on fuel in my flight had 5,100 pounds of gas. Somewhere behind and above me, the next flight of two should be lining up to “push” in two minutes. “ROMANS . . . check course three-zero-zero set . . . altimeter two-nine-nine-one.”

Three hundred degrees was the final approach course to the runway and 2991 was the latest altimeter setting. Everything was done, except for the flying, so I shut up and flew. Sliding back down in the thick dust, I shook my head and stifled a yawn. Despite the heat blowing in my face, I was still cold and I had a headache. Later, I told myself. I could yawn after landing.

“ROMAN Three flight—pushing.”

I looked at the time, and it was exactly two minutes after I’d called. I didn’t know any of these pilots but we all spoke the same language and had the same basic skills. Otherwise, this wouldn’t have been possible.

By the time the next two-ship called, I was about twelve miles from Ali and beginning the turn to final. At ten miles, I abruptly pulled the power, fanned open the speed brakes, and lowered the gear. The fighter slowed in a hurry, so I retracted the boards and added power to hold 180 knots.

“ROMAN One, ten miles, gear down for two.”

I knew nine other sets of eyes were squinting at their displays, gauging positions and timing. The tower replied, “Copy ROMAN, continue. Winds are two-eight-zero at thirty knots.” He didn’t say the visibility and I didn’t ask. What was the point?

I concentrated on holding the approach course dead-center at 180 knots. If I jackassed it, then the accordion effect would ripple down the line and screw everyone over. At about eight miles, the little horizontal bar on my ILS symbology fluttered and began its slow drop. This was the glide slope, the controlled descent, that I had to maintain to the runway. The other bar, a vertical one, would keep me lined up on the runway. I checked the HUD against the larger, old-fashioned round-dial instrument on the console, and they showed the same indications. Wriggling my fingers to work out the stiffness, I shifted around in the seat a bit.

At three miles, I could see nothing but swirling dust. Easing the power back, I slowed to 160 knots and let my eyes flicker between the ILS steering and the radar altimeter.

“Ali, ROMAN One is three miles, gear down, low approach. All other ROMANS will full-stop.”

“Tower copies . . . confirm you’ll be coming back?” Was there anywhere else to go?

“Affirmative . . . ROMAN One will land last.”

This way, if a wingman missed approach or had instrument trouble, I’d still be airborne to bring him back down through the weather in fingertip formation. Passing two miles and 700 feet, there was still nothing in the HUD. Less than twenty minutes ago, I’d been able to pick up the base from here, but not now. Despite my confidence, my mouth got a little dry. It wasn’t like we had a lot of other choices here.

There! I thought I saw a faint flash off the nose and strained forward against the straps. Again! And again. I glanced at the ILS steering and saw it had drifted slightly left, but it was close enough. Fighting the urge to nose over toward the runway, I continued flying the approach until the lights disappeared beneath me, and I could see the runway threshold.

Shoving the throttle forward, I pulled the nose up and closed the speed brakes. Leveling off a hundred feet above the concrete, I left the gear down and keyed the mike.

“ROMAN One had the runway at one mile and 300 feet. One is missed approach. All ROMANS wait in EOR.”

“Three copies.”

“Five copies.”

“Seven copies.”

“Nine copies.”

As I darted past the end of the runway (EOR), I saw a small white truck with flashing yellow lights, waiting. Flipping the gear handle up, I added more power and began to climb. As the ground disappeared beneath me, I turned northwest into a thick black wall of sand. The turbulence had increased to the point where it could buffet my jet, and I glanced at my fuel. Forty-five hundred pounds. Still plenty.

Number Three had just called his gear down so Number Four was behind him on final. I’d just heard Number Seven call “pushing,” so that put Number Five and Six somewhere in between. Turning left, I was now paralleling the runway and heading southeast. At 5,000 feet, I cracked the throttle back to hold 250 knots and stared at the air-to-air radar. Two aircraft were off my left side, heading northwest—that would be Number Five and Six on final. So the flight that was perpendicular to me and ten miles off my nose had to be Seven and Eight on their way to final.

“ROMAN Nine . . . pushing.”

Cranking back right about thirty degrees, I ran the radar out to pick up the last two fighters but I couldn’t find them. Too much altitude difference, or a bad angle, or gremlins. It didn’t matter. I simply pulled away, stayed at 5,000 feet, and continued toward Customs House for another minute. This would build in enough spacing between me and Number Ten and, sure enough, it did. He was sixteen miles in front of me when I turned back to the east.

One by one, I heard the tower clear the others to land and no one called missed approach.
This’ll work,
I thought as I lowered the nose and descended back to 3,000 feet. Dropping the oxygen mask, I rubbed the stubble on my cheeks and the aching bridge of my nose. The cockpit was toasty, and I’d finally quit shivering, so the heat came down a notch. Shaking my head back and forth, I fought back another yawn. God, I was
tired
. Every time I blinked, it felt like two pieces of sandpaper rubbing together.

At eleven miles, I began the easy turn to final, and Number Ten was cleared to land. The gear handle came down as I called up the ILS steering one more time. But as I stared at two green landing gear lights instead of three, the tower controller said, “ROMAN One . . . current visibility is now a quarter-mile. Say intentions.”

I blinked, still staring at the unsafe gear indication. Intentions? Let’s see, how about ejecting over Bahrain, checking into a five-star hotel, and drinking all night in a casino?

“You’ve gotta be shitting me . . .” I muttered again. This was like an emergency simulator scenario that had gone ape-shit.

“Confirm all other ROMANS are on deck.”

“Affirmative. State intentions.”

That word again. I really hated that word.

“ROMAN One is six miles, gear down full stop, three-zero left.”

I opened the speed brakes and dropped the nose to catch the glide slope. Normally, with a gear problem, you’d just orbit around in clear airspace and work through the checklist. But with a deteriorating quarter-mile visibility and no place else to go, that wasn’t happening. I pushed the little round green gear light in to check the electrical circuit. Maybe the bulb had just burned out. No such luck.

Five miles. Twenty-two hundred feet and 160 knots. Sometimes cycling the gear solved minor problems, so I cycled the handle up and watched the red “in transit” light illuminate. The two green lights went out. Fighting the aircraft’s upward surge and 30-knot crosswind while flying the ILS, I added power again and lowered the handle. The fighter yawed a bit as the gear came down, and this time I actually heard three thumps. But still only two gear lights.

Fuck it.

“ROMAN . . . Ali Tower reporting gusts to forty knots.”

Terrific.

Still, you have to sound good no matter what. “ROMAN One copies,” I replied calmly. “Short final with the gear, full stop.” I think.

“Cleared to land.”

I was crabbing almost thirty degrees into the wind, and the jet was bouncing in the unstable air like popcorn in a popper. Again, there was nothing in front of me but blowing sand and blackness. At one mile, I was dead on the approach centerline at 300 feet. A normal ILS approach has a minimum altitude of 200 feet, so I continued down and leveled off at 100 feet. Ignoring the gear issue, my burning eyes, and sweaty hands, I concentrated every ounce of consciousness on the ground before me. Risking quick glances left and right, I could see nothing but billowing gray clouds of dust.

The distance counter in the HUD said 0.1, so I had to be directly over the threshold.

“Shit.” I shoved the throttle forward to go around. I had no real hope of flying another instrument approach and finding the runway, but if you can’t see you can’t land.

A light!

Just disappearing beneath my left wingtip.

There! White painted runway markings and an enormous 30L. I’d been blown slightly right by the wind, but there it was. Cobbing the power back, I opened the speed brakes and dumped the nose. Dropping through the dust, I kept my eyes glued to the pale ribbon of concrete. As it rose up, I pulled the stick back and angled left as much as I could to favor the unsafe left gear. With about ten feet to go, the runway seemed to just reach up and grab me, as if to say, “Enough . . . just fucking land.”

The fighter slammed down and I winced.

But nothing collapsed, and I didn’t flip off the runway in a cloud of sparks and flame. With the throttle in
IDLE
, I lowered the nose immediately, thumbed the speed brakes to full open, and concentrated on staying in the middle of the concrete. Fortunately, this runway was 9,000 feet long. As I slowed to taxi speed, I realized I’d made it.

“ROMAN One . . . taxi to the end. Turn right to join your flight. The
FOLLOW ME
will take you to parking.”

I swallowed and took a deep breath. Then I saw them. A row of flashing strobe lights and the red-and-green wingtip lights of the other F-16s. They were beautiful.

“ROMAN One copies. Thanks for the help.”

“Ali Tower . . . no problem. And welcome down.”

Relief washed through me. Slowly approaching the turnoff, I closed the speed brakes, checked my lights on, and lifted the ejection seat lever to
SAFE
. Turning off carefully, I flashed my landing light at the follow-me truck, and he pulled away. The visibility was horrible now, and we literally crawled along the taxiway amid the blowing tumbleweeds and trash. Imagine driving through a dark car-wash and being sprayed with sticky brown foam while garbage hits your windshield, and you might get the picture.

We taxied around a maze of ruined aircraft shelters and several other twists and turns before eventually arriving at a narrow strip of concrete just east of the other runway. Easing through the dust, I saw half a dozen little glowing wands and managed a smile. These were crew chiefs waiting to “catch” the jets and get us all shut down. Someone was on the ball out there. Following the first set of wands, I stopped at the crew chief’s signal, set the parking brake, and looked back at the rest of my strays. As the last one rolled to a stop, I keyed the mike.

“All ROMANs . . . check switches safe, tapes off, and secure all your classified.” Squinting down the row of dirty-gray fighters, I added, “We’re all tired so let’s not goon up anything simple.”

Our tapes and mission-planning materials were all classified, so we all checked each other after each flight to keep screw-ups from happening. It was even more important in a situation like this, on an unfamiliar base, at the end of a
very
long day.

After one more look around, I slowly pulled the throttle to
CUTOFF
and felt the engine gratefully wind down. Unstrapping, I took my own advice and jammed everything classified into my helmet bag. Switching on the flashlight clipped to my harness, I then shut off the aircraft battery and everything went black. As I flipped the switch to raise the canopy, a wave of cold air hit me in the face, and I flinched. The crew chief hooked up a ladder, and I gingerly unstuck my ass from the seat for the first time in over ten hours. Wincing a little as my legs straightened, I swung out and sat on the top of the ladder for a moment, taking gasps of frigid, dusty air and looking at the small crowd below.

I’ve known pilots who’ve slipped on the way down after long flights and ended up sprawled on the concrete. You lose style points for that, so I came down very slowly. To my surprise, one of the guys waiting for me was a full colonel in a flight suit.

“Welcome to Ali!” He grinned and shouted at me over the wind, “You did a helluva job getting in here tonight.”

I slowly stretched my aching neck and tried to grin right back. “Thank you, sir . . . there was nowhere else to go.”

“What? We weren’t first on your list?” He laughed.

“You were the list.”

The dust, by the way, was much worse. Like someone was dumping boxes of yellow cake mix into huge fans and blowing it in our faces. He clapped me on the shoulder and pointed off into the gloom. “I know. We’ve got another four F-16s over there.” He looked me up and down and said, “When you’re ready I’ll take you to chow. It’s not exactly linen tablecloths and Waterford crystal but it’s hot!”

“Good enough, sir . . . we’ll be ready fast.”