[simpits-tech] OT - cool story

[Gene Buckle]

Enjoy:

Thought y'all might get a kick out of a recent experience of mine. I'll
chop this for an Approach article. Thinking the bits about the hot air
force chicks is probably gonna have to come out. I'll leave in all the
trash talkin' though. 

In case anyone asks, flying around in an F18 without a canopy is bad for
the skin. Twenty thousand feet over Afghanistan in an open air McDonnell
Douglas Cabriolet is just a bad, bad place. Air's real dry up there, cause
the skin to dry out. That and the wind chill of course. 0130 launch. Fifth
and final planned tanker rendezvous. (25K MSL guessing 280-285 knots.) Had
13.0 onboard but wanted to run my wingman back through because he only had
10.0 or so with 
an hour and a half to recovery. Sun was not up (0600) but it was bright
enough. My goggles and goggle bracket were both stowed. Tanker had
finished consolidating a half hour before and had four receivers
(including myself) immediately afterwards. I was the fifth guy to
tank. The boom operator recycled the hose between me and number four (dash
two of the oncoming marine section). The boom operator called
"clear" before I tanked. Tanking appeared normal to me. Air was
smooth. Hose cut loose and I pulled the power back and picked up the nose
in order to try and 
"ride the wave." Refueling probe did not feel too much stress based on
vibrations I felt in the cockpit. Hose separated about seven feet up from
the basket. 

KC10 take-up reel on the refueling hose didn't do its job. Didn't take
up. After some wailing and flailing the KC10 and I disconnected but I
still had part of it with me. The basket and seven feet of hose. The hose
had a ten pound fitting on it that was quickly revealed when the wind
stripped off the rubber sheath from the hose. Once revealed it proceeded
to beating the living **** out of my airplane. "This is gonna be bad, this
is gonna be real bad," I thought. I was right. After twenty sufficiently
violent whacks the canopy gave up the ghost. I never thought about what a
shattering canopy would sound like. Up until then of course. I figured
since it's made of plastic it shouldn't sound like glass. Wrong. Sounded
just like when you go flying through a plate glass window. Of course all
the glass went out vice in. Cockpit went from eight grand to ambient in
about a heartbeat. Which was a pretty small unit of time right then. 

Don't know exactly where the KC10 went. Last I saw him he was turning for
the south west, spewing gas in the air and spewing words over the
radio. "Bossman" had no time for little 'ole me. One of his Air Force
brethren was experiencing discomfort. Had to yell at him to get his
attention. 

At first (before I put the top down) I thought I could make it
home. "Okay, it's 650 away, I got 13.5....probably have to go pretty slow
and kinda low. And that hunk'o'junk on my nose can't be doing much 
for my gas mileage. This should warrant a ready deck. Yeah one or two
passes before they have to barricade me. And I ain't boltered yet so..." 

Descended about three thousand feet and decelerated to about 260 by the
time the canopy blew. 

Then the glass shattered. 

"Okay, Jacobabad it is. My boarding rate at a 10,000 foot airstrip is even
better." 

Went down to about nineteen Kft and put out the speedbrake. Fitting was
still beating up the jet while passing through 240 knots. At about 230 the
beatings stopped and I started down, maintaining airspeed. Flight controls
and engines appeared fine. Ball was a little out of center but that was
it. Didin't have to turn to put JBAD on the nose. It was straight ahead. 

Nav system told me it was 260 NM away. My body told me it was pretty damn
cold up there. The KC10 remains were still trying to get at my head so I
started descending and decelerating (opposing states so I'm not sure I did
either one that efficiently). Leveled off at twelve thousand. I stopped 
getting beat up, the fitting just hung in the slipstream by my canopy bow,
at 230 knots. So there I was...Eight thousand feet above Afghanistan at
230 knots. "You know, If a guy really wanted to get shot by a MANPAD he'd
fly a profile a lot like what I'm doing right now." Oh well. It's at times
like this when you just make a decision and go with it. If you pull it off
then it was, "...outstanding airmanship and in keeping with the highest
tradition of the United States Naval Service..." If you don't 
pull it off, if you get bagged, well...maybe they'll name a safety award
or the new Base Gym after you. 

Managed to grab the piss bag that was flying around the cockpit and stuff
it in my helmet bag. While stuffing other things away the Inflight Pack
was ripped out of my hands. It went over the side in a flash. "Scotty's
gonna hate that." Inlet temp read 3. Buffeting while hunkered down behind
the glareshield wasn't that bad. 

My wingman was still with me through all this. Because of some late
tankers and shuffling to get guys that were using our tanker to go further
north he only had 10K in gas so he definitely wasn't gonna make it
back. Well, not definitely, he could still tank after all. But because of
how I had to sit in the cockpit to minimize the wind blast I needed him to
watch over me. I was pretty much hunkered down for the ride at this
point. Seat lowered, visor down, cockpit heat up full and hunched over
staring at one of the TV screens in the cockpit. It's weird the thoughts
that come 
to you during times like this. "You know sitting this close to the screen
is bad for my eyes." Had to snicker over that one. I could look right and
left and see the Afghanistan and then the Pakistan scenery slowly drifting
by. Too slowly. On the descent the airplane's computer was displaying how
long it would take me to get to the divert given my decelerating
airspeed. "Okay, 20 minutes not bad I can do that no pro...oh thirty
minutes now. Okay piece of cake... Forty!? Nuts!" Settled out at forty
eight. In the end I didn't really look outside much. Just peeked over the
dashboard every couple of minutes to make sure the velocity vector was on
top of the upcoming ridgelines. 

This part of the world is not pretty by the way. 

Once everyone realized the seriousness of the situation they started to
talk to me. The AWACS switched me over to the E2 in charge of the
south. They started relaying stuff I needed to tell the boat. The parts
the jet would need in order to make a flight back out again. The fact that
my 
wingman was going to make the 0900 recovery vice the 0730, stuff like
that. "The boat wants to know how badly the canopy is cracked." I couldn't
believe that one. I thought he would have heard all the wind in 
the cockpit and known. "It's not cracked, it's gone. I'm flying a
convertible." Apparently that line made it through all the nets loud and
clear. The next day I was talking with the CSAR guys in Jbad and they said
they got spun up when the read that on chat. (It's all real time chat
nowadays.) What did not get through was the driver of the convertible. I
know the E2 guy knew who I was (the conversation by the end had
degenerated to callsigns. Gretzky and Duck. Not professional but somewhat
comforting) but somehow the ship was waiting for me to return at 0900 vice
my wingman. All this technology... 

As far as the cockpit was concerned there were two different and distinct
regions. From my knees down I was toasty and warm. "This little piggy" was
getting sweaty in fact. Then the chilly zone above that. The wind was
swirling around pretty good and I was trying to grab all the paper and
shove it into my helmet bag. Only lost one bit of important stuff. Not too
bad all things considered. After twenty minutes I started getting the
shakes; after thirty they were fully developed. I tried to stuff my whole
body down by the rudder pedals with limited success. Kept my hands warm 
though. Thank God for auto pilot. 

About this time my wingman came up and said, "Hey can you reach out and
grab that thing, pull it in?" I looked over at him (not that he could see
me) with a look of shock. Stick my arm out into that wind, get my arm
blasted back and thrashed on the glass shards sticking up everywhere? 
"Have you lost your mind?!" "Oh yeah, guess it's kinda windy. Sorry." Like
I said, it's strange the thoughts you have sometime. 

My wingman and I talked about the airfield. Frequencies, layout, the fact
that the locals like to shoot at planes landing there. You know, just
normal airport talk. We talked about landing on a runway, something
neither of us had done for three months. And we dumped fuel to lighten the
load. We both were carrying two thousand pounds of unexpended ordnance so
the Air Force guys were gonna love us. Lastly we dropped the landing gear
in close formation and compared airspeed and AOA to make sure
the KC10 hadn't damaged my AOA and airspeed probes as well. I had him land
first because I thought the hose might drag on the ground and get rolled
up on by the nose wheel. After that who knew what would happen. 

Dumped down to 3.0 each. Airspeed and AOA 
checked accomplished at 170 and 150 knots. Appeared fine. Approach was
initiated from 5k AGL when the threshold was ten degrees down. Started to
slow the descent at about five hundred feet. Landed on speed at the nine
board. Don't remember seeing a VASI or anything. Airfield diagram on
approach plate doesn't show any landing aids. 

The plane flew fine with all that junk on it. Just had to use the rudder
pedals, which is kind of an emergency procedure for a Hornet pilot. When I
slowed to on speed I got the "sunroof effect" pretty bad. You know when
you're zorching down the road and you open the sunroof but leave all the 
other windows up? That vibration you get until you crack another
window? Well I got kind of an advanced case of that during my Space
Shuttle descent to final. We both rolled out fine. Well maybe not fine. We
had 
to use all ten thousand feet and both had smoking brakes. (Our brakes
hadn't been used like that in awhile. On the boat the wire brings you to a
gentle stop without them, of course.) The emergency crews were waiting for
us. And they were pointing and gawking as would be appropriate for a 
situation such as this. Couple natives looked on in a disinterested
matter. 

Of course I had to do a flight physical after all this. Had to make sure I
wasn't on drugs before I launched on my six hour mission into
Afghanistan. The facilities in Jacobabad ain't that bad. I'm here to 
tell you we are number one in tent technology. Our tents kick *** . They 
got AC and everything. Since it's an Air Force base they got all the best
entertainment. Drew Carry and Joan Jett had been there already. Shania
Twain was supposedly coming too (broke my heart, if only I'd had better
timing...). And of course the Toga Party on Saturday. Can't forget
that. Yeah, it's kinda like the boat. Except for the booze and the Toga 
Parties. Other than that it's just like the boat. Other random
observations: Air Force got all the good buildings. Marines are on the
outskirts, again. The boys from the 101st are spoiling for a fight. Hate
coming in behind the Marines all the time. Dust over everything. Lots of
people there that don't look like they are in the normal military.

I don't care what any psychology major would say about it, it's just cool
carrying a gun everywhere. MREs are not too bad. Could see how people
would get sick of them though. Tent city was a little slice of American
suburbia right in rural Pakistan.

Only Air Force base I've ever been on that didn't have any hot chicks. Of
course I was only there for 24 hours. The place is a FOD nightmare. 

The maintainers showed up about four hours after I did. After the
appropriate amount of gawking they got to work and fixed it well enough
for the RTB in under four hours. Nice job all around. By the end the 
basket and hose were removed, the canopy had been replaced and the LEX
repaired with 300 mile an hour tape. ("Americans. Can Do Easy.") Three of
the guys showed up and then disappeared with two big boxes of
geedunk. They were on a booze hunt. They succeeded. The Air Force settled
all the 
maintainers into two spare tents and they had a grand 'ole time. 

The next morning I took off low and fast at sunrise. Low and fast was due
to the locals and the guns, of course. Not because it was fun. I checked
in and the E2 said, "It's good to hear your voice again." The RTB was 
uneventful right up until the end. A PTS shaft died and subsequently one
of my Hydraulic systems gave up the ghost when I dropped the gear. I got a
couple of spurious flight control cautions but didn't really give it much
thought as I was working the landing. As I started the approach turn the
nose started to wander and I got another caution tone. I lost one 
aileron, one rudder and half a horizontal stab. I hit the reset button and
I think everything cleared. Then I saw the Hydraulic Cautions come
up. Hitting the reset button suddenly went from normal response on short 
final to a big mistake. When the aileron failed again I realized I sorta
needed to get aboard the first time. "Man, first I miss Shania and now
this. This is just not my week." I got it aboard because the Hornet is a
fantastic jet. I got a Fair grade for the pass because I'm not very smooth
when I'm rattled. 

I pretty much assumed I was in trouble throughout all this. A canopy has
got to cost 70 or 80 grand. Depending on how much repairing the windscreen
and the airframe were...it could cost over 200 grand. Which 
would mean a Class B mishap. Which would mean I was
screwed. Again. Thinking all this and then seeing the CO waiting for me
when I landed made my heart sink. But that was not the reason he was
there. The decision was made somewhere to make a big deal about this in a
good way. Just like that...dirtbag to hero. Funny. 

Turned over bodily fluids to VFA-147 Safety Officer. 

This isn't the first thing that's happened to me out here you know. We're
flying the daylights out of these jets and it's starting to show. I had to
come back from the box with an engine shut down a week or two before. I'm
starting to feel like that LT that keeps getting hosed in "The Bridges of
Toko Ri." I got my letter in after all. I'm getting too short for this. 

Oh well, statistically speaking the rest of cruise should be smooth
sailing. What are the odds something like this will happen again? 

(I love planting the seeds of irony.)