18. February 2010 by Farb.

This is a story when I was a First Lieutenant at Kadena and still a wingman. I had been checked out for a while and was a pretty good wingman at this point. I was flying with six other guys in one of my sister flights in my squadron. This was unusual because we normally tried to fly in our own flight because these were the guys you were going to war with. However, on this occasion my job was to fly as number four in another flight’s four-ship. The flight lead was being checked out and number three was the Instructor Pilot (IP) doing the checkout. I can remember the flight lead to this day. He was a nice guy but not what I thought of as one of the best possible leaders you could have. Unfortunately he died in a civilian aircraft accident several years after this incident. So I don’t want to belittle him too much here. Just know that at the time he was going through his flight lead checkout he was not the sharpest pencil in the box. Know also that when I was becoming a flight lead I was probably ten times more clueless and stupid than John was so don’t think him a stupid guy. However, I learned a valuable lesson that day from John’s misfortune.

We briefed up a standard bombing range mission that day with a standard low-level mission onto the range. The range was called Ishima Bomb Range and I spent a lot of time there both on the ground as the Range Officer and in the air as a bomb dropper. On this particular day the weather was questionable but the plan was to go there anyway so John could fill this flight lead square on the range. The briefing, ground ops, takeoff and first part of the mission went as scheduled. However, when we got to the range the weather was worse than briefed. In fact the weather was pretty much doggie pou-pou. We came into the range at about 12,000 feet and we were definitely between two solid layers (of unknown thickness) above and below us. My backseater was complaining about the weather as we came in. When you bring a four-ship onto the range the way we did you basically bring everyone in a formation we call an echelon formation. This means that everyone was stacked away from lead in the direction of what we call the break. During the break you start a climbing turn away from the other aircraft up to your bomb pattern altitude. The next aircraft delays five seconds and then does the same thing. The end result is that all four aircraft end up on either the crosswind, downwind, base or on the final portion of the bomb pattern. That is ok when the weather is basically VFR (clear) but when the weather if IFR (cloudy or poor visibility) you need some means of keeping track of the other three aircraft. That means you need eyeballs on and since none of us were Superman and could see through clouds this was going to be difficult. As we were coming in with John the first aircraft on the left of the formation; I was staring up through the other two aircraft between John and myself. I was noticing that as we were getting closer to the break point the clouds were coming down from above and closing in on the bottom of the flight. At this point I said to myself “Self – this is definitely not looking good.” I had that same talk with myself many times over my career. I was thinking that we were going to carry straight through and go find something else to do rather than drop our bombs. Now any decent flight lead would have come to that same conclusion. John however, being a brand new trainee flight lead, was all about filling squares and that was not in his thought process. The first thing I knew was that I heard John say “Ones Up.” Which meant he was in the break. I looked over in amazement and disbelief just in time to see the shinny underside of his F-4 disappear in the clouds and the number two man now become the new three-ship lead. At this point I was overcome with disbelief. I am telling myself that there is no way he is that stupid. Next I begin to wonder what the hell number two’s plan was. All the time I am thinking this I kept hearing my backseater saying “one-thousand-one, one-thousand-two…, etc.) on the way to five seconds at which time number two should go into the break. Has my backseater lost his mind too? Assuming my backseater was just a creature of habit I was about to say “can you belief that stupid shit and knock that shit off” when my backseater arrived at “one-thousand-five.” Seems that number two was about as accurate as my backseater and their internal clocks were perfectly synchronized. Immediately number two says Two’s Up.” It was exactly like number one - a big white shinny F-4 belly staring at us momentarily and then disappearing into the white clouds. Now I am downright sure everyone has lost their mind. Again I hear “one-thousand-one, one-thousand-two, … etc.” echoing from the rear cockpit. Now sure that number three was in just as much amazement as I was; I was perfectly ready to start heading back to the barn and let the two stupid Phantom drivers fend for themselves in the weather. You guessed it … “one-thousand-five” and bang - three says “Three’s up.” “No way in Hell” I am thinking now. Three airplanes flying around in the clouds over the range is going to result in a pretty big fireball. Again I hear “one-thousand-one, one-thousand-two, … etc.” coming from the back cockpit. It is a magic tune and very mesmerizing. Just then I hear “one-thousand-five” and just like Pavlov’s dog this young fighter pilot thinks “they must know something I don’t and I am not going to be the only pussy in this fight.” Out of my mouth comes “Four’s up” and just like my pals I am now in the weather. As soon as I roll out I came to the instant realization that I have committed one of the biggest (but not last) errors of my short flying career. All I can see out front is puffy white cloud. On the radios the inevitable process begins. First three ask one his position. Then one says he has no clue. Then three says that one better get his act together. Then one starts giving three shit. Then two jumps in and begins to whine on the radios something about being “Popeye” (meaning in the weather and not seeing anything.) To which my reply on our intercom is what a definite stupid-o two is but not in those very words. At this point someone (flight lead or three) should have taken over and separated each aircraft by altitude. At least that way we would be less likely to smack each other. Being the smart guy I am I decided to take care of myself. This is the number one rule of being a fighter pilot. So I said on the radios “four is climbing to 15,000 feet.” Immediately John figures out he is losing control and decides to finally act like the flight lead. “Negative” he says and then he says “one is going to 15,000 feet … two take 14,000 feet, three 13,000 and four take 12,000.” By this time everyone is going around in different directions. Some heading South, others North and some West. Also, I had already started my climb which meant I had to descend now. Telling my backseater that this was going to be different and whispering the words they hate to hear “watch this” I lowered the nose and pushed it up to minimize the chance of meeting one of the other aircraft coming up as I was going down. Just as I approached my altitude I popped into a small hole in the clouds. I began to let the air out I had been holding in when out of the opposite cloud, and just above my altitude by about 100 feet, comes the pointy nose of one of my flight members. “Shi………….t” is about all I can get out as I shove the stick forward trying to avoid the mid-air. We pass so close that I can hear the air rush by and count the rivets on the underside of the other “double-ugly.” “That’s it” is all I can say and then I plug both burners in, point the nose straight up, and shoot for the moon. I reach 20,000 feet and clear air in a matter of several seconds. I am shaking in my boots from the near-miss we just had and I am in no mood for any shenanigans. I come up on the radios and say “four is out of the fight - I am setting up an orbit at 20,000 feet in clear air.” Then the next radio call will live in my brain forever. It is from John and he once again decides to be directive. “Four” he says with disdain “I told you to take 12,000 feet so get your ass back down there.” Thinking to myself once more I said “Self - this dumb shit wants me to go back down, into the weather where you can’t see shit, fly through three other aircraft’s altitudes to get there, and then fly around lost at 12,000 feet again.” My reply was “No-way lead.” His reply was “I am your leader so do as I say.” My reply was “F*** You lead - I am going home.” His reply was “I haven’t given you permission to break formation.” My reply was basically “Bite Me - see you at home if you survive.” Now this is normally a very bad thing to do. Break formation without permission that is. However, I had already had enough fun that day and I did not plan on flying with those guys ever again so I proceeded home at the speed of heat. All the time listening to John call me, argue with three, direct two around and then take more shit from three. I landed proceeded to the squadron. Told my story to my Operations Officer and got ready to duke it out with a guy double my size when he got back after the flight. Fortunately for me; three decided that he had just witnessed one of the most bizarre flights he had ever been on and was hammering John so much that no one had time to yell at me. I immediately went into the squadron scheduler and asked never to fly with that particular flight again and I tried my best to not do that. Three became a two-star General later in life but it was never due to his skill but rather to his wife and her daddy. My lesson? Never be a dumb shit flight lead and take charge should you do something wrong. It was a dangerous business we were in and being a dumb shit only kills people. Fortunately I never killed anyone because of my mistakes so I must have learned my lesson. Adios Compatriats.

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3. February 2010 by Farb.

If you are following me and you are a pilot, which I assume most are, then I need your help. I am trying to promote my website called UPTConnect.com which is a web site designed to help pilot trainee’s keep in touch with each other. I don’t want to spend gizillions of dollars trying to advertise and promote my sight just yet. However, I am not getting the traffic I need to get the site running. So here is where you come in. I ask that you go to the site at UPTConnect.com and sign up. Then I ask that you get someone and that someone gets someone, etc. and all sign up so the site starts getting enough traffic. Please just go look and sign up. Thanks.

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