A Bad Day Over Bagram

Hey Girl,

In case anyone asks, flying around in an F18 without a canopy is hell on the complexion. Air's real dry up there; causes the skin to dry out. And don’t get me started about the windchill. Twenty thousand feet over Afghanistan in an open air McDonnell Douglas Cabriolet is just a bad bad place. Long story short, a KC10 take-up reel on the refueling hose didn't do its job. Didn't ‘take-up’. Our hero took a fall as a result.

After some wailing and flailing The KC10 and I disconnected but I still had part of theKC10 stuck on my jet with me: the basket and seven feet of hose. The hose had a ten-pound fitting on the end it that was quickly revealed when the wind stripped off the rubber sheath from the hose. Once revealed, that fitting proceeded to beating the living s^&* 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 (another story - funnier). Of course, all the glass went out vice in.

Cockpit pressure 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 southwest, spewing gas in the air and spewing words over the radio.

"Bossman" (the AWACS running the show over Afghanistan) had no time for little 'ole me. One of his Air Force brethren was experience discomfort. Had to yell at him to get his attention.

I had a borderline out-of-body experience while the canopy was still intact. I distinctly remember thinking, “Man, that guy is screwed” and seeing myself from outside looking in. I was doing all the right things. Aviating, navigating, communicating, but I was thinking the whole time, “This isn’t really happening to me…I must have dozed off or something. This has gotta be a dream.”

At first (before the metal fitting put my top down) I thought I could make it home. "Okay, it's 650 away, I got 13.5 in gas.... probably have to go pretty slow and kinda low. And that fucking hunk o' shit 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..."

Then the glass shattered.

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

Navigation system told me it was 260 NM away. My body told me it was pretty damn cold up there (-15 Fahrenheit). The KC10 remains were still trying to get at my head, beating on the ejection seat, so I started descending and decelerating (opposing states so I'm not sure I did either one that efficiently). I leveled off at twelve thousand. I stopped getting beat up, the fitting just hung in the airstream beside 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 allot 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 traditions 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 gymnasium after you.

The debris flying around in the cockpit was…problematic. I had a full relief bag (euphemism for a full bag of pee), which froze solid instantly and started flying around the cockpit. So, at first I had one hand on the stick, trying to get away from the tanker, and the other hand was trying to grab things as they went swirling around the cockpit. “Damn bag of pee, oh shit, there goes all the code words over the side.” In the end the bag went out the sunroof as well and, I think, left a four-inch gash in one of my rudders. Precious.

Obviously I lived. But I have to go to sleep right now.

High Points.

I'm perfectly fine. Not so much as a scratch.

The jet is fine. Got it back today, twenty four hours late.

I think since we haven't been dropping bombs and this boat needs a hero so they nominated me. It's total bullshit. Instead the CO was waiting for me when I landed, in a good way. I didn't do anything anyone else couldn't have done. This is actually kind of embarrassing.

I'll write more tomorrow.

---

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 windblast 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, two inches away from 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 scenery of Afghanistan and then the Pakistan slowly drift by. Too slowly.

On the descent from 20 to 12 thousand 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!? Shit." 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 I was going to skim over the 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 radio nets loud and clear. The next day I was talking with the CSAR guys in Pakistan and they said they got the helos spun up when the read that on the CSAR chat room. (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 quite sweaty in fact. Then there was the much more chilly zone above that. 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 autopilot.

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 over there. Sorry."

Like I said, it's strange the thoughts people have at times like this.

My wingman and I talked about the airfield. Frequencies, layout, the fact that the locals 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 just 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 I had no idea what would happen; but I was, shall we say, an interested party in how that was going to turn out.

The plane flew fine with all that junk on it, the canopy gone, and all the dinged up flight controls. 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. (The space shuttle descent was designed to foil the local sportsman as they took poshots at the American air pirates.) 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 manner.

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 seven-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 ass. 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 in huts and tents, 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 around 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.

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. Absolutely stunning job by the guys (“Where do we get such men?”). By the end the basket and hose were removed, the canopy had been replaced and the LEX repaired with 300 mile an hour tape (No, I am not kidding). Three of the guys showed up and immediately disappeared with two big boxes of geedunk. They were on a booze hunt and they succeeded. The Air Force settled them 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, Gretzky." I actually got a little chocked up at that. If you tell anyone I said that I’ll deny it.

The RTB was uneventful right up until the end. One of my hydraulic pumps disintegrated 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 (as the pressure on one of my systems went to zero). Hitting the reset button suddenly went from normal response on short final to a HUGE mistake. When the aileron failed again I realized I sorta needed to get aboard the first time, ‘cause the hydraulic system was probably bleeding out - rapidly. "Man, first I miss Shania and now this. This is just not my day." 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, and I was 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 ran, 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.

This isn't the first thing that's happened to me out here you know. We're flying the shit 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 resignation letter in after all. I'm getting too short for this shit.

Oh well, statistically speaking the rest of cruise should be smooth sailing.

Because, after all, what are the odds something like this will happen again?

(I love planting the seeds of irony.)