The following story was written by Capt. Dale F.Brown from the 715th Bombardment Squadron in 1985 and provides an insight into what happens after a generation is over for most people in the wing. The story is published with its permission.
Oh, boy! Another generation. Report immediately to your duty station in utility uniform. Shelter exercises. Disaster exercises. Meet the timing criteria. Get everything done two hours ago. Fix that #*!$&% bomber! We are the best at what we do because we have these monthly 'mini-wars' here. They usually kick off Monday morning and end sometime late Tuesday. We practice a lot of the things we'd need to do if we were ever called upon to fight a war for real. We race around for nearly 48 hours straight-maintenance, munitions, security, administration, intelligence, operations, the Battle Staff, all of us-all for one purpose: get our airplanes ready to fight. But then, when the mysterious 'scenario' decides that everyone has hustled enough, the 'war' ends. The maintenance troops, who have already busted day and night to upload their airplanes, download and reconfigure their machines for daily training missions. The cops take down the cones and red ropes around all those planes on the flightline. Shelter exercise checklists are put away. Things are usually back to normal on Wednesday. The generation is over. Right ? Not so fast! The wing's mission-your mission-is deterrence. Keep a force on constant alert to prove to our country's enemies that we can and will defend her at all times. And that an attack against us would be useless and costly. We've just spent all those hours getting all those machines ready for war. The final chapter- go out there and simulate fighting one! Air Traffic Control calls it 'Busy Helpmate', but we flyers fondly refer to it simply as 'The Stream'. Beginning at about 11:00 AM on Thursday, we launch over a dozen FB-111A bombers, two at a time, every 20 minutes on what will be a nine hours, 5,000 mile trip covering eight states, two Canadian provinces and six assigned targets. Let me take you through the war we fight-after the generation. For the maintenance troops and crewmembers, the work never really stops. On Wednesday, maintenance reconfigures the bombers and tankers for the Stream. Meanwhile, the crewmembers complete mission planning for the flight ahead. The aircraft is preflighted once again by the crews who will fly it, and they receive specialized route briefings and detailed target study. The Thursday morning mass briefing for the crewmembers resembles something straight out of 'Twelve O'Clock High' Roll call. A time hack. An overview of the strike routing. Last minute changes or notices. A weather briefing. Then, just like the eve of any battle since they started having battles-words of encouragement from the wing commander. The main message-fly safe, fly smart.
We're off! Simulating a fast-reaction scramble take-off, we blast out of Pease and head west, leveling off at 27,000 feet. The mountains over New Hampshire, Vermont and upstate New York are splashed with the color of changing foliage, and you take a moment after the formation is rejoined to check out the scenery before getting to work. Before long you're in Canada, following the shortest 'Great Circle' route to the low-level track still over 1,200 miles away. You radio back to Pease via high-frequency radio that you are airborne and on your way 'to war'. You can hear the bomber formations ahead or behind you, guys cursing or sweet-talking their airplanes, running checklists, or discussing a radar aimpoint. You listen to the high-frequency coded messages from all over the hemisphere that - 'Had this been an actual emergency...' like the TV says- you would execute your sortie and send you off to war. Or you can turn on the satellite communications system and let a satellite print the message out for you on a tiny printer crammed into the 'Switchblade's' tiny cockpit near the navigator's right elbow.
Bombs away! A radio tone, broadcast to a Strategic Air Command Radar Bombing Scoring site, cuts exactly when the bomb would have been released. The RBS site then computes how close to the assigned target the bomb would have hit, and the score is transmitted back to Pease. The next target is less than 90 second away. While you work to shack-aim the new offsets, the RBS site is busy 'launching' surface-to-air missiles and 'firing' anti-aircraft artillery at you, which your electronic track-breakers are hard at work defeating. The pilot watches for visual timing points, calling them out as they zip under the nose at 300 feet per second.
Bombs away! The last release is a simulated Short-Range Attack Missile launch. At exactly the same instant, the RBS site will plot the bomber's position, and the SRAM computer will record the bomber's position at launch. The result is the missile's computed miss distance. The low-level route lasts anywhere from one hour to well over two hours and usually incorporates two separate bomb runs (the Operational Readiness Inspection low-level route is two hours 13 minutes long and has four bomb runs and one ECM-only run). After the last release, you climb out of the route and rejoin your wingman near the exit point.Your next task is the post-strike refueling. You have a token onload of only 10,000 pounds, an 'insurance factor' against adverse weather or other unforeseen circumstances. After that, another three hours eastbound towards Pease. You have required 'strike' reports to send out via high-frequency or satellite communications, but mostly you try to unwind, watch the scenery and the Aurora Borealis in the northern sky and wait until you hear the familiar voices of the Boston air traffic controllers vectoring you home. You try to stay awake as you head into debrief maintenance and operations, explaining how your bomber performed and how well the wing's plan worked for you throughout the mission. But you're waiting for that last, all-important item, your bomb scores.After all the recalls, the exercises, the hard work, the long hours and the hustle of the past few days, the bottom line is always this: Bombs on target. The generation isn't over until those scores come in and the Battle Staff tallies the damage the wing did to the 'enemy' and rates your ability to accomplish our mission. But remember: Never think that one person, or one crew, or one squadron can ever take sole credit for that bottom line. Everyone in this wing had a vital role in that bomb score.So when the next generation begins, and you're rolled out of bed to respond to a recall, or you've been on line for 24 hours or nothing seems to be going right out there, try to keep the 'bottom line' in mind.
Because we, everyone at Pease, are the bottom line!
Did you ever hear the saying, “He knows just enough to be dangerous?” If you’re like me, you know that’s wrong, because the more you know about flying the better you are. Right? Well, I’m alive to tell you even the most highly motivated people need to remember that experience without a sense of danger can make you the next candidate for an accident. Even an experienced flier can be dangerous!
First, a story, which like all good safety stories begins with…There I was, Blue Three in a three-ship of FB-111’s on a standard night formation profile out of Plattsburgh AFB NY, with a formation takeoff to air refueling and proceeding single-ship through low level and return to the patter. All six fliers were highly experienced instructors. We were all hard liners on briefing and formation discipline, so flight lead’s review of squadron standards specifically included the actual numbers that made up the standards. It was a normal pre-flight, which meant Blue Two was maintenance delayed. Since he was the one who needed formation flying, we decided to delay the flight for him. Always motivated to get the most out of every flight, we took off as a two-ship on a local area clearance directly into the pattern to log some night approaches. It wasn’t much longer until #2 cancelled for the evening. Lead was climbing out from his low approach, and just before we reported initial he called for a standard rejoin.“Heat 23, cleared right wing.”“Two,” came the crisp reply from us.”We assumed standard speeds would be used when no speed was given. A little alarm bell was going off in my head, though, and I had long ago learned to trust those alarms. “What speed did he give?”“He didn’t, but he briefed climb out at 350. I’m holding 400, but give me a good one mile call and I’ll slow to 380. Passing through 1500 AGL now.” My pilot, ace instructor that he was, sure knew the night rejoin limits.I called “one mile, assume 380” and transitioned to visual. I had my hand on the mike switch and was just about to call traffic off lead’s nose when my pilot went to idle power and abruptly dumped the nose. Although it was pitch black, I could distinctly make out the tail number printed on the gear door (194—the first FB-111 I ever flew); and I very clearly heard the roar of lead’s engines as we streaked just underneath him. Except for the quick reactions of my pilot, we nearly became 4 very experienced, very dead instructors!“I’ve got it,” my pilot said as the windscreen now filled with the dark reflections of Lake Champlain. His next call to lead displayed the best composure I could imagine. “Lead, Two. We’ll stay in cell awhile.” You can believe there was a spirited post-flight debrief back at the squadron.It’s not just one thing that leads to any mishap situation, but a string of events. This time, however, it was a string of altered perceptions that almost did us in. Lead distinctly remembered his rejoin call being “Heat 23, cleared right wing, 250.” He wanted to give us a power advantage and he was already approaching 250 on his climb out, so he decided to maintain 250. Although this was a deviation from what was briefed, it was within standards and normal limits, and he was sure he notified us of the change.The problem is we remembered the briefing’s emphasis on standards and discipline too well. We were comfortable in our sleek and deadly ‘Vark and just as distinctly “heard” what we expected to hear in lead’s standard radio call. Being hard core instructors and strict about radio discipline, we chirped our acknowledgement of his call, comfortable in what we were already doing. Having just departed the dogleg for initial, we had to slow down to reach what we believed was 30 knots above lead. Actually, we had 130 knots of overtake at night!And what about the crossing traffic—a trivial distraction in the story? Actually, it was lead’s wing tip light. Our closure was so fast and the night so black that his wing tip light was “separating” from his tail light in a visual illusion I’d never experienced. His tail light was dead still in our windscreen, neither moving nor growing until almost too late.Accident figures clearly show experienced fliers are involved in accidents even as they gain experience. The Air Force Safety Agency’s Data Analysis Branch studied pilot flying experience in Class A mishaps between 1 January 1981 and 21 May 1992 and found that operations-related mishaps involved surprisingly high pilot experience levels, yielding a USAF average of 1762.8 hours of total time and 623.5 hours in the aircraft per mishap pilot. While they are careful to point out that 60.67 percent of operations-related incidents happen to pilots with less than 500 hours in the mishap aircraft type, that still leaves almost 40 percent with more than 500 hours. By specialty, the watershed marks for total/aircraft hours were 1712/638 for attack, 2046/704 for bomber, 3019/1408 for cargo, 1622/532 for fighter, 2332/21 for glider, 2264/915 for helicopter, 1100/294 for trainer and 1208/69 for observation. Somewhere around these points even the most conscientious people may become conditioned by their experience to believe they’re insulated from the mistakes other “less knowledgeable and less experienced” people make. Don’t confuse this with complacency; it happens to even the best fliers despite great efforts to stay sharp.At this level of experience mistakes often occur because of altered perceptions and earned comfort rather than complacency or ignorance. Our experience gets us to the point where we’re comfortable doing dangerous things. Let’s face it—night rejoins, touching another plane (a.k.a. refueling), and intentionally contacting the ground (a.k.a. landing) are just a few of the dangerous things we soon take for granted as we gain more experience and exposure to them.What’s this got to do with you? Here comes the proactive part—what you can do about it. You can do more to overcome the dangers of experience than more briefings and another FCIF. USE YOUR SIMULATOR! Cockpit Resource Management and the Aircrew Attention Awareness Management Program already use simulators to recreate documented crashes and phenomena such as wind shear and micro burst, but go the extra step and use it to train perceptions, not just procedures. Us it to teach things too dangerous to do in the air—like running into another airplane so you can see what “excessive” closure is, developing an excessive sink rate on final, or completing a classic target fixation scenario. Use the simulator to take the cockpit crew back to the point of no return and let them study what it looks like when they’re committed to ejection or death.The way we’ve used simulators in the past often created the perception we can survive any situation in what you can consider the “I’ve never crashed and burned before” syndrome, when we could ust it to train how to recognize impending danger. If we train people how to PERCEIVE a developing crash, we’re arming them with an additional tool to avoid wasting themselves and their aircraft.That’s my story and my lesson learned, and it applies to the fighter jock who’s comfortable dive bombing, the trash hauler who’s heart rate no longer goes up facing a min weather strange field approach, or the rotor head who’s got good enough hands to consider autorotation something other than a controlled crash. With all the changes in our operations (SERBs, RIFs, “feet on the ramp”), there are more people than ever in the “danger zone.” One of the most important things we do as instructors is give others the knowledge they need to come back alive. Let’s make sure we’re maintaining the same edge on our more experienced people too!
By Patrick A. Pope. (Published in “The Combat Edge”, June 1993 and reproduced with the permission of the author.)
The first FB-111A arrived at Pease AFB NH on 20th December 1970. We had our first SAC ORI in October 1971. We also had aircraft on alert . The winter of 1971-1972 was a pretty rough winter with plenty of ice and snow. It was the first full winter of operating the FB-111A at Pease. On the last Saturday morning in January of 1972, around 9 am, the Klaxon horns went off for the alert force. The alert aircraft were tasked by SAC to taxi out to the runway and simulate a take off for each aircraft. In order for the aircraft to reach the end of the runway, the pilot had to taxi the aircraft out of the shelter, go to the end of the shelter area and make a right taxi for a short piece then up an incline and then make a left turn and on to the active taxi way and up to the end of the active runway. In order to steer the aircraft, the pilot would activate the nose wheel steering button on his control stick then push the rudder pedals either right or left, and use the throttles to power either the left or right engine, to push the aircraft. When the pilot pushed the rudder Pedals, the rudder indicator showed the position of the deflected rudder. As one of the aircraft taxied out of the shelter and made his way out to the active taxiway, he made the turn up the grade, but when he made the left turn to go on to the active taxiway, as he pushed his pedals he looked at the rudder indicator, and saw the needle reflected to the left, then return to the center and to the right. He knew that this action by the rudder was not right. He called the Command Post and informed them of his situation, and they informed the pilot to abort the taxi and return to the shelter, so the system could be checked by maintenance. He returned the aircraft to the shelter and the aircraft was put into pre-maintenance. It was determined that the aircraft need to be jacked, so the gear could be checked. So the weapons were downloaded. The aircraft was worked on the rest of Saturday, Saturday night all day Sunday and Sunday night. All checks were good, and no problems found.I was the Flight Contol System/ Instrument Section supervisor. I came in about 6:30 am to start my day. I looked over the flying schedule, and then at my work orders. I noticed that there was a work order to have someone to check out the Astro-Tracker Compass system on an aircraft that was on standby for the alert force. I called Job Control and asked if there was to be a change of aircraft on alert, and was informed that during taxi out Saturday one of the aircraft had a nose wheel steering and rudder problem. He told me what had happened. I called Col Buck our Chief of Maintenance, and asked him if he was aware of the problem the aircraft had, and was told that he was aware of the problem Saturday. I asked him why wasn’t I given a call, and he said that he was assured that the problem was an OMS and Field Maintenance problem, so he was not getting anyone else involved in it. I asked him if he would give the DOC(Deputy Commander of Operations) a call and have his pilot please give me a call so I could talk to him. He said that he would be glad to. I thanked him and hung up my phone. The pilot did call me and I asked him just what happened, he told me what the Job Controller had stated. I asked him if he was aware of the make up of the components in the Flight Control System, and he said he was aware of the gyros’ and the three amplifiers. I told him that there are two Accelerometers in the system and the job of these components is to sense and correct, for the skidding or slipping of the aircraft when you are making a turn. These components were working for him when he made the turn to go on the active taxi way. There is ice in this area and the aircraft skidded on the ice, and the accelerometers tried to correct, taking your Rudder from the left back to the center and to the rlght, giving the system the correction it needed. Since you were on the ground and not in the air, no correction could be made. I asked Col Buck to have the DCO come to his office and I would explain the problem. We decided to call Plattsburg and talk to the CCTS personnel, and see if they were aware that this could happen. They said that they never had heard of this or seen it happened. We returned the aircraft to ready status, and never had the problem to happen again. We all got an education on this problem, the aircrews, maintenance as well as the staff.
Jim Plemmons SMSGT USAF (Retired)
I am James M Plemmons, Smsgt. retired. I was assigned to the Automatic Flight Control Section of the 509th AMS in September 1969 at Pease AFB. We were slated to become a FB-111 unit. I got up to the 55 personnel, some were to work on the aircraft and a few were to be working in the field shop. We got our first FB in December 1970. Col Winston Moore was the Wing Commander, and flew the first FB into Pease. I went to school at Carswell in October 1969. I had been assigned to the B-58 Flight Control system for almost eight years before leaving Little Rock and going to Thailand for a year, then to Pease.
We had some "first" problems encountered with the F-111. Pilots had to get used to the self adaptive gains system. In flight the gain system would automatically trim the elevators to adjust for the speed and altitude of the aircraft. When the pilot would do the High or Low CADC tests, there was a relay in the Feel Trim unit that would be unlocked for the gains, and therefore the stab would drift either up or down. I remember the first no rotation on take off that we had at Pease. It was in the spring of 72, in Late April. I got a call from the Command Post and was told that the aircraft had no rotation on take off, and the SOF (Safety Of Flight Officer) was on the way in to pick me up. We went to the end of the runway where the aircraft was sitting there still with engines running, and the fire trucks were in attendance. Col Buck was the Chief of Maintenance, and Col Luke was the DCO (Deputy Chief Operations). My chief of maintenance asked me what did I think was wrong, so I told him that the stabs was not at TO(Take Off ) position as the aircraft was sitting. I told the Fire Chief to let the brakes cool off, and then have the ground crew send him back to the maintenance area, and I would talk to the pilot. We got the plane back to the maintenance area, so I got on the head set and asked the pilot what happened, he told me he cross checked the airspeed indicator at the 100 Knot speed, and all was fine but when he got to rotation speed and pulled back on the stick, he put it in his lap and there was no nose respond, so he pulled back the throttles, and got on the brakes, getting hot brakes, but getting the plane stopped. I asked him to go through the flight control checks so I could see if he had any binding, they were all smooth in pitch and roll axis, so I turned my attention as to his TO(Take Off) procedure, I asked him if he tried to rotate at too low air speed, he informed me he had not, and it was apparent to me he had never reached take off speed, because he could not get the nose up. I asked him a few more questions, then I came back to the question of rotation speed, and the airspeed indicators. He informed me that the Mach/Airspeed indicators were working fine, because that was the last thing that he checked before he took the active. He had insisted that he was at Take off position on his stabs. So I told him OK, I will turn you back over to the crew chief, so he can shut your engines down. I had already made up my mind as to what happened. I went back to my office and as I was walking in, my phone was ringing, it was Col Buck, my Chief of Maintenance. He wanted to know if I had any idea what was wrong. I told him my theory was that he did the High/Low CADC test and didn't hit the TO trim button , before take off, like the -1 tells you to do. I took time to call the tower and asked if they held the aircraft at the end of the taxiway before they let him take the active. They informed me that he had to hold ten minutes before they let him take the active, at this time I would have bet my stripes that he sat there and did the High/Low CADC check. and when he was cleared to take the active, he rolled off the tarmac and lined up for take off and went into afterburner ,released the brakes and shot down the runway, and when he got to rotation speed, the surfaced had drifted to the point that he had not enough movement to get the stab back to where it would deflect him up. I got another call from Col Buck telling me, the pilot said I was full of crap, that he did not do the CADC checks at the end of the runway. I had put the aircraft on impoundment status, and red X. SAC and 2nd AF got into the act. I informed them there was nothing wrong with the flight control systems, that there was pilot error, plain and simple, it was a mistake. I wanted to release the AC and put it in the air with a FCF and or have a high speed taxi check down the runway. SAC said no FCF, but agreed to the high speed, taxi check out. Lt Col Volker from Stan Board Eval was to give me my taxi check. I will never forget this, he got the aircraft at the end of the runway and called me on the radio and asked me just what I wanted. I told him to take the active and then do either a high or low CACD check, the stab would either drift up or down, and then for him not to hit the take off trim button to put the surface back for takeoff, but just takeoff! He wanted to know what would happen, so I told him that when he got to rotation speed, approx 145K and pulled back on the stick, the nose more than likely would not respond, and for him to throttle back and brake. He informed me there was no way he was going to do the test without the barrier in place. The barrier was put out for him, and we started the test. When he did the high test the stabs drifted up. He released the brakes and shot down the runway, did the 100 knots cross check and on to rotations speed. He pulled back the stick and put it all the way into his lap, no nose response. He stated saying 'No Rotation, No Rotation', so I started telling him in response, shut dow the engines, shut down your engines, he throttled back the engines, and got stopped before getting hot brakes. I thanked him and went back to the shop. The phone was ringing as I got into my office. Col Buck was on the phone informing me the pilot, had admitted he had performed the CADC checks and forgot to hit the Take Off trim button before he started his roll.We had outstanding crews on the FB-111A, they listened and did not make the same mistake twice.
There is a note worthy story behind this “Buy None” exercise flight from Lockbourne. The alert force exercise initiating the evaluation resulted in the collision of 2 KC-135’s taxiing out from the alert force parking ramp at Lockbourne. The subsequent fire totaled one KC-135 and resulted in the death of 3 of the aircrew. This event happened March 8, 1973, nearly 38 years ago, and my recollection of that day’s events may need correction. Anyone with addition data or corrections may freely do so.
The story starts at the Lockbourne alert facility. While sitting around in the facility I recalled noting how young and how GUNG HO our host base’s KC- 135 aircrew’s appeared. I commented about this to one of the more senior Tanker crew members. He agreed with my observation and made the additional comment that the squadrons crew member experience level was so low that the flying schedule was predicated on the availability of a qualified pilot to serve as Supervisor of Flying (SOF). Being an “old dog” Captain with 10 year’s service I filed this little nugget of information in the back of my mind. It came to serve me well two days later! March 8, 1973 at around 4:45 AM the alert Klaxon sounded at Lockbourne. The alert facility quickly turned from a quiet darkened facility to the usual mad house during alerts… flashing red lights, the klaxon screaming, people yelling and bodies running throughout the rooms and hallways. Dave and I quickly dressed and were running for the “mole hole “doors and our alert vehicle. As we ran down the exit ramp I recalled hearing a starter cartridge fire on one of the tankers. Wow, I thought, those KC-135 crews are really fast reacting. I also thought to myself this is going to be a “real fun” exercise if we have intermingled FB-111’s and KC-135’s taxiing in the dark. Dave and I jumped into our alert vehicle and raced out to our FB and climbed into the cockpit. Dave authenticated the exercise message while I quickly performed the start engines sequence. I was highly experience in alert starts as a former ADC F-101B Voodoo driver and quite adept at rapidly throwing switches in the cockpit. My intention was to get taxiing well ahead of any tanker to avoid being overrun by those BIG BIRDS and their GUNG HO aircrews! Around the time I activated the cross bleed switch to start the second engine a radio call is heard….. KC-135 collision and fire. We were unable to observe the collision site as we were located in the alert shelter and the tankers were off to the right and behind us. As the second engine spooled up the thought went through my mind…two EWO loaded tankers on fire…that makes 350,000 pounds of fuel waiting to go up and we are not very far away… let’s get out of here pronto. I energetically signaled the crew chief to pull the chocks and rapidly flashed the taxi lights. I called out to Dave ...ready to taxi...clear right, clear right …he replied wait a minute the Inertial Navigation System (INS) alignment light is still blinking… we can’t move or the INS will tumble. The INS tumbled. Nothing like an aircraft on fire next to you to get one moving.We were first out of the shelters by a long shot. As I recall Lockbourne had few if any ramp lights and the taxiway and runway lights were at a very low setting that night. It was a real challenge taxiing on a pitch black night on an unfamiliar ramp and taxiway. Taxiing out from the alert shelter I never had time to turn my head to the right to look at the KC-135 ramp and burning aircraft. I turned onto the runway and pushed the throttles well forward to get the heavy beast moving. I was sure whomever was following me would also have their throttles well forward. I kept a good amount of power on until abreast the tower at the mid- point of the 12,000 foot runway. I think the IAS tape moved at that point and it provided the first clue I was moving too fast for an aircraft weighing approximately 108,000 pounds. My throttles quickly went to idle and a lot heavier foot pressure than usual was applied to the brake pedals to slow down the aircraft for the taxiway turnoff. I taxied the aircraft to the mid-point of the parallel taxiway and stopped about 6,000 feet from the burning tanker. I figured we were safe there and that location left sufficient space on the taxiway to park the other 2 FB’s and the 4 unscathed KC-135’s while leaving the runway open in case it was needed.
Now the fun began. After a few minutes waiting on the taxiway I keyed the mike and transmitted …. Command Post this is Blade 11 we are located on the parallel taxiway with engines running what instructions do you have for us? Silence. Repeat call. Silence again. Etc, etc, etc. Ten or more minutes pass. The command post is not talking to us or anyone else. Not a word is spoken on the radio. Sunrise has now arrived and we can clearly see the burning KC-135. The fire department is spraying foam and water on the burning fuselage and attempting to shut down one of the tanker engines which was locked at a high power setting by shooting a stream of foam into it. (One tankers wing tip had sliced into the fuselage of the other tanker just aft of the cockpit, jamming the engine throttle linkage full open. It had also filled the cockpit with burning fuel.)
Still no contact with the Lockbourne Command Post. WE attempt contact with SKY BIRD. Silence again. The command post…the repository of all knowledge, wisdom and infallibility is totally, and I mean totally, silent. After about 20 more minutes of this I tell the other FB’s I am going to shut down my engines. The other two FB’s follow suite and we exit our aircraft. Security police arrive to guard the aircraft and maintenance personnel install cartridges so that we can start the engines again if needed. I do not remember who told us everything was cancelled and to go back to the Alert facility. Later that afternoon we retrieved the CMF Box from the aircraft and leave them in the CP. I recall the Command Post/ DOX personnel were none too happy to have to baby sit the “go to war tickets”. For the next two days all six of us FB-111A aircrew members maintained a very, low profile and quietly tip-toed around Lockbourne before leaving to fly the bombing mission portion of the “BUY NONE.” To the best of my knowledge no one ever asked any of us about the accident. SAC eliminated night moving exercises for the alert force after this accident.
Jim McKinley, 715th Bomb Squadron, Jan 1970- June 1973
Wing CVI, July 1984- August 1989
In October 1973, I was assigned as an FB-111 Aircraft Commander in the 393rd Bombardment Squadron of the 509th Bomb Wing at Pease AFB, New Hampshire. The 509th was a major unit of the Strategic Air Command and was playing a significant role in the day-to-day conduct of the Cold War with it's twelve aircraft alert force and the capability to rapidly generate additional strike sorties. On October 6th Syria, Egypt and Jordan began a coordinated attack on Israel timed to occur at the onset of the Yom Kippur religious holiday. Apparently, the Israeli military had received no intelligence warning of this attack and were caught at a fairly low state of readiness. Armed with some of the most advanced weapons to be exported by the USSR the Arab forces met with considerable initial success. In the first few hours of the conflict the Israelis lost a substantial part of the Israeli Air Force (IAF) and the attacking ground forces made territorial gains in the Golan Heights and in the Sinai Desert. With the diminished capacity of the IAF, the outcome of the conflict was in doubt and the United States began a massive resupply effort. Efforts to relieve and resupply Israel were severely hampered when all U.S. allies except Portugal refused landing rights to aircraft bound for Israel. This left Lajes AB in the Azores as the only enroute refueling stop available. Against this backdrop, Pease AFB played a crucial role in providing refueling support to both American and Israeli resupply flights. I had stayed up late one evening to watch a television news special report on the situation in the Mid-East and had retired at about 2330 hours. At exactly 0134 the telephone rang and I received the following message: "This is activation of the pyramid alerting system. Complete your notifications and report to your duty station immediately." I only had to notify my assigned Navigator, so I was ready to go fairly quickly. Calls of this sort were made fairly often and usually were the initiation of some type of training or evaluation exercise. The only thing out of the ordinary was the timing of the call as most exercises were kicked off at about 0600 hours. Quickly recalling military personnel was one of the critical factors in any evaluation of the unit and the standard instructions were not to waste time in shaving, brushing teeth, ect. but rather to get to the squadron as fast as possible. I therefore always had a flying uniform set up and ready to be worn, my flying gear where I could reach it rapidly and a mind set to move quickly. I was out the door less than five minutes after the phone rang.I was living off base about six miles from Pease, and by the time I arrived at the squadron many of the officers living in base quarters were already there. I was immediately informed this was no drill and that the unit had been placed in an advanced readiness posture. The 509th was directed to generate an additional six alert sorties to bring the alert force total to eighteen bombers along with several additional tanker sorties. I was assigned to the last bomber sortie to be generated, sortie eighteen. An alert generation is a well orchestrated ballet in which about 1,500 people perform the thousands of individual steps necessary to turn aircraft configured for training into complete weapons systems ready for combat. The FB-111 is an extraordinarily complex aircraft and even for these well practiced professionals it would take a number of hours to complete these tasks. On this particular day, the flight line was not a very pleasant place for the maintenance crews who would shoulder much of the responsibility for the generation. It was raining with the temperature approaching 40 degrees and the forecast called for of rain, low ceilings and winds from the northeast increasing in intensity to 30-35 knots. It has been said that flying consists of hours of boredom punctuated by rare moments of stark terror. "Real world" generations are also much like this. During my 28 years in SAC I only know of a very few of them and each was in response to some very serious international crisis. To kill a bit of time, my partner and I checked our flight publications for currency and drank entirely too much coffee. At about 0530 we were directed to report to Combat Operations to be briefed on the tactical situation and to study the flight plans for our assigned sortie. The intelligence portion of the briefing indicated that major Soviet units were about to board transport aircraft and were presumed to be going to the Mid-East to augment the Arab forces attacking Israel. The increased readiness in SAC was intended as a message to the Soviets that the United States would not tolerate this sort of interference. Within a matter of an hour or so Soviet satellites would pick up the increased activity at every SAC base in the world and the message would be obvious. I don't know if President Nixon was really prepared to fight World War Three on that day. I never got to ask him, but SAC units all over the world were preparing for that possibility. At about 0700 the briefings and target study were completed and we were issued our combat mission folders (CMF). These documents are stored in two containers that would be placed in the aircraft when it was 'cocked' on alert. Their issue so early turned out to be a mistake. The documents comprising the CMF are among the most highly classified in our country and when the complete CMF is outside of an approved storage location it must be accompanied by two authorized and armed officers. The aircraft would not be ready for preflight for several hours and the possession of the CMF meant that neither I or my Nav would be able to get any rest. In fact, if one of us needed to use the 'john' it was necessary for both of us to go carrying the CMF with us. By mid afternoon both of us were having trouble keeping our eyes open. At about 1730 our aircraft was ready for preflight and we carried the CMF out, installed it in the cockpit and began the alert assumption preflight. At about 1830 we had 'cocked' our sortie on alert and were finally free of the CMF. Our aircraft and CMF were now under armed guard. We returned to the alert facility hoping to get some badly needed rest. Rest was becoming critical because if the crisis worsened the next logical step would have been to disperse some of the alert aircraft to other air fields to keep from having 'too many eggs in one basket'. We had less than two hours sleep in the previous 36 hours, the weather both at Pease and at the dispersal base was near minimums and the aircraft was heavier than I had ever flown it. I was becoming uncomfortable with the odds! Apparently the intended message was received loud and clear because at about 2000 hours we got the order to stand down and proceeded to turn in the CMF and go home. Of course maintenance worked all night returning aircraft to their training configuration.The Israelis fought a very hard 22 day war that resulted in victory but at a very high price.
LESSONS LEARNED,
1. At local level we learned that it was not a good idea to issue CMFs so early in a generation. Plans were changed to allow crews to rest until they were needed.
2. Until March 1974 the Arab states refused to sell oil to any of the western nations allied with Israel and we all learned to wait in long lines for gasoline.
3. The Air Force learned that we could not depend on our foreign bases for support of all contingency operations. This resulted in a capability to conduct global operations independent of foreign bases.
a. The decision was made to install air refueling systems on all transport aircraft.
b. To further increase global air refueling capability some KC-135 tankers were outfitted with receiver air refueling systems.
c. The KC-10 heavy tanker was procured.
4. The Soviets learned their freedom of action in the world had limits.
