This page features some photos taken by TSgt. Tori Lamoureux while serving with the 509th BW. Tori was stationed at both Plattsburgh (82-84) and Pease (87-90) as an Admin. clerk. At Pease, Admin clerk meant Assistant Alert Manager. These photos were taken at the "No More Alert" party held at Pease after the FBs and KCs were taken off alert for the final time. The party was held in late August or early September?
This story was written by Capt. Dale Brown, 715th BMS, in May 1986 and is published with his permission.
What is the mission at Pease? Well, we fly planes around here, that's for sure. The supersonic FB-111A swing-wing bombers with no nickname (unofficially called the 'Aardvark') and the KC-135 'Stratotanker'. They fly early-morning sorties which provide the Seacoast area a free wake-up call at 6:45 a.m., and they remind us that 'Dynasty' is on when they rattle the windows again at nine o'clock at night. But what are they doing? Why are they flying?Well, the tankers do aerial refueling. The almost unbelievable task of pumping thousands of gallons of volatile jet fuel between two aircraft which are separated by a mere 15 feet and traveling hundreds of miles per hour. The bombers fly low-level bombing and navigation runs, flying at treetop level at 500 mph or more, guided by a thin radar beam. So that's it, then! Refueling and bombing. That's the 509th Bombardment Wing's mission, right?The wing's primary mission is deterrence. Well, what's that? The 1960 U.S.Air Force Dictionary didn't even have the word in it! The term means: 'Measures taken by a state or an alliance of states to prevent hostile actions by another state.' Our mission, then, is to maintain a strong and credible force of manned bombers and tankers to demonstrate to our foes (and friends) that an attack will never surprise us and that, should deterrence fail, we would retaliate with all of our available military power and skill. The entire reason for our existence, our primary mission of deterrence, sits on the south end of Pease's 2 mile-long runway. the planes are fully loaded, fully fueled, configured to start at a moment's notice and take-off within seconds. But they never fly. Thankfully, they never fly. They are the alert force, the men and women locked in the half-underground alert facility (also known as the 'bunker', 'mole-hole', 'the pad' and a lot of unprintable names). Let's take a look at this critical but often forgotten part of our country's deterrent force by putting you on alert for a week!On changeover day, you assume sole responsibility for a multi-million dollar weapon system and the mission associated with it. You take charge of several important documents, including those for command and control of the sortie. You must ensure your plane is ready for immediate engine start and take-off by doing a careful preflight inspection immediately after coming on alert. Afterwards, you attend a series of mandatory briefing designed to give you a quick refresher on the most important faces of alert, command and control procedures and tactical doctrine. You can expect at least one examination on alert or sortie procedures, decoding emergency action messages, or Strategic Air Command tactical combat procedures. The afternoon is spent carefully studying your combat sortie. Unlike 'Dr.Strangelove' or 'Fail-Safe', you are well-briefed and well-studied about the route of flight, targets and enemy defenses you may encounter. Again, you can expect a test on SAC tactical doctrine procedures or, if you're really lucky, a no-notice EWO (Emergency War Order) certification before the wing commander on your mission. That first day of alert is the most important, and probably the busiest. Compared to changeover day, the rest of the week seems quiet. You can kick back and relax... right ?
Not so fast! While you're on alert, you are considered the perfect square-filler. You have monthly, quarterly, and semi-annual and briefings and classes to attend, and alert is when you get most of them. You can expect one or two of these classes in the next few days, classes in survival, egress, aircraft systems, security, combat tactics, weapons, the list seems endless. Another event tailor-made for the alert crew member is the flight simulator. the simulator is available six days a week, fourteen hours a day, and since the alert crews don't fly for real, the 'sim' is perfect for them. You can expect at least one 'sim' during your tour, ranging anywhere from a quick two-hour emergency procedures 'flight' to an exhaustive eight-hour check-ride profile. If you're an instructor or panel operator, you can expect to operate or instruct two or three simulator flights during your tour.What else do you do ? A lot of additional duties, you are the primary and the alternate for several additional duties in the squadron which require your attention. Has it been 3 months since your last emergency procedures test ? Better get ready for your next one on Monday morning! Working on a masters degree or professional military education ? This is a pretty good time to work on all that! Is the 1st Combat Evaluation Group or the Operational Readiness Inspection due ? Yes, the CEVG is coming soon! Better get ready for that, too! For CEVG preparation, there is one emergency procedures test a week due, plus publications page-counts and Saturday morning sim flights. For the ORI, you need to study, study, and restudy the wing 'game plan' over and over!Sounds like a typical week, right ? You can expect at least one very non-typical occurrence each alert tour, an alert force exercise. On a regular basis, the wing and SAC test the ability of all alert crews to respond to an emergency by sounding the klaxon, the raucous, God-awful horn tested every day at 2:00 p.m. When it goes off, crews must respond to their assigned aircraft, start engines, and copy and decode a message transmitted to the crews. We call it an 'exercise', but you don't know (you never know!) if it's an exercise or not until the message is decoded and the appropriate checklist is run. At another time, you might expect it to be an exercise. Today ? Well...you don't know. That's why every crewmember, even the 'old heads', nearly jump out of their skins and check their watches every time the klaxon goes off. Even if you've had an inkling that an exercise is coming, your heart always races faster as you spring for your jet.Life is definitely not all work on alert, though MSgt Keefe, 509th BMW's chief Alert Management Division, and his staff have overseen the complete remodeling of the 30-year-old alert facility, making the 'mole-hole' look less like a big bomb shelter and more like a comfortable place to live and work. The alert facility has its own dining hall, game room, weight room and movies, as well as 24-hour access to the base gym. There is a family lounge, a separate building outside the barbed wire and guard dogs where families can visit crew members on alert, share a meal, and watch TV together. Are you a prisoner at the facility ? Not exactly. You are generally free to roam the base, but your locations must be carefully monitored and you must stay in constant communication with the alert force controller or the command post. You carry a radio where you can receive messages from the command post, and all locations available to you must have klaxons installed nearby. Alert crew response timing has been carefully surveyed from every possible location on base, and the speed at which a crew can respond from any location to their aircraft, start engines, taxi, and take-off is a primary concern. This is why alert crews are allowed to go to the head of a line at the BX, and why there are reserved parking spaces everywhere. Alert crews would be prohibited from going to any location where such special reservation weren't in place.That's an alert tour! Not so bad, was it ? Well...The fun of being an aircrew member is definitely the flying. There is nothing in the world like flying 500 miles an hour over northern Maine at 300 feet above the ground! the wing proves itself every year with the Operational Readiness Inspection, so we really 'make our money' on these important exercises. But our mission, the whole reason for our existence will always remain the same. To support those planes at the end of the runway that never go anywhere. If anyone, aircrew member, crew chief, security police, weapons loader, anyone! forgets what part he or she plays in our mission, everyone will suffer. We are all an important part in our country's national defense, and it takes each and every person in this wing to make it work!
FB-111A 68-0256 and 68-0269 from the 509th BMW, photographed in 1985 by Dan Stijovich.
This story was written by Capt. Dale F.Brown from the 715th BMS at Pease AFB and is reproduced with its permission.
The mention or thought of doing it makes even the most experienced crewmember's pulse race a bit faster. Think of the worst possible situations you can put an aircraft and a crew into, lousy weather, close to the ground (and other unseen obstacles) and add darkness. That's low-level night flying.It's one of those jobs where the better you do it, the more dangerous it is, and yet the chances of surviving in actual combat are improved. It is, to put it mildly, a unique situation. It's the ability to hide in the clutter or behind a ridge line that may mean the difference between reaching your target or being shot down. The FB-111A was one of the first aircraft to be designated especially for high-speed, low-altitude bombing. The FB-111's terrain following radar scans several miles ahead of the aircraft and automatically adjusts its altitude to put the bomber a set distance above the ground.In flat terrain, or above water, it is a smooth ride. At the 200-feet clearance setting and on "hard-ride"- which commands a nearly complete zero-G, weightless dive- it can be a real roller-coaster ride. During daytime, TFR flying is an exciting, exhilarating experience. Turn the lights out though, and it's a different story. Even with the computerized magic of the FB-111 working for you, no one can just climb into an Aardvark and fly night TFR. Every crew member must have eight hours of academics and three hours of simulator time before flying night or IFR (instrument flight rules, or bad weather) TFR. The next 10 flights in "blind" TFR are limited to 1,000 feet above the terrain and only fully operable aircraft navigation systems. After all these requirements have been completed, the crewmember is certified to fly blind TFR down as low as 400 feet during training missions.Mission planning and training takes much of the fear and mystery out of blind TFR. On mission planning day, the route of the flight is carefully briefed to both pilot and navigator. Potential trouble spots, large elevation changes, lakes and rivers (which sometimes look like terrain on radar) are examined. There will be times on each low-level route when one crewmember will be distracted from monitoring the TFR's performance - on a bomb run for, for instance - and such areas need to be identified early. The crew also discusses its exact actions should something go wrong. Then you're airborne. You've already accomplished a ground and inflight check of the TFR's, and everything works perfectly. You are 40 miles northeast of Bar Harbor, Maine, heading southeast at 17,000 feet. The weather has been cloudy and rainy since takeoff, and it's dark out there - not just night time dark, but mean-looking dark! Switches are configured and you're ready to go.
Twenty-two miles from the coast, the pilot engages AUTO-TFR on the autopilot panel. The bomber noses over and screams earthward at 10,000 feet per minute. As the nav calls out the altitudes, the pilot sweeps the wings back. Now you feel like you are hanging upside down in your seat. The altimeter is spinning down like a clock gone crazy. Finally, the descent slows, then stops. Wings forward, you pop through the clouds, just before reaching 1,000 feet above the ground, but all you can see is a sea of black, with a few lighthouses or boats lost in it. You descend to 750....500....400 feet. You can't see the waves rushing beneath you, but you can somehow feel them. You see a lighthouse near the Maine coast, and that's when you realize just how low you are!
Now you're coast-in again. Because of the poor wheater and total darkness, your world has shrunken down to the instrument panel and two radar scopes. Terrain isn't too bad yet, a lot of small lakes and hills, a farm here and there. Gentle slopes. The navigator is careful to tell the pilot when he's not watching terrain on his radar. The nav takes a look at the terrain for seven or eight miles ahead, runs a pre-bomb checklist, then checks terrain again. He runs the Short Range Attack Missile pre-launch checklist, then checks terrain. He checks radio and electronic countermeasures equipment, then checks terrain. Back and forth, never distracted for any longer than a few moments, the nav continues to check what's ahead.Meanwhile, the pilot compares the navigator's terrain calls with his own TFR E-scope, which gives a profile view of the terrain, with the aircraft on the far left. He watches the hills march across the scope, making sure none of them loom above the line on which the aircraft is flying. If he sees a break in the terrain, he calls it out to the navigator, who then checks it on his attack radar. Again, back and forth - constant coordination. You're now on the "backside" of Ashland, on the Maine-Quebec border northwest of Moosehead Lake. The little hills have grown into mountains. The audio feedback from the TFR is almost constant now - high-pitched "beeps" for climb commands, low-pitched "boops" for dives. The terrain is much higher than your bomber now, so high that you can't see much more than a few miles ahead on radar.Now the navigator begins making a steady stream of calls: "Terrain five miles, not painting over it....four miles, still not painting over it..." The pilot respond, "Got it on the E-scope". The TFR begin to command a climb - "beep....beep...beep...". "Three miles," the navigator calls, "still not painting over it". The radar scope is now almost completely black, since the TFR cannot pick up ("paint over") the terrain on the other side of the mountain. The TFR audio begins to increase in intensity - "beep beep beep beep..."Now the bomber is automatically zooming skyward at 4,000 feet per minute. The TFR audio is almost a steady tone - "beepbeepbeepbeep....". "Two miles, not painting over...starting to paint over the terrain!" the navigator says as blobs of white appear on the radar scope. It's like the whole world opens up again - the TFR shows the terrain on the other side of the mountain peak. The TFR begins to pull down the back side of the ridge - "boop...boop...boop...". The pilot loosens his grip on the stick and throttles back, realizing that he unconsciously added a little too much power going up the ridge. The nav sits back in his seat, feeling like he had stopped breathing for 10 minutes. Then it's time to start calling out the next ridgeline.Nervous? Sure. Scared? Maybe a little, but now you've proved to yourself that you can do it - safely take yourself, your crew and your bomber "down in the dirt". It may one day make the difference between accomplishing the mission or falling short.
FB-111A 68-0246 and 68-0287 from the 509th BMW.
