Tail of the Storm

by Alan Cockrell

  "There, Bones!" A large circular feature. Three, four, five miles across, maybe. It's hard to tell. It's badly eroded and barely discernible. Possibly it's a huge meteor crater.

  The jet ahead of us receives his descent clearance; soon we'll be next. We contact the airlift control element, or ALCE, and pass along our load data and estimated landing time. Jeff gets fresh weather from a met station in Riyadh and gives it to Brian, who falls to the task of calculating landing performance data. Brian then hands the data cards up to us, and I brief the crew on our planned approach to runway 34 right. Afterward I call for the ritual.

  "Let us now read from the Book of Lockheed."

  Brian knows this is his cue to start the descent checklist, the seventh of twelve such rituals we perform from the time we strap on the jet until we leave it. Bones and I respond dutifully after each challenge.

  "ALTIMETERS."

  "Set, pilot."

  "Set, copilot."

  "RADAR."

  "On and tuned."

  "CREW BRIEFING."

  "Completed."

  "RADAR ALTIMETER."

  "On and set."

  "THRUST REVERSER LIMITER."

  "Set."

  "CONTINUOUS IGNITION."

  "On."

  "SEAT BELTS AND SHOULDER HARNESSES."

  "Adjusted, pilot."

  "Adjusted, copilot."

  "I'm pleased to announce that the descent checklist is complete."

  I buckle my shoulder harness and adjust the seat. You've got to get the seat to the exact vertical position you're used to. Just a notch or two higher or lower and you could grossly misjudge your height above the runway during landing.

  The '141 has a long body, one that sits low to the ground. It was designed this way so that cargo and vehicles could be more easily loaded on board. But as a result there is little clearance between tail and ground, which poses a problem when landing. If you continue to apply back pressure in the flare, looking for that smooth "grease job" landing, the underside of the tail cone can easily strike the runway. It's not a life-threatening situation, but smoke, sparks, a costly repair job, and a trip to the kick-butt room are the likely results. Yet we have a choice. We can partially flare the jet, thereby accepting a firm but safe landing, or we can gamble on the "check-and-roll" maneuver.

  This thing is not taught in the flight schools but is a recognized acceptable way in both the military and civilian world to land certain long-bodied airplanes. Instead of actually flaring the plane, we "check" the descent with back pressure at about the point where a normal flare would be initiated. Then we release back pressure, reducing the angle of attack. If we judge it right, we'll catch the main trucks on the upswing as the nose rotates down toward the runway and maybe get that delightful grease job. It works best on airplanes in which the center of such rotation is forward of the main gear.

  But the trick is to check the descent when the main wheels are about 3 feet above the pavement. That's hard to judge when one's butt is about 30 feet up and angling skyward and descending at 10 feet per second while moving ahead at 200 feet per second. If you check at 5 or 6 feet, you'll pitch down flat on the runway, picking up an excessive descent rate, thereby crunching the main gear and possibly slamming down the nose; check too low and you drive the main gear into the concrete. To hit it right, you have a decision window of about plus or minus a second.

  Certain conditions can help or hinder the process. Most of us welcome a mild cross-wind. This allows us to bank into the wind during the check-and-roll maneuver, using opposite rudder to maintain runway alignment. The upwind wheels touch first, followed by the downwind wheels. The result is a cushioning effect and that oh, so wonderful feeling of a great landing. A few pilots will argue that such landings are unsafe because of an involved technicalitysomething to do with delayed spoiler activation because the aircraft's weight doesn't immediately settle on the touchdown switch. But such folks are not usually gifted enough to execute the check and roll anyway.

  A Yankee named Rick Hess came down and joined us from a fighter squadron in upstate New York and proceeded to make consistently perfect landings in the C-141. Had he not been able to find the key to getting along with southerners, we would have run him out of town on a rail. A few others among us, such as Johnboy Turnage, Tom Wallace, and Rob Finch, could hit the landings with embarrassing perfection. Most of us could do it sometimes, and a few could never hit it, but we all somehow managed not to break the jets.

  When a fellow pilot makes a bad landing, the code requires that you remain silent if you don't like him, since silence can be the most painful of criticisms. But if you like your flying partner, you might try to ease his chagrin with a remark or two about the various conditions that brought on his misfortune, whether or not they're relevant. Still, it is from the nonpilot crew membersthe engineers and loadsthat the crude remarks about chiropractors and mangled spinal cords will come. Mercifully, such remarks are normally made on "hot mike," which is a feature of the interphone system that pilots don't normally monitor.

  It was on the worst of daysthose when the airplane is lightweight and the wind is calmthat I made one of my all-time worst landings. I checked too high and crunched down hard as the wings shed their lift in the rapidly decreasing airspeed. I felt that inevitable red flush and embarrassment as the jet rolled and we reconfigured the flaps for another takeoff. I was exceedingly glad that the "Old Man" wasn't aboard.

  Tech Sergeant Hank Woolsey was a flight engineer, and because of his age, which was perceived as advanced, he could and did approach the frontiers of intimidation with his practical jokes on us college boy officer pilots. He kept a "squeaky horn," the kind that made a preposterous rubber duck kind of noise, in his flight kit. The goal of any pilot flying with Hank was to make a landing good enough to keep the cursed squeaky horn silent. And it was quite a challenge, for Hank was an accomplished civilian pilot in his own right. He required near perfection from the more experienced pilots while being a little more tolerant with the younger guys. Still, the horn respected no boundaries of rank, age, status, or talent. All of usfrom the lowest second balloon (second lieutenant) to the heavyweights from the Head Shedwere subject to its humiliating teasing.

  Relieved though I was that Hank wasn't with us, I still couldn't escape the pitiless horn that day. Just as the flaps started tracking to takeoff position, we heard it coming across the squadron frequency in our headsets, as somewhere the horn was being held next to a microphone.

  OWEEHA OWEEHA OWEEHA OWEEHA

  I looked over on the parallel taxiway and saw another C-141 taxiing out for takeoff, in the perfect position to observe the immense cloud of blue tire smoke drifting from the site of my bone-jarring landing.

  But now the time is over for practicing landings. All continuation training requirements have been suspended. Yet somewhere out here in the tail of the storm I feel that the squeaky horn lurks, waiting for my next cruncher.

  Shortly, Riyadh hands us off the Bahrain Center, and the frequency becomes jammed as dozens of aircraft compete for the controller's attention. They have trouble understanding him and ask again and again for clarification. Soon the frequency is a hopeless quagmire, as planes nearing their clearance limits become impatient and call desperately for clearances.

  Then, to our surprise and delight a deep, self-confident voice with a Texas drawl interrupts the overloaded Saudis and starts methodically sorting through the communications chaos, like a firm but caring father with his brood.

  "OK, EVERYBODY BE QUIET AND LISTEN. Now, who's askin' for lower?"

  "MAC Mike 2427, you can expect lower in twenty miles. Break, Texaco 32 go direct Gassim and contact Riyadh 126.0."

  "MAC Victor 1834, descend now to two one zero, pilot's discretion to one eight zero. Break, MAC Alpha 4112 fly heading two four zero, intercept Golf fifty-three, expect higher at Bopan."

  "Army 26 Romeo Kilo, Roger, cleared tactical, your discretion."

  "Now, who else was callin'?"
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  There it is, straight ahead. At last, the azure blue waters of the Persian Gulf. The yellow-green streaks of shallow reefs contrast vividly with the aquamarine waters. This is far too beautiful and pristine looking to be the most troubled pool of water in the world. It looks so refreshing, so nonthreatening.

  Lord, but we're a long way from home.

  The Texan hands us over to the Dhahran "Director," whoever that is, who in turn passes us to the airfield control tower. We complete another litany, the approach checklist, and turn on to a twelve-mile final approach, intercepting the electronic beam known as the localizer course, which will guide us to the runway We don't need it, though; the weather is clear and we can see the vast airfield ahead. We pass over the lavish beach residence of a member of the royal family and perform the before landing checklist.

  We slow down and welcome the roar of the landing gear and flaps as they are lowered into the 200-knot slipstream. It signifies that a respite is at hand. Half the long duty period is almost over. A huge seawater desalination plant passes off our right wing as I reduce power and start down the electronic glideslope. We drop low over the bleak sands and cross the runway threshold, stealing a quick glance at the man-made hills just east of the runway.

  Here we see the first indication that we have arrived at the much heralded line drawn in the sand. The silhouettes of missile launchers and their attendant acquisition radars are pointed northward. They don't seem so very imposing; the launchers are simply box-shaped, housing the missiles within. But they exude a certain cockiness, an arrogance, like Davy Crockett and his Tennesseans, not really embracing the cause of Texas, just spoiling for a sporting fight. Yeah, that missile battery over there is Davy, leaning across the battlements, sighting down Old Betsy

  But I figure to be back in Tennessee or somewhere like it when Santa Anna charges.

  Bones mumbles something about Toto and Kansas as we roll out on the long runway, six and one-half hours after departing Spain. As we turn westward and taxi toward the military side of the field, it becomes immediately obvious that the Saudis have spared no expense on the airport. It has all the modern facilities of any in the Western world, as will almost every place we go in Saudi Arabia in the months ahead. We take care of the post-landing checklist rituals as we taxi past rows of allied fighter planes parked in concrete revetments. Several American-built A-4 fighters bear Kuwait Air Force markings, with "Free Kuwait" painted boldly on their sides.

  We are marshaled into a parking space behind another C-141 on a vast ramp teeming with activity Air Force C-5s, C-141s and C-130s are constantly streaming in and out, often waiting for a parking space to open up. Great jumbo jets bearing the colorful logos of the major airlines look absurdly out of place here, as they disgorge hundreds of troops and thousands of tons of palleted cargo. Trucks, vans, cargo loaders (known to us as K-loaders), tugs, and behemoth fuel trucks bigger than any I've ever seen rush about the ramp, so that we have to be supercautious walking across the tarmac.

  We walk toward the great hangar that serves as a staging area for incoming troops and, we would learn, is a favorite backdrop for TV correspondents taping their reports. The noise is incredible, with the scream of idling engines, the throbbing of power carts, the whop-whop of helicopter rotors, and the ground-shaking thunder of afterburners. It seems Dhahran is truly the Da Nang of the Persian Gulf.

  As we walk nearer the hangar complex, I can hear, through the din, the intermittent wail of Arabic prayer songs on a distant loudspeaker. The air here seems thick with war.

  Five.

  Troubled Skies

  Bones applies back pressure to the control yoke, and we rise as if perched on the muzzle of a great cannon being elevated for a shot. The 323,000-pound rip-snorting beast begins to run on its main wheels for a distance, allowing enormous cells of high pressure to form under our wings. Then we are flying and none too soon. The end of runway 6 flashes beneath us as I comply with Bones's request to raise the gear. Glancing out to the left, while listening to the familiar groan and plop of the retracting gear, I see that we're still low enough to pick out the white golf balls lying on McGuire Air Force Base's fifteenth green.

  We breathe a little easier, now that the mother of all takeoff rolls is behind us, and Bones banks the Starlifter to the east. Torrejon lies eight and one-half hours ahead. As I switch the radio to departure control frequency, I abruptly freeze, motionless, my hand still on the radio knob.

  When something goes amiss with your aircraft, you react instantly, if you're well trained. Your eyes go directly to whatever instrumentation can verify the problem. Your hands move immediately to the appropriate switches and levers. Your mind flashes the much rehearsed corrective action. But there is one matter that freezes you like a statue, that reduces you from a refined machine to a simple creature depending utterlyeven desperatelyon your animal senses. Nothing makes your skin crawl and your brain flicker with foreboding more than the pungent smell of burning electrical insulation.

  My eyes shift to one side, then the other while I sniff the air. Yes, there seems to be a very faint odor. But I've been battling nasal congestion for weekswho am I to judge subtle smells? It's really barely noticeable. I try to ignore it. I'm busy with the radio and the departure procedure. Besides, there are five of us on the flight deck, if the odor is real, surely someone else will notice it.

  But who am I trying to convince? It's time to fess up.

  "Do you guys smell anything?" I ask.

  Like me, they all are waiting for someone else to make the disquieting suggestion.

  "Yeah. Just barely An electrical smell, maybe," Walt replies.

  That's not what I was hoping to hear.

  Without waiting for guidance from me, Walt sensibly goes down to the cargo bay and into the tunnel underneath the flight deck to examine the tangled jungle of cables and dusty electronic boxes. He reports back that he couldn't smell it down there. That relieves us a bit but heightens our curiosity. We agree that the smell is getting stronger, though it is still elusive.

  Trouble usually comes in subtle ways for the flier. It commonly starts out as a sneaky beast. Instead of rearing a big ugly head, it plays peek-a-boo with you. A feeling creeps over you that something is wrong. You rub your eyes, shake the cobwebs out of your head, look around to see if anyone else looks vexed. But trouble is a cunning psychologist. It plays with your mind, tries to convince you that all is rosy, that you're just tired, or that an indicator has gone bad.

  And trouble plays havoc with your ego, which is quite hefty, or you wouldn't be here. You feel the need to discuss your suspicions with your crewmates but are afraid of what they might think of you if you're wrong. Then it gradually builds and enlists conspirators such as confusion, fatigue, unfamiliarity, and personality conflicts. External influences such as weather, fuel availability, and conditions on the ground can join in with the swelling, cascading snowball.

  I know that every minute we are putting five more miles between us and the safety of the airfield, but the beast is having a field day in my mind. We'd be a laughingstock if we went back and the mechanics found nothing. They will write "cannot duplicate" in the discrepancy forms when their search for a problem from a flight turns up nothing. I hate that. It suggests that I'm a jittery flier or that perhaps I'm someone who just wants to cause trouble for mechanics.

  And then there's the fear of that old specter, fatigue. You know it'll catch up with you in the long hours ahead and you don't want to do anything to hasten it or intensify it. If we go back, they may throw us onto another mission, lengthening our crew duty day another three or four hours. But worse yet, they may dump us back into crew rest, which is something we dreaded at McGuire. Such are the mind games that insipid trouble plays on a flier, urging him to hold his inertia, to stick with the course.

  But I know the crew is troubled, especially the conservative Brian back on the engineer's panel.

  "Let's go back," I finally say to Bones.

  As New York C
enter clears us to turn 180 degrees for a direct course back to McGuire, the loadmaster, Mike Hall, announces that he has found the source. Many loadmasters stand back and watch when something like this happens or until an obvious calamity breaks out but not Mike. Maybe his survival instinct is driving him, but whatever, I'm delighted by his initiative. I turn and look, seeing him on hands and knees, sniffing, like a dog, at a circuit breaker panel just behind my seat. Then I notice the blue haze forming just above the deck, and I issue the order that I should have made minutes earlier.

  "Crew, get your oxygen masks on. Check regulators 100 percent."

  The mask, with its attendant smoke goggles, hoses, and cables has an acute way of boosting your awareness when you wear it. It grabs your lapels and slaps your facepours a bucket of cold water on your thick, lethargic noggin. It gives you a vigorous shoulder shaking and makes you realize that your margin for error has narrowed and a high level of performance is now in demand. The hissing of your breathing and your muffled voice in the mask ram reality home and rivet your attention to the task at hand.

  Now we are desperately busy. Bones transfers control of the jet to me and begins to copy new weather, while Brian calculates landing performance data and Wait continues to investigate the smoke. We barely have time to run the approach checklist. The weather has deteriorated since we took off, so rather than the quick visual approach that we hoped for, we have to set up for a lengthy ILS (instrument landing system) approach.

  We follow the radar vectors from McGuire Approach Control and intercept the glide slope beam. As we lower the flaps and gear, the smoke thickens. The runway is wet and we're extremely heavy. It would be nice to get rid of some of this fuel, but there is no time. Even if there were, it would be questionable whether we should open the dump valves with a fire somewhere aboard. Brian says that we should be able to get stopped, but there won't be much room for error.