by Ed Cobleigh
The Klong pilot says Bob Hope's film crew, the guys who are recording the tour for the Bob Hope Christmas Special on state-side television, wants us to fly formation on the Klong for some stage-setting shots. They are setting up their camera on the flight deck of the C-130 to film from the cockpit. The C-130 guy asks us if we want to be on TV. Do we? This is our big chance to get discovered. Naturally I adjust the cockpit's rearview mirror with my left hand to check out my appearance as we roll out once more behind the Klong. What I see would scare little kids. No humanity is visible, only my hard, camouflaged helmet, my bug-eyed, mirrored visor, and my oxygen mask covers my face like a proboscis. Instead of a movie star, I look like a giant insect. It occurs to me that in every flying movie I have ever seen, and I have seen them all, stars such as John Wayne (Jet Pilot with Janet Leigh), or George C. Scott (Not With My Wife, You Don't with Virna Lisi), or William Holden (The Bridges at Toko-Ri with Grace Kelly) all fly with their visors up and their oxygen masks dangling loose. I assume this is to let the cameras record them acting. No real pilot flies like that. Without a visor, the high altitude glare would blind me and my microphone would pick up all the cockpit noise, of which there is plenty. I think about sliding my visor back and unhooking my mask on one side, but better judgment overcomes me and I leave them both in place. I would never escape the kidding that I would get from Animal and the guys about "going Hollywood." Besides, I don' have a matchstick to chew on like George C. Scott.
As we close again on the C-130, I reduce the power even more until we have matched airspeeds, enabling me to fly close formation on the Herky Bird's right wing. I can make out the camera crew in the cockpit of Klong, filming from the copilot's seat.
At 20,000 feet, we are above a layer of evenly scattered, small puffy clouds, like cotton balls in the sky over Thailand. In the States, these are called "summertime cumulus clouds." It's always summer in Thailand; I wonder what they call them here. Whatever their local name, the clouds accent the flat green rice fields of central Thailand far below. It is a good day for cinema photography with picturesque backgrounds .
In the tiny circular windows of the cargo plane I can see faces of what seem to be round-eyed American women looking out at our two fearsome war machines flying just outside. They are peering at us strangely clad Phantom aircrews. At least I think these are American women, it's been so long since I've seen one, I question my visual identification skills. I wonder if these Hollywood ladies expected to see us looking like John Wayne et al, as they did in the cockpits of all those movies.
Flying close formation on a C-130 is hard work. The transport cruises at 230 knots. That is the optimum wrong airspeed for a Phantom. Any faster and I would have more control authority. Any slower and I could put down the flaps for more low-speed responsiveness. At 230 knots, I have to make large control deflections to move the jet small amounts. I also have to stay out of the prop wash churned up by the big engines of the C-130. Also, at this leisurely airspeed, the engines don't respond to commands quickly and I have to constantly jockey the throttles up and back. . My navigator tells me it looks like I am killing snakes in the cockpit with the control stick.
I tell him, "Shut up, this is show business."
Animal is having it even rougher than I do; he has to fly formation on me while I bounce and wallow around on the wing of the Klong. Finally, I get the hang of it and settle down, flying some semblance of a stable position. Animal and I are able to float nearly motionless off the right wing of Bob Hope's plane. The C-130 pilot comes on the air and tells me that the camera crew thinks this is too boring and could we please do something exciting. Do something exciting! What I'm trying not to do is stall, spin, crash, and burn in the rice paddies below. Would they like to capture that on film?
I tell Animal to light his afterburners and do a split S. He departs as ordered, probably glad not to have to fly my wing for a while. I count to three and shove both throttles all the way forward. I feel the kick on my butt as the afterburners light and I roll the jet slowly (to the right, away from the C-130, not into it) inverted. As soon as I am exactly upside down, I pull the nose down with as many Gs as 230 knots and gravity can provide. When the nose comes through vertical, pointed straight down, I pick up Animal's jet below me and tell him to turn left to join up once again. That maneuver should have looked really cool from the C-130. I hope the film crew got it. It will probably end up on the cutting room floor with all my other best scenes.
We escort the Klong all the way to our base and it lands unmolested. Animal and I touch down shortly afterward and head straight to the hooch. we have to get some sleep before the big show tonight.
***
I am standing in a field that was populated primarily by water buffaloes a week ago. Now, every GI that isn't actually flying or guarding the base is here. Several thousand guys and a precious few American girls are watching the jury-rigged stage intently for the debut of the Bob Hope show. The enlisted people got first dibs on the places near the stage, which is only right; they are down front with us officers standing in the rear. I can't help but think as I wait about another show put on for American servicemen by the USO, the United Services Organization. The USO is a nonprofit group that organizes these morale-building live shows.
Recently, I was out sailing on a U.S. Navy aircraft carrier off the coast of North Vietnam. I was on board to instruct naval aviators how to drop laser-guided bombs. After duty hours, the pilots gathered in the ready room to swap what they called "sea stories" and they told me a doozie. The ship was abuzz with talk about a USO show recently held on board. It took place on a temporary stage built in the cavernous covered hanger deck. The U.S. Navy guys were only too happy to tell me in excruciating detail what they had seen.
Redheaded singer, dancer, actress, and patriot Ann-Margret and her backup band were there to perform for the troops. Ann-Margret jumped into her musical show wearing a frilly white long sleeved blouse, sprayed-on black slacks, and high heels. Evidently she was a big hit with the sailors (why wouldn't she be?) and as her performance progressed, she began taking requests for songs.
The audience got more and more enthusiastic, louder and louder in its approval. Ann-Margret got into the excitement of the moment, big-time. She was obviously turned on by the strong emotional response she was getting from her homesick audience and she worked harder and harder to please the adoring crowd and to grant their shouted requests.
One request led to another. First, she unzipped her skintight pants; that got a big cheer. A song or two later, she peeled off those black slacks, stepping out of them on stage. This unexpected strip show was enormously popular with the crazed sailors. After a few more songs, she used the palms of her hands to slide her panties down to her ankles, revealing to 3,000 sailors that she is a true redhead. Finally, Ann-Margret high-kicked her lacey undies off into the frenzied crowd. This impromptu act of ultimate feminine exposure on the raised stage met with even greater approval (again, why wouldn't it?). Ann-Margret danced, pranced, and sang her final musical numbers wearing nothing but her girly white blouse and high heels. As she left the stage wrapped in an official USN blanket, she told the nearly hysterical sailors that she wanted them to remember what they were fighting for. The word-of-mouth publicity and the amateur nude photos taken at the show couldn't have done her reputation any good, but now she has at least 3,000 more converted fans. I'm not sure this sea story is true in its entirety, but sure I hope it is.
On the ship, the navy flyers and I spent hours discussing how Ann-Margret thanked the sailors for their wartime sacrifices by taking nearly all her clothes off. We compared Ann's unselfish, if immodest, act with Jane Fonda's widely publicized trip to North Vietnam. There, Ms. Fonda encouraged the Bad Guys to kill more of us Americans. I wonder if Jane stripped for the North Vietnamese anti-aircraft gun crew she posed for pictures with.
Straight-laced Bob Hope won't stand for anything like impromptu female celebrity nudity tonight, particularly with a TV film crew on
hand, but one can always dream.
To strong applause, Bob comes out on stage carrying a golf club and the show begins. His opening monologue features jokes from the Roosevelt administration, Teddy Roosevelt. Les Brown and His Band of Renown provide the musical background. Who dug up these fossils? They must have played at the Warren G. Harding inaugural ball.
Featured singer/dancer Lola Falana has more energy than talent. Her best assets stretch her white satin jumpsuit almost, but not quite to, the breaking point. She is backed up by a girl dance troupe called the "Gold Diggers" whom no one has ever heard of either.
The show features a corn ball comedy skit featuring Bob, the curvy, current Miss World, along with our very own Wing Commander. It is not a triumph for the Hollywood entertainment industry. About half the audience is one-third the age of the star and most have never heard any of the songs, but have heard all the jokes.
None of this matters one iota. The show is a howling success. Every hoary joke is a laugh riot. Each oldie song gets feet tapping and hands clapping. The girls in the show are ogled with laser focus. The production numbers go over big. The Wing Commander's skit with the blond beauty queen and Bob is a hit; the Old Man gets a standing ovation from the crowd. Even without a half-nude Ann-Margret, it is a show to remember. Regardless of the caliber of the entertainment, it is the thought that counts.
I don't know which is funnier, Bob's corny jokes or watching my squadron mates laugh at them. Each guy is going to great lengths to appear cool and not reveal just how much he is enjoying the show.
The audience is thrilled that a big Hollywood name like Bob Hope has come to our base on the northeast frontier of Thailand. Every GI knows that Bob entertained their soldier fathers in Korea and probably their grandfathers in WWII. Having seen this show biz legend in person puts an official stamp of legitimacy on our efforts in this miserable war.
There are two highlights of the show, each very different from the other. The first occurs after the comedy skit when the voluptuous Miss World takes a deep bow in a ball gown that seems precariously low cut, even viewed from my remote vantage point. No one here thinks it weird to see an international beauty queen in a clingy formal dress display most of her figure in a Thai water buffalo field. Bountiful cleavage is never out of line. If anyone thinks so, they forgo any doubts when she bends way, way over to take a bow. Two of her qualifications for her title are obvious and are almost on full display. Bob makes her straighten up, to loud boos from the crowd, the instant before she falls out of her dress. The second highlight happens when astronaut Neil Armstrong, the first man on the moon, is introduced to say a few words.
The rowdy crowd goes silent as Armstrong, without a prepared speech, expresses his sincere appreciation to all of us for what we are doing here. His unpolished monologue is all about us, not about him or his moon landing. It's about how proud he is of the folks surrounding the stage. Despite his readily apparent shyness, Armstrong comes across as articulate, intelligent, and patriotic.
Most of us fighter jocks consider those NASA civilian test pilot guys to be overly analytical pussies. However, a guy who strapped himself on top of a zillion pounds of explosive rocket fuel and flew a hand-built experimental spacecraft to the moon and back really gets our attention and respect. Having a real American hero like Neil Armstrong pay his respects to the airmen and enlisted guys brings a damp moistness to more than a few eyes, including mine.
Is this a great country or what (assuming that a water buffalo field in northeast Thailand can be considered for a few hours to be part of the USA) Where else could an elderly comic, a curvy bombshell, and the first man on the moon appear on the same stage and be revered as folk heroes?
The show breaks up and we all drift back to our quarters. My debut in show business is "in the can" until Bob Hope's Christmas TV show is aired back home. Tomorrow is another night and I'm back in the sewer.
Test Hop
To record the flight time, I punch the stopwatch stem on the instrument panel; it's time to clock in at the job site. Release the brakes, shove the big throttles forward into afterburner, hold down the nose wheel steering button, pull the stick full back, and we're rolling. The Phantom, which was straining nose down under full military power against the brakes, leaps forward, eager to be shed of the ground.
The twin afterburners torch off with a thump and a kick in the ass, thrust is reporting for duty, a quick check of the exhaust nozzle gages, both full open, no warning lights. Speed is building quickly now as the two J-79 engines howl, blue afterburner plumes blasting the runway behind, pushing the F-4, lightweight for once, into the sky. One hundred knots, release the nose wheel steering, the rudder is effective now keeping us straight down the rapidly disappearing concrete. The runway is passing under the jet much faster now, the flat scenery alongside the strip is a green blur.
At 150 knots, the nose starts to rise, lift is overcoming gravity, stop it at ten degrees above the horizon until we lift off, which follows immediately, vibration from the wheels ceases. Slap the long landing gear handle up, retract the flaps with the small yellow lever on the left cockpit wall. The nose wants to keep climbing, stop it with forward stick and run the pitch trim nose down. Hold the big jet down over the runway, one hundred feet sounds about right, as the speed continues to build relentlessly.
The departure end runway flashes under the nose, followed in an instant by the airfield boundary, then the perimeter fence. Still more nose down trim needed to comfortably hold the nose steady, it wants to pitch up. 400 knots, 425, 450, time to go upstairs.
I let the stubborn nose climb past the dusty horizon and keep it coming up, up, up, I'm more letting it do what it wants than using back stick. Forty-Five degrees of pitch, sixty, then ninety, we're going straight up, Jack's and my weight is transferred from our asses on the ejection seat cushions to our spines on the metal seat backs. The Phantom climbs like a homesick angel, a brown and green angel that is, with fire spurting out of his/her ass.
Jack and I are off on a test hop, a Functional Check Flight, a FCF. FCFs are required whenever any heavy maintenance is done on the aircraft such as an engine change. FCFs are flown with a totally clean aircraft, no drop tanks, no missiles, no ECM pods, no wing pylons; the underside of the jet is as smooth as baby's butt. After flight after flight lugging iron to Laos and North Vietnam, flying a lighter, cleaner Phantom is a rare treat. We are limited to one combat mission a day, but we can fly FCFs over Thailand without restrictions. As the squadron FCF pilot, I fly these joy rides whenever I can.
I stood the Phantom on its tail and departed the airfield straight up. Why? Why does a dog lick his balls? Because he can. All FCF pilots perform the same spectacular departure because it's fun, but also to show off the Phantom's performance to the ground crewmen; it's an time-honored tradition. The crew chiefs, maintenance troops, aircraft mechanics, aka the Phantom Phixers, work long hours in the blistering Thai sun, in the monsoon rains, day and night. They see their jets depart loaded with ordnance and headed northeast. An hour or two or three later the same aircraft return, the ordnance gone and often something on the planes is broken, or shot up, which has to be fixed, by them. They seldom get to experience just what their precious charges can do, to see the Phantom really perform. Hence the vertical climb out.
Out of sight of the field, I lower the nose to a more sustainable climb angle, afterburners still at full blast, and continue climbing, turning westward, then south to stay in Thai airspace. Jack hasn't said much, as usual. He likes to fly these FCFs although there isn't much for a navigator to do, because he, like I do, enjoys having a jet to screw around with. Once we have determined the maintenance has been done correctly, that the jet isn't going to come unglued, we can use up the remaining fuel however we want. But today he seemed reluctant to come along. Jack is a hard guy to read; he packs a tight suitcase. He craves excitement, maybe a daring airplane ride to the edge of space will improve his mood.
20,000 feet comes quickly, then 30,000.
The air gets much thinner the higher we go and the rate of climb slackens; less lift, less thrust. I have to lower the nose to maintain airspeed. 40,000 feet, maximum altitude for most commercial aircraft. 45,000, tops for the propeller-driven fighters of WWII and the SabreJets of the Korean War. 50,000 feet and I level out to gain some more speed. It's the maximum altitude we are allowed to fly without wearing full pressure suits like the one Neil Armstrong wore on the Moon, only without the gray, grimy moon dust.
Time for a quick look around. With all due respect to Rod Serling, Jack and I are in the twilight zone. Above us, the sky is a deep, dark blue, a more intense blue that anyone on the surface of the Earth has ever seen, starting its transition to the inky black of space. Below, the ever-present rice straw smoke obscures any discernible features of the flat plains of Northeast Thailand. There are no clouds, only a bottomless, brown haze. Serling's twilight zone was in the sunlit ocean, out of sight of both the surface and the sea bottom. Ours is much bigger, but the sensation is the same, total isolation. Out on the far-distant horizon, where the haze meets the blue, I think I can make out the curvature of the Earth, although I can't really.
Einstein said all speed is relative. He was right. With no clouds to fly past, no visual contact with any recognizable surface features, no other aircraft, we are up here all alone and there is no sensation of speed. The cockpit noise is constant, the engines continue to howl, the throttles haven't moved from full afterburner since brake release three minutes ago. We seem suspended motionless in the space/time continuum. Only the increasing mach meter read-out gives any indication of speed. It reads .9, nine-tenths the speed of sound and accelerating. As I watch, the Mach number climbs, .93, .95, .97, it hangs up for an instant and then jumps to 1.02. We are supersonic and still accelerating, the maniacal engines will not be denied. With nothing else to do, I watch the mach meter unwind; I want to see a number starting with a 2.
