Fighter Wing: A Guided Tour of an Air Force Combat Wing

by Tom Clancy

  By 1130 hours, all of the aircraft had recovered back to base, and the process of tallying up the results began. By 1330, range controllers and assessment teams had finished their jobs and were ready to present their findings at the mass debrief. The results were stunning. Every target had been hit, and only a few would require restrikes later in the campaign. The Red radars had either been successfully hit or suppressed, and the Blue EW aircraft were never in danger. Even better were the air-to-air results, thirty to four in favor of the Blue Force, a new Green Flag record. For General McCloud, it was a moment of personal triumph. Even though there were still eight days and seventeen more missions to go, the Gunfighters had won. Back in the 1970s and 1980s the aggressors and other Red Force players would regularly wreck the Blue Force plans; but Red would never get close during Green Flag 94-3. Even as we were watching the mass debrief, the second strike of the day was headed out, and the results were almost identical.

  The crew of Ruben-40, a KC-135R of the 366th Wing’s 22nd Aerial Refueling Squadron, flies a tanker mission during Green Flag 94-3. Brigadier General Dave “Marshal” McCloud, the 366th commander, sits between the pilot and the copilot. Sitting at the navigation station to the night is Captain Ruben Villa. John D. Gresham

  Wednesday, April 13, 1994—Day 2: Mission 4

  The following morning saw the transition to Phase II of the campaign plan, with Blue hitting airfields and SAM sites around the target ranges. This morning, we hung around the squadron ready rooms in the Red Flag building to watch the strike planning process. Each of the squadron rooms had a CTAPS terminal, networked into Rick Tedesco’s Air Operations Center just a few yards away in the tent city outside. As we watched the staff officers work, my researcher, John Gresham, pointed to a photograph lying on one of the tables, his eyes wide with shock. As he opened his mouth to speak, one of the pilots said, “Don’t worry. That stuff is unclassified these days.” (The mild caution “Official Use Only” was stamped on the photo.) The photo showed the Mt. Helen Airfield; it clearly had been taken from a satellite; and it was stunningly detailed (with a resolution of about 3 feet/1 meter). Such imagery is quite ordinary, the pilot went on to explain. Just a few years ago this stuff was “Top Secret,” but now it was the source of routine planning data for Green Flag exercises. The particular photo came from a series previously taken in preparation for Green Flag 94-3, but fresh bomb damage assessment (BDA) shots were being regularly downlinked from the Space Warfare Center in Colorado Springs. It truly is a new world order!

  Staff Sergeant Shawn Hughes, the crew chief and boomer of Ruben-40, working hard at his position in the rear of aircraft. Lying on his stomach, he is “flying” the refueling boom of the KC-135 into the refueling receptacle of a receiving aircraft. John D. Gresham

  That afternoon, General McCloud invited us to accompany him on a mission onboard one of the 22nd ARS KC-135R tankers. Since an opportunity to fly on an actual Green Flag mission is extremely rare for civilians, we gladly accepted, then headed off to have lunch and get ready to go flying. Normally, Green Flag 94-3 would have taken place in the most pleasant time of the year in Las Vegas, but the spring weather had turned into an unseasonable heat wave, with afternoon temperatures over 90°F/32°C. The cooling water spray nozzles over the flightline sunshades were running, and the Gatorade bottles were out for the ground crews. General Griffith had ordered heat precautions for all base personnel, and containers of bottled water were everywhere. We were sweating heavily on the ground, but we had our leather jackets ready for flying that afternoon.

  A little after 1300, we drove out to the north end of the base flight line, where the large aircraft were parked. We were directed to the number-one 22nd ARS KC-135R (tail code 62-3572), and climbed aboard through the lower nose hatch into the hot interior. Inside we met our flight crew for today’s mission: Captain Ken Rogers (the pilot), Second Lieutenant J. R. Twiford (copilot), Captain Ruben Villa (our navigator), and Staff Sergeant Shawn Hughes (the crew chief and boomer). Every mission is assigned a call sign, used for identification in radio communication. Our call sign today was Ruben-40. The tanker was loaded with over 80,000 lb./36,262 kg. of fuel, with a planned off-load of 42,000 lb./19,090 kg., and a maximum possible off-load of 62,000 lb./28,181 kg. Along with General McCloud was First Lieutenant Don Borchelt, one of the 366th Wing Public Affairs Officers. As soon as we were aboard, the hatches were sealed shut and the engines fired up. As we taxied out for takeoff, Sergeant Hughes explained that our job was to top off six F-15E Strike Eagles from the 391st FS, so that the Bold Tigers would be full when they hit the start line at the push. The plan for the Bold Tigers’ mission involved a lot of high-speed flying down on the deck, which consumes fuel voraciously. We took off behind the E-3 AWACS, followed by another 22nd ARS tanker which would refuel other aircraft of the strike.

  An F-15E Strike Eagle of the 366th Wing’s 391st Fighter Squadron (the “Bold Tigers”) takes on fuel from a 22nd Aerial Refueling Squadron KC-135R tanker. Note the control fins of the refueling boom, which the boomer uses to guide it into the receiving aircraft’s refueling receptacle. Craig E. Kaston

  As we flew out to our refueling track, Captain Villa was kind enough to let us take turns sitting at the navigator’s console, watching the radar screen to take navigation fixes of the surrounding mountain peaks. When we reached our tanking altitude of approximately 25,000 feet/7,620 meters, we began to cruise in a wide racetrack-shaped oval, waiting for Lieutenant Colonel Clawson and the rest of his Bold Tigers to come up and tank. Back at the boomer’s position, Sergeant Hughes unstowed the boom and made ready to tank the incoming Strike Eagles.

  Suddenly they were there, and Sergeant Hughes went to work, calmly and silently guiding the first of the big fighters into position to take its allotted 7,000 lb./3,181 kg. of fuel. Air-to-air refueling is about the most unnatural activity most of us are ever likely to see. A very big airliner flying about 350 knots/640 kph., full of flammable jet fuel, in direct physical contact with another airplane? The idea is totally demented. I will never be comfortable with it. Nevertheless, Sergeant Hughes and the F-15E crews made it look easy. And one after another, the Strike Eagles cycled into position to take their fuel. Then “Claw” Clawson, down in the lead Strike Eagle, looked up in the middle of tanking, recognized us taking pictures through the window, and calmly asked how things looked! Such is the skill from a lifetime of flying combat jets—you can carry on a normal conversation five miles above the earth, flying just ten yards away from an aircraft full of jet fuel, while your plane is locked onto a flying pipe taking on more fuel.

  As each jet finished topping off, it would take station, flying in close formation on the tanker, until there were three F-15s on each side of Ruben-40. I was later told that this effectively merged all seven aircraft into one large radar contact, masking their true number from enemy surveillance. Then suddenly, the F-15s were headed down into the mountains, westward towards their targets. Once again, the Blue strike forces hit their targets with a minimum of losses, and the campaign plan moved on to its completion. Our mission done, we headed back to Nellis AFB, and the thought of dinner and some blackjack that night.

  Friday, April 15, 1994—Nellis AFB Officers’ Club

  By the end of the first week of Green Flag 94-3, the 366th and the other attached units of the Blue Force had racked up an impressive record of damage to targets and defending SAM/AAA sites, as well as killing a small air force of adversary F-16s. The first four days had been a clear victory for the Blue Force. The 366th and its attached units were breaking Red/Green Flag records like crazy, and the staff at the Adversary Tactics Division was starting to get a bit punchy.

  So the Red Flag staff controlling the exercise decided something had to be done to keep things interesting: Starting the following Monday, the adversary F-16Cs would be allowed to use tactics simulating the very agile and capable Russian Su-27/35 Flanker (it resembles our F-15 Eagle). The rules of engagement would also be loosened for the Red Forces on t
he ground, making it easier for them to fire their simulated missiles at Blue aircraft.

  We spent the afternoon touring the Threat Training Facility across the street from the Red Flag building, which maintains just about the finest collection of foreign military equipment anywhere in America (it’s sometimes called the petting zoo). Everything from a French Roland SAM launcher to Russian MiGs can be viewed here. Just ten years ago, the whole facility was highly classified; but now, the Air Force lets Boy Scouts and civic leaders tour the facility. What a change the end of the Cold War has made!

  A Soviet-built ZSU-23-4 mobile anti-aircraft gun system in the yard of the Nellis AFB threat training facility. This radar-controlled system is one of the significant threats to tactical aircraft, and can be studied by aircrews visiting the base during Red/Green Flag exercises and Weapons school. Craig E. Kaston

  As the week wore down, and the last mission of the day came in, the thoughts of the aviators and staff officers turned to the observance of a Red/ Green Flag tradition: Friday night at the Nellis O-Club. Now it should be said that given the pressures for moral, physical, and mental perfection, such celebrations are kept to a bare minimum. But to remove the camaraderie of Friday night at the club would be to remove one of the most important social institutions in the pilots’ lives. Thus, after appropriate assigning of designated drivers and agreement about the time we would all return to the hotel, we headed down to the Nellis AFB Officers’ Club for a long evening of “Happy Hour.”

  The original O-Club that stood during the glory days of the 1970s and 1980s had been torn down a few years back and replaced by a building now used as the open officers’ mess and club. The present building, though splendid in its own way, lacks some of the historic character of the old club. To make up for this, the builders of the new facility kept the old club’s tabletops (where generations of fighter pilots had burned in their names and messages with woodburning irons) and recycled them as wall panels. As you walk by, you see the names of aces and wild weasels, POWs and MIAs, Medal of Honor winners, and MiG killers; and it is hard not to stare at names of people you know, people you will never know, and those you wish you had known.

  Colonel Robin Scott, the 366th Wing Operations Group commander (handling billiard balls at left), referees a game of Crud for members of wing at the Nellis AFB Officers’ Club on a Friday night. John D. Gresham

  As the bar area fills up, the evening begins to get more lively. The music is a mix of rock and country, and it is loud! Every generation of USAF fliers has gone to war with their own brand of music. Where World War II vets took Glenn Miller and Tommy Dorsey records with them, and the Vietnam-era fliers had Jimi Hendrix and Janis Joplin, today’s aircrews seem to enjoy country/rock music as the tunes for their times. Back in the ’80s, the old days of Red Flag, Friday night was the time for macho contests or even fights in the parking lot, but such behavior does not fly in today’s Air Force. Luckily, there is a game called Crud to absorb the competitive energy of the aircrews. Crud is an odd little contest, with elements of soccer, racquet-ball, and billiards all mixed together. Played on a pool table with a pair of billiard balls, it is a full-contact sport for teams of two or more. The idea is to use a cue ball to hit the other ball (you use your bare hands to throw the cue ball), while it bounces around the table. You play in ordered relays, and either a break in the order or a missed ball results in a score. The game requires a referee, and this is inevitably the senior officer present. Normally this would have been General McCloud, but he was attending General Loh’s annual wing commanders’ conference, so Colonel Robin Scott took over. The Nellis O-Club bar has the finest playing area, called a Crud Pit, in the country. The walls are lined with sandbags, and there is plenty of space to set down long-necked bottles of beer (the favorite of the pilots) while you are playing.

  As the evening wore on, and the music got slower so the couples could dance, some of us, including Lieutenant Colonels Clawson and “Boom-Boom” Turcott, moved to a corner to talk. Toasts were drunk to departed friends, and everyone went their way for the weekend. By midnight, only the AOC staff was still working, the lights in their tent city still glowing as they planned the Phase III strikes for the second week of Green Flag 94-3.

  Monday, April 18, 1994

  Every April 18th the USAF commemorates Jimmy Doolittle’s bombing raid on Japan (Doolittle had recently passed away). This day, however, safety was uppermost in the minds of the Green Flag controllers: Most fatal Red/Green Flag accidents take place on Monday after the weekend break. Throughout the day, especially at the briefings, the safety rules were hammered into the aircrews as they were admonished to “take it easy” while they got back into the “groove” of flying. A special safety video was played for the crews just before they headed to their aircraft. With a deafening musical backup from ZZ Top playing “Viva Las Vegas” (appropriate, don’t you think?), it was five minutes of near misses and accidents that will never be shown to the public. The idea was to shock the fliers a bit and make them think.

  We sat in on the afternoon briefing in anticipation of watching the live action on the big screen RFMDS (Red Flag Measurement and Debrief System), while the afternoon strikes hit their targets. There were new wrinkles in the balance of forces this day, as the Red Force got their new simulated Flanker fighters, and the Red ground units got their new rules of engagement. There was a shift away from using live ordnance and decoys, since they were in short supply. That morning, we had watched LANTIRN videotapes showing LGB and IIR Maverick missile deliveries, and it was easy to see why the uprange target arrays had taken such a beating the previous week. There is a general shortage of targets at Nellis AFB, and the range crews have to be creative to keep the ranges stocked with fresh ones.

  Mother Nature had also decided to spice up the exercise with some variety. The weather had changed, and layers of heavy cloud hung over the northern range areas. Extra precautions would be needed to guarantee deconfliction between aircraft, along with special weather reconnaissance flights to determine if conditions were good enough to run the missions safely. The morning flight had gone all right, but eight hours of the desert sun had stirred up the air considerably, making the weather a bit dicey.

  By 1400, we were comfortably seated in the viewing theater in the Red Flag building, staring at a projected screen display of the situation up on the northern ranges. We had a “God’s-eye view” of the action on both sides, and we could identify various aircraft by color codes. The radio chatter on the squadron nets was piped in, giving us the feeling that we were watching some sort of bizarre video game with an audio track. Today’s Blue Force targets were restrikes on SCUD and supply convoy targets that needed to be hit again. From the Red Force, with their “new” airplanes and enhanced ROE, came new tactics. They would attempt to disrupt the strike by attacking Blue’s High Value Heavy Airframe Aircraft (HVHAA) such as the E-3, the Rivet Joint, or the tankers. Using a decoy force of aggressor F-16s down low, they would bait the 390th’s “wall of Eagles”; then they would send two other F-16s into a ballistic “zoom” climb over the top of the F-15s to get at the HVHAAs. This would draw off the escorting Eagles from the strike forces, allowing regenerated aggressor aircraft more freedom of action against the strike aircraft. Red had tried this tactic unsuccessfully several times before, but the combination of the weather and the new rules made them think it might work this time.

  Three Block 52 F-16Cs of the 366th Wing’s 389th Fighter Squadron peel away from a 22nd Aerial Refueling Squadron KC-135R tanker, on their way to targets on the Nellis AFB ranges during Green Flag 94-3. John D. Gresham

  The weather recon birds almost canceled the mission, but at the last minute, they allowed the exercise to continue with flight restrictions between 15,000 and 25,000 feet/4,572 and 6,720 meters. The wall of Eagles moved forward, and the “push” call launched the Blue strike force toward the targets. It was a mess. The cloud deck divided the sky into high and low zones, creating two separate fights for the Ea
gles. The two aggressor F-16s made their move over the top, but they did not go unnoticed. The AWACS aircraft saw what was happening and called for support from the F-15s. The two Red Falcons got close, but not close enough for a shot at the HVHAAs before the Eagles drove them off. Still, the Eagle drivers were agitated that night over dinner. They would have to find ways to adjust their “wall” tactics for bad weather.

  And then it happened. Everyone was already on the way out when an emergency call came in that one of the U.S. Army OH-58C helicopters was down . . . and it was bad. Everyone went silent. The 66th RQS rushed an HH- 60G Pave Hawk up to the crash site to look for survivors. But there were no survivors. Both crewmen, officers from the 2-229 Attack Helicopter Regiment at Fort Rucker, Alabama, had perished in the crash. It was the first fatal accident to take place during a Flag exercise in over three years, and it cast a pall over the rest of the day.

  In early 1995, the causes of the crash are still being assessed, though it appears that the chopper hit a rock wall of a mountain while returning to Indian Springs. The old Monday-after-the-weekend jinx had struck again, and the Green Flag staff was not happy. They immediately went on a tear with the aircrews to review safety and ROE instructions. Dinner that night did not taste very good.