by Dale Brown
292 DALE BROWN FATAL T ER RAI N 293
tually applying huge inputs and then having to take them back
out again. Many pilots liked to carry a little extra airspeed,
knowing that a plane configured to land, with gear, flaps, slats,
and hook extended, was going to slow down fast with the
slightest reduction in airspeed; also, it took several seconds
after any throttle advancement for the turbine engines to spool
up to desired power, so being on the positive side of the power
curve was important. But high and fast was a bad combination.
Altitude was corrected with power, airspeed corrected with
angle of attack-just the opposite of cruise. The pilot pulled
off a fraction of an inch of power, and immediately felt the
sink rate increase. He had to ignore the sensation of sinking
too rapidly and concentrate on his scan-ball, airspeed, ball,
AOA, ball, centerline, ball. Enough of a power correction: the
LSO, or landing system officer, ordered more power just as
the pilot was pushing the throttles forward. The tiny speck of
a carrier deck was quickly becoming bigger and bigger.
Enough power; recheck and correct pitch angle to get the AOA
indexers centered again.
OK, OK, the pilot told himself, this was not going to be a
pretty landing, but it was the first of about three he'd make
today. He was now at the reins of a bucking bronco. If every-
thing starts smoothly and inputs are gentle, the ride down the
chute is smooth and easy-relatively speaking for carrier land-
ings. But very often, if one parameter is off, then it'll be hands
and feet dancing on the controls, throttles, and pedals all the
way-and that's the way it was on this one. The ball was
staying centered, but it was like controlling a marionette dance
routine.
On touchdown, he was still on the backside of the power
curve, nose very high, power coming up but way late. All
carrier landings were characterized as "controlled crashes,"
and landings in a heavyweight COD were even more so. This
was going to be a doozy-a two-wire trap, just fifty feet from
the edge of the fantail, slow and wobbly. He was not going to
earn any Brownie points for that one. The nose was going to
come down like a felled tree if he didn't fly it down carefully
before the arresting wires stopped him short. The pilot felt the
jerk of the arresting wire, saw the deck director signal a good
catch, pushed the throttles to full power in preparation for a
bolter in case of a broken wire, saw the edge of the landing
deck coming up to meet him but at the same time saw the
airspeed rapidly decreasing, felt his body squished harder and
harder against the shoulder straps, jammed the throttles to
idle...
... and then his aircraft, his carrier, his world disappeared
in a flash of white light.
"THE MOST IMPORTANT LESSON
LEARNED FROM THE PERSIAN GULF
WAR OF 1991 IS THIS: IF YOU ARE
EVER TO GO TO WAR AGAINST THE
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
BE SURE TO BRING A
NUCLEAR WEAPON."
-Republic of India's
military chief of staff
ELLSWORTH AIR FORCE BASE, RAPID CITY,
SOUTH DAKOTA
FRIDAY, 20 JUNE 1997, 2232 HOURS LOCAL
(SATURDAY, 21 JUNE, 0032 HOURS ET)
With flashes of lightning from an early-summer thunderstorm
illuminating the night sky to the west, the first aircrew bus
rolled out onto the aircraft parking ramp. The ramp was brown
and dusty with disuse, with tall weeds poking up through the
cracks in the reinforced concrete. The bus rolled along in be-
tween two long lines of airplanes, finally turning in and park-
ing between two of them. All of the planes were surrounded
by maintenance men and vehicles; all except the ones toward
the back of the line were encircled with red ropes supported
by orange rubber cones, with the cones toward the nose of
each aircraft marked -ECP,- or "Entry Control Point." The
295
296 DALE BROWN
aircrew stepped off the bus, unloaded their gear, and shuffled
toward the armed security guard at the gap in the rope marked
-ECP- as if they were in a dream-or perhaps caught in a
nightmare. Although it was much easier and quicker to just
step over the red rope surrounding the plane, the crew mem-
bers knew what dire consequences awaited them if they dared
to do so-security police terms like "kiss concrete" and
"jacked up" came immediately to mind.
The guard checked each crewman's line badge against his
access list, then waved them inside the roped-off area. They
met with the airplane's crew chief and assistant crew chief,
where they reviewed the aircraft Form 781 maintenance log-
books, accomplished a short crew briefing covering restricted
area access and preflight actions, then ran through the first few
steps of their "Before Boarding" and "Before Power-Off Pre-
flight" checklists.
Two of the crewmen, each carrying one of the steel CMF
containers and their helmet bag, began climbing up the long,
steep ladder into the belly of the plane, followed by the other
two crewmen carrying the canvas.pubs bags. After a quick
check to make sure both of the aft ejection seats were safetied,
they piled their gear onto the upper deck, then used "monkey
bars" to pull themselves up into their seats both left and right.
Once they were in their seats, the second two crewmen could
climb past them, crawl down a short tunnel, over the chemical
toilet, and into the cockpit.
While the pilots were performing their "Power-Off Pre-
flight" checklist, the two crewmen behind them slid one steel
canister each into slots behind and beside their seats, then se-
cured the canisters to the aircraft with steel cables and pad-
locks. Each CMF container had two compartments: the smaller
top compartment was closed and sealed with a steel numbered
"trucker's container seal, secure but easy to open and access;
the bottom compartment was sealed with the same cable and
padlock that secured the canister to the plane as well as a
trucker's seal-a little more difficult to open than the top com-
partment.
The top compartment of the CMF, or Classified Mission
Folder, container held the launch authenticators, the decoding
documents necessary to authenticate a launch order under the
SIOP, or Single Integrated Operations Plan-the plan to fight
an intercontinental nuclear war. The lower compartment, se-
4
FATAL TERRA I N 297
cured by a padlock as well as a steel seal to better protect the
contents, held the decoding documents needed to authenticate
a nuclear attack order and to prearm the nuclear weapons, the
attack timing sheets, and the charts and computer data cassettes
they needed to fly their attack route. The green canvas bags
contained more decoding documents and
the charts and com-
puterized flight plan cass
ettes to fly the escape and refueling
routes on the way to the Positive Control Turn-Around Point,
known as the "fail-safe" point-the point where they could
not ass without a valid attack execution order broadcast by
the President of the United States himself.
They opened the green canvas bags and took out several red
vinyl binders, paper-bound booklets, and a couple of grease
pencils, stuffing each booklet into a slot or cranny around their
workspace so they could have quick and easy access to -it, even
in the dark. They then completed their own checklists, making
sure all of their equipment's power switches were off, and
plugged their oxygen masks and interphone cords into the air-
craft outlets and placed the helmets over the headrests of their
ejection seats, ready to go. When they were finished, they all
climbed out of the crew compartment and met back outside
on the ground.
They performed the walkaround inspection together, begin-
ning at the nose gear strut and working clockwise past the
nose, right side, right engine nacelles, right wing, and then
into the forward bomb bay. Even though the crew had prac-
ticed this procedure regularly over the years, this was the first
time all but one of them, the crew OSO, or offensive systems
operator, had ever done it for real: preflight a B-IB Lancer
bomber in preparation for nuclear war.
"Cripes," Air Force Lieutenant Colonel Joseph Roma, the
crew OSO muttered aloud. "We're back in the big glowing
smoking hole business again." The other crew members just
stood and stared. For Roma, this was like some kind of nasty
dream, like the world's worst case of d6jA vu. It was the middle
of the Cold War all over again.
Joe Roma was an eighteen-year veteran of the U. Air
Force, not including three years in the Civil Air Patrol in high
school in Corfu, New York, and four years as a full-
scholarship ROTC cadet at Syracuse University-he had wom
some version of an Air Force uniform for over half his life.
Proudly, most of that time was not spent in a blue uniform,
298 DALE BROWN
but in a green one-an Air Force flight suit. He had attended
two years of undergraduate, advanced, and B-52 bomber corn-
bat crew training, then been assigned to a B-52 bomb wing in
northern Maine. Because there was not much to do up in Lor-
ing Air Force Base, Maine, most of the time, Roma-tall, slim,
dark, and athletic, but too boyish and gangly-looking to be
taken seriously by the really good-looking ladies in Aroostook
County, Maine-had busied himself with the intricacies of the
venerable B-52 bomber.
His dedication had been rewarded with rapid advancement
from R (Ready) crew status to E (Exceptional) status, then
simulator operator, instructor nav, S (Select) crew status, Stan-
dardization-Evaluation Crew, then back to Castle Air Force
Base for upgrade to radar navigator; then quickly through R-,
E-, and S-crew status, instructor radar nav, then Stan-Eval
again. In the meantime, he transferred to Andersen Air Force
Base on Guam, another remote assignment, and he immersed
himself in career-building projects: a master's degree in busi-
ness administration, a half-dozen military schools by corre-
spondence. He was selected for a variety of Wing and Air
Division-level assignments, such as target study officer,
weapons officer, command post controller, and Wing bomb-
nav officer, in charge of training and outfitting the B-52 squad-
ron navigators. Roma loved every new assignment, and the
Air Force rewarded his enthusiasm and dedication with rapid
promotion to major.
But nothing he'd ever done compared with his newest as-
signment: to be part of the initial cadre of instructors for the
B-IB bomber at McConnell Air Force Base in Kansas. The
B-IB was everything he'd wished the B-52 could be: fast,
sleek, stealthy, powerful, accurate, and reliable. The "Bone"
became Roma's new obsession. Roma, still unmarried, was
promoted to lieutenant colonel in short order and eventually
became chief of Stan-Eval for the B- I Combat Crew Training
squadron, the first navigator ever selected to that position-
before or since. Roma was then reassigned to Ellsworth Air
Force Base as bomb-nav operations officer of the Strategic
Warfare School, the "graduate school" for long-range bomb-
ing planners and commanders. While at the SWC, Roma stud-
ied and worked with the commander of the SWC, then-
Brigadier General Terrill Samson, becoming one of Samson's
strategic bomber experts, developing strategies and tactics for
FATAL TER RAI N 299
employing bombers in any kind of conflict anywhere in the
world. Roma was "getting great face time," as his fellow
crewdogs put it, and he was considered a shoo-in for a choice
Pentagon assignment, for Air War College, perhaps even a
bomber squadron of his own.
That never happened, but not because of Joe Roma. The
heavy bomber in general and the B-IB bomber in particular
was the new albatross around the military budget's neck. Al-
though the "Bone" was a far more deadly bombing platform
than any other attack plane in the world, many of the bomber's
specialized systems, especially the electronic warfare system,
had never been perfected; and because of high gross weight
due to refitting the plane to carry cruise missiles, there were
lots of restrictions on B-1 flight parameters. Congress was
ready to cancel the B-1, and only passing an intensive six-
month operational readiness assessment saved it.
Disappointed but not dejected, Joe Roma went back to the
Seventh Wing at Ellsworth Air Force Base as the Wing's chief
of Standardization-Evaluation, spending as much time doing
flight and simulator check rides as he did at his desk. Flying
meant more to him than promotion or command, and he had
a huge warehouse of information to pass on to the young crew-
puppies. By the end of the year, all of the B-lBs were going
to be in the Air National Guard and Air Force Reserves, and
probably so would Joe Roma. With all of the B-52s going into
retirement, the B-lBs accepted more of the long-range bomb-
ing responsibilities, including the nuclear mission, without ex-
ceeding treaty nuclear delivery vehicle restrictions.
Now, when the Wing was called to war, evaluators and in-
structors were no longer required-but aerial warriors were in
great demand. Joe Roma asked to go back to the only place
he ever really wanted to be-in the cockpit of the B -I B Lancer
bomber. As a tribute to his expertise and knowledge, he was
assigned the greenest E-status crew-top-notch flyers, but to-
tally inexperienced in pulling alert-to be the first Ellsworth
crew to begin generating a plane to get ready to go to war.
"Ted, we need a lifter, flashlight, and dental iniffor," Roma
asked his crew chief. The lifter was a maintenance platform
that was wheeled i
nside the bomb bay that lifted the crew up
twelve feet in the air so they could reach the weapons. Roma
opened his "Plastic brains"--crewdog slang for his checklist-
and reviewed the weapon settings written on the proper page
PI
300 DALE BROWN
in grease pencil. "Here's what we're looking for, guys,
Roma said. "We were briefed these settings during target
study. They're easy to remember-the weapon designers were
smart and made all the normal settings with green S's, so that's
what we look for. All S's mean the weapons are safe and
they're set correctly-retarded laydown burst, low yield, two-
minute delay, no contact backup. I want each of you to use
the mirrors to check the settings."
This supersonic B-IB Lancer was rather lightly loaded. The
aft end of the forward bomb bay contained a Common Stra-
tegic Rotary Launcher with eight AGM-89 Advanced Cruise
Missiles, each with a 1,000-mile range and 100-kiloton nuclear
warheads, five times more powerful than the weapon that ex-
ploded over Hiroshima, Japan; with terrain-comparison and
satellite navigation, the cruise missiles had twenty-foot accu-
racy even after a three-hour low-level attack flight. The aft
bomb bay contained a 3,000-gallon auxiliary fuel tank.
Once the weapons were inspected, the crew continued their
walkaround inspection of the aircraft, then climbed up the
boarding ladder and assumed their stations on the flight deck.
A few moments later the interphone came alive as the pilots
turned on battery power, followed by the interior lights when
external power was applied, and the crew began their "Power-
on Before Engine Start" checklists. Roma powered up his
equipment, started a full cardinal heading gyro alignment On
his offensive Avionics System, loaded the mission cartridges
into his navigation computers, then checked in with the Ells-
worth command post: "Rushmore Control, Rushmore Zero-
One, radio check." post senior con-
"Loud and clear, Zero-One," the command
troller responded. "Authenticate Oscar-Mike."
Roma knew the senior controller and smiled at the
