by G. E. Nolly
I checked in at the Visiting Officer Quarters, then went to the 354th Headquarters, and was directed to the “schoolhouse”. At the Training Squadron I met up with the 13 other pilots who became my classmates. About half of the guys had flown O-2s, and the rest were Lieutenants right out of UPT. One of the first things we did after checking in at the Training Squadron was report to the Life Support Section.
At Life Support, the Staff Sergeant wanted each of us to sit in an ejection seat mock-up to see if we would fit into the cockpit. The geometry of the T-33 cockpit presented problems for taller pilots. One of the guys in the class, Spike Spiker, was a tall, lanky Lieutenant right out of UPT.
“Lieutenant,” the Staff Sergeant said, “if you have to bail out of the T-33, there's a good chance you're going to lose your knees.”
That certainly got everyone's attention. The Staff Sergeant looked each of us over.
“I need everyone to go through our anthropomorphic mock-up, to see if you can eject safely.”
In the center of the room there was an ejection seat, and a rail with a sliding metal form in the shape of a canopy bow, the top of the aircraft windscreen. The metal form represented the front part of the aircraft canopy that remained during an ejection sequence.
“When you start the ejection by raising these handles,” the Staff Sergeant said, “the canopy will separate. Then this initiator will fire and the seat will move up the rails. This,” he was pointing at the metal form, “represents the canopy bow. Let's see if it clears Lieutenant Spiker's knees.”
Spike sat in the seat and the Staff Sergeant carefully lowered the metal form down the rail. It hit his kneecaps.
“I'm sorry, Lieutenant, but you don't qualify to fly the T-33. If you need to eject, you'll lose your legs.”
Spike looked devastated.
“Don't worry, Lieutenant, you'll still attend ground school, and you'll get a few additional training sorties when you go to RTU.”
The whole reason for fighter lead-in was to get the basics out of the way in an aircraft with lower operating cost than our final fighters. So Spike would get his fighter lead-in training in his real fighter. Not a problem, especially since he was coming right out of UPT and had recent formation flying experience.
Spike was the only guy in our class with long legs, so the rest of us were okay to fly the T-bird. But before we could fly, we needed ground school. A lot of ground school.
The rest of the day was devoted to getting our life support equipment fitted. Oxygen masks, CRU-60/P oxygen connectors, parachute harnesses, G-suits, helmets. We also received the T-33 Flight Manual, officially T.O. 1-T-33-1, called the “Dash one”, and several soft-cover books covering formation flying, gun sight calculations, ballistics, and Air Combat Maneuvering.
After we adjourned, I went by the O'Club for a quick snack, then retreated to my room to start hitting the books. There was a lot to learn, even with my experience in tactical operations. It must have been a really steep hill to climb for the guys right out of UPT.
After a few hours of reading about mill setting calculations and ballistic parameters, I was fast asleep.
It was a good thing I had set the alarm, because we had a full day ahead of us.
22
July 8, 1971
Our training for the next two weeks would consist of academic instruction in the morning, then flying training in the afternoon.
There was a lot to learn. For starters, we got a quickie course in T-33 systems and procedures. The T-bird was a fairly simple airplane, but it wasn't easy to fly. It required the pilot to be well ahead of the airplane at all times, due to the slow throttle response.
The Allison J-33 engine in the T-33 took forever to accelerate. Specifically, it took 15 seconds to go from Idle power to full Military power. That meant you really need to anticipate power requirements, such as when a landing needed to be aborted. You could use up a lot of runway while waiting for the engine to accelerate to go-around power.
Speed-wise, the T-33 was pretty compatible with the T-39 I'd been flying. In that regard I, along with my classmates right out of UPT, had an easier adjustment than the guys coming back after flying the O-2A.
When I had been flying the O-2A, I didn't know anything about gun sight geometry and munitions ballistics. I just knew to put the pipper on the target and squeeze off a rocket when everything looked correct. We called it the TLAR weapons release system – That Looks About Right.
For real weapons delivery, with a plethora of ordnance available, gun sight computations were critical. Every munition had a specific set of ballistic parameters, based on its weight, drag index, dive angle, airspeed and release altitude.
Complicating the calculation was the reality that, in a steep dive, the altimeter would lag the aircraft and indicate higher than the actual altitude. We had to calculate altimeter lag for each delivery, again based on dive angle, airspeed and altitude. And, of course, to do it absolutely perfectly, we would need to correct the altimeter error for non-standard temperature. We spent a good portion of every briefing for gunnery range missions doing our computations, but soon learned that the TLAR system worked in fighters, too.
Typically, on a bomb run at the gunnery range, we would initiate the delivery by rolling to a bank angle of 90 degrees plus the final dive angle. For a 30-degree delivery, that would be a 120-degree bank for the roll-in. The more standard 45-degree delivery would require a 135-degree bank for the roll-in.
When rolling out on the delivery heading, the depression of the gunsight, measured in “mills” – short for the geometric term “milliradians” – would cause the pipper to swing left and right during every heading correction. This swinging was called “pendulum effect”. This pendulum effect made it essential to be steady on the run-in heading as quickly as possible, so the pipper would track correctly to the aim point.
The pipper had to track to the aim point, not the target. Unless the wind was calm, the aim point would be somewhere other than on the target. During delivery, the bomb would respond to the wind affecting the aircraft at the point of delivery. If there was a 30-knot wind at delivery altitude, the pilot would need to calculate an offset aim point upwind of the actual target, by an amount determined by the munitions ballistics. Typically, this offset aim point was a calculation that needed to be computed by the pilot during the roll-in for the delivery.
For me, math in public was always an embarrassing event. Computing an offset aim point while in a 135-degree bank, and at the same time calculating a weapons release altitude by considering the target elevation, was challenging. Really challenging.
On the weapons range, we learned about compensating errors. If the dive angle was shallower than planned, the bombs would land short of the target. If the angle was steeper than planned, the bombs would be long. If the G-loading on the airplane was not correct for the dive angle, the bombs would be either short or long. For example, in a 45-degree dive the airplane should have .707 Gs of loading. If loading was too heavy, the bombs would be short. If loading was too light, the bombs would be long.
Of course, airspeed dramatically affected the bomb delivery. Too slow, the bombs would be short, too fast, they'd be long.
The goal of every bomb run was to have the pipper exactly on the offset aim point at the precise point where the aircraft reached the delivery altitude, at exactly the correct G-loading and airspeed.
“Every year, somewhere in the world,” said Major Joe Cooley, our academic instructor, “a pilot makes his parameters perfectly. The rest of the time, we compensate.”
So, if we are steep and fast, we pickle a bit early. If we're slow or shallow, we press a bit and pickle a little late. TLAR.
Every mission, we flew in formation. I had gotten pretty rusty in my formation flying, since I hadn't done it for almost three years, but I got back into the swing of it pretty quickly.
Air Combat Maneuvering was an extension of formation flying. We didn't perform a lot of ACM during fighter lead-in, s
ince the T-33 was a straight-wing airplane, and all of the modern fighters were swept-wing. A swept-wing operates a lot different from a straight wing at high angles of attack, which is pretty much the standard environment during an engagement. We'd get our real ACM training at RTU.
My biggest surprise on the gunnery range was the strafe event, using the internal .50 caliber gun. All of the war movies I had seen as a kid had led me to believe that bullets should walk across the target during a strafing run. Au contraire! The goal is to get every bullet to go through the same hole. This required slight, very slight, forward pressure on the stick during the strafing run, since the distance to target rapidly decreases as the airplane closes to the target.
The fighter lead-in training was over in a heartbeat, and it was time for me to head down to Homestead Air Force Base for Water Survival, followed by F-4 RTU.
I found a 1964 Corvair for sale for $300 in the local paper, bought it for my journey, and returned the rental car. Corvairs were really cheap after publication of Nader's book, Unsafe At Any Speed. I bought a Sway-Bar from the J.C. Whitney catalog, installed it, and had a safe car for my time in the States.
23
July 25, 1971
Water Survival was a lot of fun, but at times a bit scary. We started out with a few days of class, learning about life rafts, individual flotation gear, signaling devices, and water purification. Then we covered hypothermia. Even in warm water, like we had off the coast of Florida, and Vietnam, it was possible to die from hyperthermia in fairly short order. Getting out of the water and into the life raft was essential.
The graduation exercise was the scary part. My mistake had been going to the movies while I was at Myrtle Beach. I had gone to see the new shark movie, Blue Water, White Death. Not a smart move, considering I would be out in the ocean a week later, out of sight of land, all by myself.
The dozen of us in the class boarded a powerboat and headed out to the open ocean. We were each outfitted with a parachute harness and a hard-shell ejection seat survival kit attached by a lanyard. One by one, we had parachutes hooked up to our harnesses, and at the appropriate time we were towed aloft by the boat until we were approximately 300 feet in the air.
On signal, we would release the tow rope and descend to the water, as if we had just parachuted out of our aircraft. We were each deposited about a mile apart. After the boat released all of the students, it took off for shore.
The mission was to inflate the under-arm Life Preserver Units on the way down to the water, deploy and inflate the one-man life raft, climb aboard, then use whatever equipment we needed in the survival kit to effect our rescues. Included in the exercise was the requirement to use the water desalinization kit to produce potable water.
As soon as I hit the water, my parachute collapsed on top of me. I knew from training that there would be some disorientation, and it was comforting to be mentally prepared. As instructed, I grabbed the closest seam in the parachute canopy and followed it to the edge, to get out from under it.
The water was cold. Shockingly cold. The water was also incredibly clear. I could see down hundreds of feet, and, well below me, I saw menacing shapes moving around. I was motivated to get into the life raft as quickly as I could. Highly motivated.
One of the things I hadn't anticipated was the difficulty of getting aboard the life raft with the inflated LPUs under my arms. They really got in the way, and when I pushed them behind my arms they tended to push me face-down into the water. Eventually I got into the raft, deployed the sea anchor and the marking dye, and opened my survival kit.
The desalinization kit was easy to find. It was a rectangular metal can, similar in appearance to a band-aid box. It contained a powder which, when mixed with sea water, would produce drinkable, albeit unpleasant tasting, water. I opened the kit just as a large gust of wind hit my raft. The powder went flying all over, including into my eyes.
Now I had a real problem. I was temporarily blinded by the stinging powder in my eyes, and I couldn't see the contents of my survival kit to find the can of drinking water I would need to rinse out my eyes. I was starting to get really worried.
Then I thought about what I'd been through before, when there were real gomers shooting at me, and this didn't seem so bad. I would be uncomfortable for a little while, but eventually someone would spot my marker dye even if I didn't signal. No one was trying to kill me. This too would pass.
After what seemed like an eternity I found the can of drinking water, opened it and poured it all over my face and eyes. My eyes still burned, but my vision returned. I located the URC-64 transceiver radio in my survival vest and made contact with the pickup helicopter. When he requested for me to mark my spot, I popped a signal smoke. He lowered the hoist and I dutifully waited for it to touch the water to electrically ground it.
As they hoisted me into the HH-53, I had a momentary flashback to the last time I had come aboard a helicopter. Nobody was shooting at me now, I was off the coast of Miami, and the only problem I had was a little pink-eye. All's right with the world.
The PJ gave me the once-over as I came aboard.
“Are your eyes okay, sir?”
“Just a little salt water, Sarge. I'm fine.”
I was safe, I was getting dry, I was uninjured, and in two more days I'd be starting F-4 training.
Yeah, I was fine.
24
August 2, 1971
I had finished Water Survival school a few days earlier, and had the weekend off. F-4 RTU class started on Monday.
The F-4 Phantom II was a big airplane. Up until now, I'd been flying small planes. The O-2A weighed in at 4850 pounds max gross weight. The T-39 was approximately 10,000 pounds. In sharp contrast, the F-4 grossed out at 49,000 pounds. It was a giant, fire-breathing monster.
The original Air Force F-4C was an offspring of the Navy F-4B, an interceptor aircraft that flew off of aircraft carriers. Unlike previous fighters, it didn't have a gun. At the time of its development, the thinking was that missiles would replace guns during dogfights. For air-to-air combat, it carried missiles, the AIM-7 and the AIM-9.
The AIM-7 Sparrow was a radar-guided missile with a warhead that contained 88 pounds of high explosives. It was a big missile, 12 feet long, weighing over 500 pounds. To fire the AIM-7, you first had to lock onto the target with the aircraft radar, ensure that the target was in range, and fire. The missile would guide to the target only as long as you maintained a radar lock-on. It had a speed in excess of mach 2, and cost roughly the price of a Rolls Royce automobile. An attack with an AIM-7 was referred to as a “Fox 1” attack.
The AIM-9 Sidewinder was an infra-red heat-seeking missile with a 20-pound warhead. It also had a speed in excess of mach 2. It was smaller than the AIM-7, at 10 feet long and just under 200 pounds. Unlike the scenes in the movies, you needed to ensure that the IR seeker head saw the target before you fired it. The pilot would know the missile saw the target when he heard a steady tone in his headset. An attack with an AIM-9 was referred to as a “Fox 2”.
The F-4 was capable of carrying another Fox 2 missile, the AIM-4 Falcon. It was a much smaller missile, and had a really small 7-pound warhead. It was produced by Hughes, and some pilots jokingly called it the “Hughes Arrow”, because they said that the only way you could kill another aircraft with it was if you shot the pilot through the heart.
The Air Force F-4C and F-4D did not have an internal cannon, but were capable of carrying a centerline-mounted external M61 Vulcan Gatling gun. The F-4E had an internal nose-mounted Vulcan. The Vulcan was an incredible weapon, with a rate of fire in excess of 100 rounds per second from its six barrels. And every 20 millimeter round contained a high explosive warhead. The internal gun carried 640 rounds. A gun attack was called a “Fox 3”.
During our time at the RTU, we were going to be trained, and theoretically become proficient, in all three methods of air-to-air attack. There was a fourth method of attack, called the Fox 4. The “Fox 4” maneuver was a last-ditch
effort to down an enemy aircraft by ramming it. Needless to say, we never intentionally practiced the Fox 4 maneuver.
There were 20 of us in the class, ten formed crews composed of front-seat pilots and rated navigators as back-seat Weapons Systems Officers, WSOs. Most of the WSOs were young guys, right out of Navigator school.
All of us, the pilots, had performed airborne acrobatics routinely in pilot training. Not so for the navs. In fact, there was virtually nothing they learned in Navigator school, other than meteorology, that prepared them for the back seat of an F-4. It was a really steep hill for them to climb.
Fortunately, they were sharp, they were gung-ho, and they were young. God, they were young! My assigned WSO, Bob Diller, looked barely old enough to shave. Somehow, Bob had picked up the nickname Deacon.
Name-wise, I was still Hamilton, sometimes called Ham. It started to look like the moniker Hamfist was fading from memory.
Until the first day of ground school.
25
August 2, 1971
When I showed up at the RTU squadron, I processed in and went to the mass briefing room. On this first day of training we would all be addressed by the Wing Director of Operations. All 20 of us were in position about ten minutes early. Then, from the back of the room, I heard a yell, a voice from the past.
“Hamfist!”
I turned to see who had outed me. It was Captain Kane, from DaNang!
“Speedbrake!”
Damn, it was good to see him!
“I'm going to be your IP, Hamfist, so you'd better behave yourself.”
“Damn, it's good to see you, Speedbrake. Have you been in F-4s all this time?”
“Yeah. After DaNang, I went to Spangdahlem for two years, became an IP over there, and just got to Homestead a few months ago. You're going to love this airplane.”
