So...There I was...A brand new 1st Lt, fully checked out in the F-4D in my first Operational Fighter Squadron, the 80th TFS, AKA The Juvats. I am crewed with a WSO who's got about a thousand hours in the F-4 and will, upon PCS'ing from Kunsan be attending Fighter Weapons School. For reasons that will become clear in a bit his tactical call sign (the Fighter community's equivalent of a "nickname") is "Conehead".
Now, the provocation for this post's subject was this picture posted by Sarge a couple of days ago.
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| Source |
There's a reasonable probability that I have actually flown THAT aircraft, especially as I get deeper into this story.
So, anyhow, my check ride is passed, I'm now a Mission Ready Fighter Pilot. Which is all well and good, but I don't have an awful lot of experience. So, the good news is I get on the schedule quite a bit. Technique only, but it would be nice to actually hit what I'm aiming at with a bomb, before I have to do it for real.
But, since there isn't much for a WSO to do on a conventional range ride other than count off altitudes during a bombing dive, Conehead would be playing around with the equipment. Which brings us to that picture.
If you notice on the spine of the airplane is what looks like a towel rack. That is actually a LORAN antenna (LORAN stands for LOng RAnge Navigation). Essentially it's a highly (at the time) accurate radio signal that can position you over, say, a target.
Now, while we're transiting to and from the bombing range, Conehead is playing around with the LORAN. After a few rides and spending a lot of time in the books, he's basically figured out how to work it.
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| Koon-ni Range is just to the left of the S in South and just North of the Bay that's unofficially known as "The Running Man". Excellent Radar return in case you get mis-located*. The circle to the NW is a small rock that's used for practicing bombing with "Sunrise" emulation weapons. |
Conehead goes and briefs our Squadron Commander, callsign "Batman" who eventually approves the test.
Because we have no real way of knowing how accurate the system will be, we elect to drop on Koon-ni Rock. A few miles of water to absorb a miss might be a good idea.
So the day rolls around, we launch as a single ship, Lead has aborted with no spare's. (Thank you Jimmuh Cahtah.) It's just me and Conehead. We go through dry just to step through the procedures and make sure things are working as desired. No problems.
So we head back down south and arm up for a live drop of a practice bomb. For those of you in the know, the practice nuke bomb is a MK-106 practice bomb.
We'd be dropping it from about 20K, then do a 180o turn and get the heck low and as far away as possible. So, there we are...First attack run, approaching the release point. Conehead finds the "target" and locks on. We go through the drop procedures and feel the weapon release. I start to roll the jet to begin the egress maneuver when I happen to notice something just off the wing. It's a blue bomb.
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| This is a practice conventional bomb, very little drag. |
It's flying formation with us. Well, crap, we need to watch where it lands to make a report. About this time we go through a very wispy thin cloud deck and as we get through that, I'm clearing our flight path. Framed almost perfectly in the gun sight is a large oil tanker.
I might have said something along the lines of "Aww, Feces," or maybe "Aww fornicate", and call Conehead's attention to the object off our right wing flying formation with us. I also advise him about the tanker. Conehead, being in the back seat can't see out front, so I describe the problem.
We continue flying formation with it and the tanker is getting bigger. Finally, I pull out of the dive and watch the bomb hit the water maybe a football field behind the tanker. We pass overhead and leaning on the rail of the aft deck is a crewman from the tanker. As we pass overhead, we could clearly see his very wide eyes.
Needless to say, we RTB'd as expeditiously as possible. Shut down, and scurried off to Batman's office. Explained what had happened. The Wing Commander got involved. Conehead and I got to expend a lot of time out in Mobile Control making sure our fellow aircrews remembered to put their landing gear down.
Came to find out that the SUU-20 bomb dispenser had just come out of maintenance and the release sequence had gotten mistakenly switched around on the chassis. It had released a slick bomb instead of a high drag.
We were forgiven, although with a stern warning that we would not be practicing LORAN deliveries again.
Conehead was crushed. I was grateful.
I ran into Conehead in the Pentagon just prior to retiring, we related that story to the gang that Friday evening in the Bar in the back of the Fighter Pilot Mafia office. Got a few "Aww Feces" as well as some chuckles when we retold that story.
Peace out y'all
*A Fighter Pilot is never "lost", temporarily "mis-located" maybe, but never "lost".
Well, that's a fine how do you do, try a new procedure and the reward is non-flying duty, huh........ :) That tanker make a report juvat?
ReplyDeleteNylon,
DeleteNot that we were aware of. Of course, I'm not sure he didn't go through the range itself. Which might have been why nothing too big came of it.
juvat
Now that is what can be called, "A Bad Thing"...
ReplyDelete-Barry
Barry,
DeleteCould have been, could have been. Thankfully.
BTW, Conehead's actual first name was Barry. Ever flown an F-4, Barry?
juvat
Goodness, you fighter pilots led an exciting life. That would have been one heck of an explanation.
ReplyDeleteI assume that by "practice bomb", you mean something that approximates the weight and physical characteristics of an actual bomb?
THBB,
DeleteAgreed, and the consequences could have been enormous. IIRC you couldn't select which type weapon was next to be released from the pod. Fortunately, we used good judgement and RTB'd so there was only one empty space in the pod. And it wasn't the #1 space. So...
As to practice bomb, Not exactly, The BDU-33 (the blue one) had the aerodynamic characteristics of a slick 500 Lb bomb and the MK-106 had the aerodynamic capabilities of a retarded bomb. (Beans, retarded means high drag coefficient in this case, not a mental problem. Just sayin')
Every once in a while, we'd get cement filled actual sized bombs. The aerodynamic drag of a full load of them has to be countered for with the gun sight and the fact that they're usually all rippled off in one pass. Not fuel efficient, but fun. Even more fun was when you got to drop live. VERY Interesting!
juvat
Honestly, that all sounds super complicated to think about while also trying to fly a plane (and, undoubtedly, avoiding bad guys). You all are apparently human supercomputers.
DeleteTHBB,
DeleteIt's actually gotten quite a bit easier with gun sights that show the impact point of the bomb at any point in the attack. This was after my time as a bomb dropper, but they call the pipper the "Death Dot" now. You just fly the pipper to the target and push the pickle button. Again, this was after my time, so I've never done it, but that's their story and their stickin' to it.
juvat
Even better are the latest versions of guided munitions that can be tossed out of a C-130 and still manage to find the target. That's how good modern guided munitions have gotten.
DeleteBeans,
DeleteInteresting. I'm assuming the C-130 didn't have to fly directly over the target, that there was some method of propulsion on the ordnance. Be hard to miss a slow big airplane directly overhead dropping bombs on you.
juvat
Beans - They're not that good.
DeleteSarge,
DeleteI would say not. Slow, not very maneuverable, large, loud. Not a great delivery vehicle.
I could be wrong.
juvat
How big was the tanker? (Sorry, I'm thinking like a U-Boat captain there.)
ReplyDelete"Conehead" - not exactly flattering, is it. But funny.
Sarge,
DeleteFrom my point of view it was fairly large and getting larger as time went by. However, given that that area of the Yellow Sea isn't all that deep, I'd say it was smallish as tankers go. Probably build to move Petroleum to Seoul.
Yeah, Conehead didn't appreciate the humor, hence it stayed with him throughout his career.
juvat
Crusty Old TV Tech here. At least the weps switch wiring mistake was on a rack full 'o practice ordinance! Eyes-on the ordinance preflight, or you get what happened to the 5th BW back in 2007. Man, the number of things that have to happen right for a sortie to generate and recover without incident, amazing that the vast majority go off without "Aw Pookie!" moments.
ReplyDeleteCOTT,
DeleteYeah it does and BITD, the armorers, maintainers and systems fixers were almost unanimously talented. They also took care of the ones that weren't by training them or easing them into non-critical positions. I had a fair share of IFE's, but most of them were from the hard wear and tear on the equipment while flying. But "Train like you fight because you fight like you train!"
juvat
Wheels watch! I remember it well. In the USMC it was an enlisted punishment, er, Mission. Just you, a pair of binoculars, a , flare gun and the great outdoors
ReplyDeleteAnon,
DeleteI hadn't heard it called that, but then I wasn't a Marine. Sounds like a good name for it. But yes, Mobile Control (the AF name) was quite frequently a "get him outta my sight before I kill him" action after an in-flight screwup.
juvat
Great story. Blue lawn darts for $500. We designed a radio to pickup the LORAN C broadcasts in college. Both teams got close, but neither device worked. One guy did a really good job by himself, though. He got the only A. I remember measuring the timing on the o'scope. Senior level class, Avionics 401 I reckon...
ReplyDeleteI remember reading about issues on the P-38. They swapped the radio transmit and drop tank switch, IIRC. Guys talking out of their drop tanks on taxi.
STxAR,
DeleteI'd heard the P-38 story also. Right around the same time we got permission to try a LORAN delivery, the AF came up with a new delivery system. I can't remember the name, but it had a very fine beam radar and would give you very fine corrections. What I do remember is when you were arriving at the the system would send a signal. I sometimes remember this in my sleep! "BONG, BONG, BONG, TICK, TICK, BEEEEEEEEEEP. The further you went into the Beep, the longer your bomb went. We considered it a success if we hit the island (probably about a half mile in diameter).
Oh, and you had to be straight and level with a constant speed in the 30-45 seconds of your attack run.
No, it wasn't one of our favorite delivery methods.
juvat
While in the shipyard, being rebuilt from about the waterline up, the ship would send what crew was still around to classes at the Fleet Training Group. Some of those classes even made sense. Otherwise, it was a way to keep us occupied by something other than standing firewatch for welders. One of those classes was for navigation with LORAN. I’m pretty sure the gear we used was primitive compared to that which you carried on your bird, but it was effective. As radar operators, though, we seldom did full on navigation unless we were within ten nautical miles of land (or in the Formosa Straits).
ReplyDeleteSkip,
DeleteI can see it being a useful NavAid for a ship. It takes a longer period of time for virtually every type ship to move a significant distance, and the system can compensate for it as it goes. A fighter can move in three dimensions quite quickly and those changes can be fairly large. So, one of the things Conehead and I learned was to make very small very smooth changes. Which, if you're flying over bad guys who are authorized to shoot at you can be...well...scary? Hence why I was glad the Wing King killed the idea.
juvat
Join the Navy, See the World! The story is that once a small unit of sailors were assigned to operate a LORAN station in western ND - almost at the geographical center of North America.
DeleteDon,
DeleteMy Dad was stationed at a radar station in Fargo ND when I was 3-4. It was he and a dozen or so enlisted. We lived in a quonset hut. One of my earliest memories is sledding off the roof of the quonset hut in my snow suit and ripping the bottom off when I skidded across a hunk of dry ice that had been used to transport meat to the site. For some reason, my San Franciscan socialite Mom never really spoke about that assignment.
juvat
Don, the station in ND wasn't LORAN - it was Omega. The Omega system used VLF and there were something like 8 transmitters to cover the world. LORAN had probably hundreds of stations due to its range limitations. We had Omega on my ship, but we also had a early Satnav system which was more reliable.
DeleteThanks, Tom. I stand corrected.
DeleteGreat story.
ReplyDeleteUSN calls the 25 pound BDU-33 a Mark 76. Way back in the 1960s, USS Forrestal (CV-59) was doing ops off Florida, dropping on the Pinecastle range, but ran out of Mark 76 practice bombs. Our destroyer was sent back into Mayport to pick up about a thousand of the damn things loaded on pallets, which we took back out to the op area. Then we steamed alongside and hooked up a highline for cargo transfer and spent an hour or two manually humping the bombs (two to a cardboard box weighing 50 pounds) to the highline location and loading into cargo nets. Unlike logistics ships or carriers, DD's don't have any forklifts or even pallet jacks to move pallets full of stuff, it was all done by "Armstrong." Glad to help our feathered friends. Finished the transfer, then back to plane guard station. Plane guard consisting of (A)- Never trust a carrier to tell you they are maneuvering to chase the wind over the deck; (B) if they do tell you, still don't trust them; (C) NEVER cross the bow of a carrier; and (D) Assuming A,B and C are observed, stay on station 1,000 yards 165 degrees relative to the carrier as a visual aid to aircraft landing, and a convenient place to be if you need to fish a pilot out of the water.
Hope Mrs. J. is moving ahead on her treatment. Probably too soon to really see much progress, and may still be on a downward trajectory, but cycle thru that a few times and it continues up. Prayers up.
JB
JB, Thanksgiving is the final dose for this session, She gets a week off. Then starts back up. She's taking a lot of naps and gets a tad cranky at times, but seems to be handling it well. We'll see.
DeleteYeah, I wouldn't want to be schlepping 50 pounds of concrete around on a destroyer. The only time I sailed on one, it reminded me of a severe jink in a jet to avoid a gun shot. Only I wasn't strapped in and couldn't see the horizon. I didn't get sick, but I sure as heck didn't feel all "Spiffy".
juvat
Just how slow can a F-4 fly? Reason for asking, while flying a Piper Pacer circa 1968 across Nevada IFR (I follow roads) a F-4 kept making passes close to use. Gear down, flaps deployed, etc. and making hand signals to us. Guess we should have read the NOTAMS that day. Maybe turned the radio on. The F-4 shortly went away. We made our next fuel stop at a small airport with no control tower.
ReplyDeleteWSF,
DeleteIf the gear and flaps were down, you could probably get down to 180K or so, depending on fuel load and external stores. Otherwise, probably not much slower that 210-200. It was NOT a comfortable airplane to fly slow in. If you used ailerons to roll and turn, putting it into a spin was quite likely. Stall/Spin recovery was a Bold Face Emergency Procedure (meaning the aircrew had to know the procedure verbatim down to the punctuation. Don't quote me on this, but I think the altitude to recover from a fully developed spin was 8-10K' One did NOT want to spin an F-4. Fortunately, McD corrected that problem in the F-15. Slow flight was not an issue.
juvat
Thank you. Might be why they left when we dropped down to 200' AGL.
DeleteWSF,
DeleteQuite likely, unless you were about to land on an 8000' runway.
juvat
So 'Conehead' due to the island's name?
ReplyDeleteBeans,
DeleteYa know, I don't remember why he got it. It was due to the LORAN, not the island, but I don't remember exactly why.
juvat
Ah... Now I understand. If it was due to Loran, then it's the cones of convergence from the Loran stations that told you where you supposedly were.
DeleteOr it's from the cone you stuck your face into on the Loran unit so you can see the crappy crt image.
Maybe.
Beans,
DeleteThat sounds like it might be correct. I don't recall ever seeing a display, so that might have been a back seat only instrument.
juvat
I have bombed that same rock, at least from what I can remember. Unfortunately our jet broke and I spent seven beautiful days in Kunsan. And by beautiful, I mean not at all. Kunsan in August with only a flight suit is not fun.
ReplyDeleteTuna,
DeleteWhen I was there, it was a very austere base. The movie theater and the O'Club were pretty much all the entertainment in the evening. That having been said, the flying was excellent (significantly less "rules" than in the States) and the squadron elders were all Vietnam vets. Learned an awful lot from them there. I was both glad and sad to leave.
juvat
The Navy's foreign legion was tough on us, you know about my son, and that was very stressful so we left with thankfulness that we were getting back to the States.
DeleteTuna,
DeleteI've been there done that. Yeah, I understand. Liked flying overseas. Liked it even better when the family was with me (Kadena). But there's something very nice to coming home.
juvat
LOL, I imagine the pucker factor was 'high' to put it mildly!!!
ReplyDeleteOld NFO,
DeleteYeah, it was...a bit!.
juvat