Combat Ready: Lessons Learned in the Journey to Fighter Pilot
Combat Ready
Lessons Learned in the Journey to
Fighter Pilot
Captain Taylor Fox
Copyright 2016 by S. Taylor Fox. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
For more information visit at www.combatreadypilot.com.
Printed by CreateSpace
Approved under U.S Air Force Security and Policy Review,
Case #2016-11-14-001
Printed in the United States of America
SBN-13: 978-1540527684
ISBN-10: 1540527689
To my grandparents, Dobbie and Pop.
There is no journey without your support.
PREFACE
This is an unparalleled look at what it takes to go from being a kid in college with no plans of a military career to a fighter pilot flying the F-16 and F-22 in the U.S. Air Force. From doing pushups in the mud while getting yelled at to flying Mach 1 through the mountains at night wearing night vision goggles and dropping live bombs with 100 other aircraft in the fight, the journey is an amazing one and I hope you enjoy.
I had just been hired for the job and was traveling to my flight medical screening at Brooks Air Force Base in San Antonio. At the end of the trip, my grandparents, parents and friends all wanted to hear what the experience was like. It was then I knew I couldn’t repeat the stories to each of them every week. Instead, I chose to write. Every week I would send the weeks’ description and interesting stories to my closest family and friends. The result is this book as a summation of all of these posts. It is my real-time authentic voice as I experienced the stress and successes of pilot training. Only the beginning, the stories of my civilian flying, were not written as I was going through the experience.
As I reread the posts, some of them embarrass me, some I now disagree with, but most I am proud of. It will have undoubtedly been the greatest journey of my life. I hope it gives insight into the lives of a small but privileged community.
I should also mention this is the experience of just one pilot going through the journey and I am sure others have had far different experiences, even within my classes. I have left out some names but others gave me permission to include them in the story. I also left out most of the tactical discussion after I began flying the F-16 and F-22 for obvious reasons. Other than that, I don’t hold back.
At the end of some of the posts I have included a lesson learned, not necessarily about flying, but about business and life. The Air Force has taught me how to fly these jets but it has also taught me a lot about myself and those around me. I expect you will find many of these applicable in your life, no matter what your profession.
You may also find the glossary at the end of the book helpful.
Contents
PREFACE
Contents
INTRODUCTION
Part 1: Life as a Civilian
PART 2: Pre-Pilot Training
PART 3: Undergraduate Pilot Training (UPT)
PART 4: Introduction to Fighter Fundamentals (IFF)
PART 5: The Viper B-Course
PART 6: Mission Qualification Training
Afterword
Lessons Learned and location in book
INTRODUCTION
It’s a clear January night in 2015 and I am walking out to my F-16 with the Las Vegas strip providing a jarring contrast to the F-15s, F-15Es, F-22s and Eurofighters I am about to fight with and against. There is a loud high-pitched whistle from adjacent idling jets as I inspect the missiles and six live 500 lb bombs I will be dropping tonight. This mission is a part of Red Flag, the world’s largest advanced aerial combat exercise. Tonight there will be over one hundred and forty jets fighting in one airspace and the job of my four ship (formation of four F-16s) is to put bombs on a surface-to-air missile site.
After deeming the jet airworthy and starting the engine, I go through a variety of checks to make sure all of the sensors, cameras, flight controls and weapons are ready for the mission. I organize my target photos and stow my NVGs (night vision goggles) to the side, waiting for my flight lead to taxi our four ship out to the runway.
Over the radio I hear the other pilots say, “Lobo check,” “2,” “3,” and I respond with “4.”
“Nellis ground, Lobo 1, taxi four Vipers from the Red Flag ramp, information Juliet.” With that, our mission begins. We have a precise takeoff time as we only have a five-minute window to drop our bombs, about forty-five minutes from now. We have been preparing this mission to get those bombs on target within that window of time for twenty-four hours. After being cleared for takeoff, I watch three 30’ flames roar down the runway in twenty second intervals, before I follow in my F-16. I push the power up, checking the engine gauges before throwing the throttle full forward into max afterburner. A second or two later, I feel a kick and the rapid acceleration begins. The big flame has lit and 29,000 lbs of thrust is hurtling me down the runway. At 155 knots I pull back on the stick and the rumble of the imperfect runway gives way to the perfect calm air of the night sky. After raising the gear, I am accelerating through 350 knots and locking #3 up with my radar to follow them to the fight airspace.
There is complete darkness over the uninhabited desert so I throw on my night vision goggles. I now see the world, the mountains and desert landscape, through a fuzzy green filter. I am setting up the infrared camera, ensuring the bombs are ready, flying in the proper formation and listening to updates of the war over the radio and via text messages sent to the jet.
Tonight our four ship is staying low, hugging mountains to hide from SAMs (surface-to-air missiles) and keeping out of the chaotic air-to-air war that will undoubtedly unfold above. Other jets should be providing an escort cover so we can focus on our bombing but we have heat-seeking and radar-guided missiles to attack enemy aircraft as well.
As we change to the fight radio frequency, the war is well underway. There isn’t a second of quiet time as guys are shooting and getting shot, and the air battle manager is trying to help everyone understand what’s going on. Through my NVGs, I see hundreds of lights flashing and airplanes expending fireballs, called flares, all across the sky. It is chaos. About that time my flight lead signals us all to drop it down to the floor and push west toward the enemy targets. It now feels like a surreal dream as I am screaming through mountains at 600 mph while keeping track of three other jets in my formation, at times upside down to stay as close to the mountain peaks as we legally can through these NVGs. Without them on, I can’t see anything.
As we cross into enemy territory, I get a terrible beeping in my headset and despite my best efforts to go unnoticed by enemy SAMs, they are tracking me. I push the throttle forward to light the afterburner and begin a maneuver I hope will defeat the radar tracking me and if he shoots, defeat the missile as well. I let the entire war know of my situation, “Lobo 4, Mud 2 bearing 260, Bullseye 080 for 60!” Hopefully someone will kill it before it kills me. This is a high G-force maneuver with a lot of turning and I need to make sure I don’t smack into the side of a mountain. Instead I use the mountain to hide from where I think the SAM is and the warning goes away. I am safe, for now.
We continue to press west with everyone in my flight getting tracked by different SAMs but no aircraft have targeted us. We have been aggressively flying low for almost fifteen minutes and are just 15 miles from the target when we hear two enemy aircraft are headed our way. We pop up to gain a few thousand feet to put our cameras on the target. I am suppose
d to put all six of my bombs on one missile-launching site and I am frantically searching in the 4x4-inch camera screen to find it in this complex of structures. If I can’t, we will have to start circling the target area to find it, making ourselves an easy target for the enemy and tonight, that almost certainly means death. I am now four miles from dropping, making sure I don’t run into my wingman, when I get another warning of a SAM tracking me. I don’t care. I need to find this damn target and I am struggling. The entire success of the mission rests on finding this tiny missile silo and because we are low, it is hard to see with other structures blocking the view. With fifteen seconds to release, the sweat pouring down my face, I am blinded and my NVGs go white temporarily before quickly recovering. I look to the right and see four mushroom clouds of explosions from the flight of four F-15Es next to us, lighting up the entire sky. Holy shit, that was awesome, but I have no time to enjoy the view.
At ten seconds to release, I think I see the target. Unfortunately, “I think” is not good enough. I am about to consent to 3,000 lbs of explosives coming off my jet. I am about to choose who lives or dies with the red button under my right thumb and I have to be 100% confident before I hit it. Based on the target picture on my lap, the concrete slab under the launcher looks like a T but I can’t see it yet. I start lining my jet up with that object, hoping I will see this confirming feature at the last second as mission success rests on it. At three seconds to release, the concrete T in the camera pod emerges and I hear Lobo 1 and 2 release their weapons. I let out a sigh of relief, continue to refine the steering to the target and hit the red button. I feel the six bombs ripple off my wings and then aggressively maneuver back east. I briefly lift the NVGs and roll up to 90 degrees of bank so I can watch the six, near instantaneous explosions create a fireball where the target once was right below my jet. The adrenaline is pumping now. The mission is a success and I can’t help but smile. This is awesome.
Part 1:
Life as a Civilian
“No yoops, papa.” This was the deal I made at the age of three, unable to properly say “loops,” with my grandfather before I would board any flight he was piloting until age eleven. I loved flying and sitting in the cockpit but the fear of going upside down was overwhelming. Everyone else in my family had performed numerous “yoops” with my grandfather, including my sister, who at fifteen months younger, I had written off as reckless and irresponsible. On trips to Disney World, I was the kid refusing to go on any of the rides. I preferred going to the various countries at Epcot to get my passport book stamped. For each decision at that age I looked at every risk and this generally led me to not pursue the more dangerous course of action—clearly not the expected mindset of someone willing to go to war in a fighter jet.
My grandfather, Jack Fox, but known to the family as “Pop,” went to the University of Missouri to play football in the early 1950s but also joined the Air Force ROTC, having never flown in an airplane. After going through pilot training in a T-6 Texan, he ultimately flew the F-86D fighter jet, becoming an early member of the Mach Busters Club. To break the sound barrier in those days required a straight down nosedive at full power and then maybe, just maybe, you’d have enough speed to break through. He remained a pilot the rest of his life, flying corporately in his retirement. My grandparents had a couple planes so any time I was with them, we were inevitably near an airport.
Fortunately, at age eleven, my attitude changed. I looked up to my cousin Mike who was spending the summer learning to fly. This envy in what Mike was doing, along with the magic of flight, sparked a desire to be a pilot and within an hour, my grandpa had me in the air and upside down. The feeling of twists and turns was amazing and from that point on, I could not get enough. I started taking lessons immediately, propped up by my grandmother’s couch pillows so I could see over the instrument panel and touch the rudder pedals.
I continued to fly off and on until I was sixteen, an age where you can actually start flying alone and work on getting licenses. I would drive the hour to my grandparents almost every weekend during the school year and spent the majority of the summer at their house, jumping into every airplane I could find. I got my private license on the day of my seventeenth birthday, my instrument license a few months later and my commercial and multi-engine license as soon as I turned eighteen.
The taste of military flying began with the 1942 Boeing Stearman my grandfather had rebuilt in the 1970s. A perfect yellow Navy paint scheme, the Stearman is an open cockpit bi-plane. I would argue it is one of the best planes in which to learn the basics of flying, just as they did during World War II. Planes of this era taught the basic stick and rudder skills far better than the planes of today. Starting my training in this plane with my grandfather’s guidance gave me an advantage, a natural feel for flying that I could fall back on, even in an F-16.
Being a pilot at age 17 and competing in aerobatic contests tends to create a few interesting life dynamics. Putting it mildly, I had some confidence. I would like to think it was moderated to a decent degree but every day I would drive to the airport jamming to the Top Gun favorite, “Highway to the Danger Zone.” I am almost embarrassed to write that but as I remember how pumped-up it made me feel, I wouldn’t have done it any other way. Aviation is inherently exciting and when I reflect on my civilian flying days, a few stories always come to mind.
Six years after my final declaration of “no yoops, papa,” I was competing in an aerobatics competition at the National Stearman Fly-In in Galesburg, Illinois. Not exactly a huge, nationally recognized event, it is a judged competition with generally 6-8 pilots participating. The evening before the event, my friend JR Mitchell and I were practicing and got an idea to spice it up a little. Generally, aerobatics have a 1,500 feet above-the-ground or higher restriction for a margin of safety. The lowest I had probably ever been above the ground while doing aerobatics was 1,000 feet and since I had been practicing a lot, there wasn’t much adrenaline rush anymore. “What about those air show pilots? They do their maneuvers just off the ground,” I thought. If they can do it, we can do it.
So we decide to practice the loop five times in a row, documenting the precise amount of altitude we lost each time and then added 100 feet for buffer. Assuming we performed the maneuver exactly the same way as every time we’d done it in practice, we would finish with one hundred feet to spare, or 1/3 the length of a football field. Not only was this well below the 1,500-foot legal limit, we were doing it just for excitement.
If you fly a perfect loop, after you have gone over the top and are pointing straight down, you can hit the wake turbulence you made when starting the loop maneuver. This shudders the airplane and momentarily cripples your control over the plane, generally for less than a second. While that doesn’t sound like much time, when you are 250 feet over the earth pointing straight down and doing 100+ mph, it feels like an eternity. Because it isn’t a big deal 1,000+ feet above the ground, I didn’t consider this in my buffer or nerve calculation.
So we finally decide to execute after both of us were sure we wanted to try. However, true to form, as we were pointing straight down just above the earth, the stick became uncontrollable and my heart sank to the floor. The surge of adrenaline roared through my body and I perceived time to dramatically slow. Again, it probably lasted half a second or so but it felt like five. I pulled back on the stick as much as I could allow after regaining control and we both exhaled yells of excitement over the experience we had just shared.
Fighter pilots should never take unnecessary risks, but there is a certain attitude needed to fly the dangerous missions the profession requires. Looking back, this appears to be an example of that attitude emerging. Civilian flying is generally very tame and safe so I would assume this was my teenage self trying to push the envelope a little.
My time at Galesburg also gave me a taste of formation flying. I had flown formation a few years before with my grandpa at the controls and had been convinced we were seconds away from death
the entire time. My second experience, now as an actual pilot receiving instruction on how to fly just feet away from another plane, went immeasurably better. Sure there were nerves, but I loved it. There is something about engaging in an activity requiring 100% of your focus that is refreshing. Most activities, no matter how demanding, allow for your mind to escape from them by daydreaming or worrying about other problems. Close formation, especially at first, requires complete attention and constant corrections as you are almost never in the perfect position. Every subtle movement by the lead airplane requires an adjustment from you. A slight bump of the throttle or stick to correct the new imperfection. Your eyes are locked on to that airplane. I was also amazed at the idea of communicating between airplanes using hand signals. I remember flying for a few minutes and I was so tense that I stood on the rudder pedal, subconsciously trying to guide my plane away from the other. It is a natural response for a newcomer to formation flying, as your proximity to the other plane is intimidating. Skidding through the air, it was actually making the plane more difficult to control in relation to lead. My grandpa had to remind me for the tenth time to just ‘relax.’
Being a pilot in high school and college also created an opportunity with members of the opposite sex, which I took advantage of as often as I could. Instead of driving around town looking for something to do, we could fly around town or fly to places for dinner. For prom, I flew my date to a grass strip with a restaurant in northern Arkansas overlooking a beautiful river. After dinner, we flew the 30 minutes back to Missouri, landed, and drove to the dance. I normally took dates up in a Cessna 172, a small four-seat plane my grandpa had purchased for my training but if they were a little more special, they got a ride in the Stearman. As a running joke in the family, if a girl wanted acceptance from the family, she had to go for a ride in the Stearman and be put through a solid aerobatic routine. If she could handle it, she was approved. If she complained, she would not get my grandfather’s blessing—a death sentence on the relationship.