The Bird Farm

by Philip Kaplan

  “Usually a student is kept free of trouble by instructors, and the student tries to keep himself out of trouble because he wants to succeed alongside his peers. But stupidity appears to many of us at the very time we are happiest. In 1954, during Primary training at Pensacola after I had soloed, I thought I had mastered the SNJ trainer, and one day over Perdido Bay I was practicing aerobatics for my next check ride. I did a slow roll and hadn’t got the nose high enough on the entry. When I was upside down I let the nose fall through and, rather than roll out, I split-essed. I blacked out from g during the pullout and awakened to see the indicated air speed needle exceeding the red line and expected to see the wings tear off, but the airplane held together. It shook me up but I got over it.”

  —Paul Ludwig, former U.S. Navy attack pilot

  Royal Navy pilot Danny Stembridge flew AF-2 Sea Harriers with 801 Squadron from HMS Illustrious: “I went through flying training to fly the Lynx maritime attack helicopter. I had a fantastic time doing it and part of me actually still misses it. It wasn’t as satisfying as flying a fast jet, but I think it was more enjoyable. When you are flying a fighter, there is very little time to think, ‘Wow, this is fun.’ That’s more in retrospect. I think that the satisfaction I got from flying Sea Harriers outweighed the fun I had flying helicopters. The Sea Harrier is very demanding. It’s not hugely ergonomic inside, and you are working hard because of that. The air defense environment is a busy one, and you’re on your own. Then you have to come back and land on a ship in a VSTOL fighter. Bringing the Sea Harrier alongside, with its lack of systems to help you and its inherent lack of thrust, and therefore the amount of fuel that you require to come aboard … it takes a lot of brain power and piloting ability. You’re working from the minute you start preparing for a sortie ’til the minute you finish debriefing it, and afterwards, if it has gone right, it’s immensely satisfying. It’s a job that has to be done, when you’re airborne, whether you are training or not, and the satisfaction comes afterwards.

  “If you mishandle the Sea Harrier in any way, particularly in the VSTOL regime, it will bite you hard. It will really punish you if you make a basic error in VSTOL regime. But the training is pretty intense and pretty long as well. Because of my rotary flying background, I had a slightly different pipeline, but the Sea Harrier training is a very long course and a lot of it is spent in learning to tame the plane in the VSTOL regime, just flying it. With other fighters, once you’ve learned, they are similar to other types, but with the Harrier, you are always learning how to fly it and how to operate it in the role for which it was designed.

  “Coming from flying helicopters, I have found it easier and a lot more comfortable around the ship than other people do, because of my experience of about 1,200 deck landings on very small ships in a helicopter, many of them at night. Shipborne operations are unique, and to have that to fall back on when everything else is looking horrible … you’re coming down the glide slope, you’re in cloud and wondering if the ship is actually gonna be there at the end … I’m used to seeing the ship pop out of the gloop at the bottom. Other people may not be. I also think that hovering experience has helped me immensely.

  Naval Flight Officer students moving through their navigation training;

  “I’m looking forward to my first deployment in the Gulf flying Sea Harriers. I’ve been to the Gulf twice, for six months, so the area is not new to me, but the mission I will be carrying out will be totally different, and professionally, I’m looking forward to it. As for the danger involved in the flying, it doesn’t keep me awake at night, nor does going to the Gulf. In the past I’ve done what could be construed as scary things, and that hasn’t kept me awake. Maybe in six months my view will have changed, but I think if you’re the kind of person to do this, then it’s very unlikely to worry you. Otherwise you wouldn’t be doing it.”

  Shannon Callahan is the granddaughter of a U.S. Navy enlisted man who served on the Gambier Bay, a small carrier that was sunk in the Battle of Leyte Gulf during the Second World War. In March 2000 she completed the Naval Flight Officer course at NAS Pensacola and was selected for the EA-6B Prowler community. “When I was in high school I took a trip to the Air Force Academy and fell in love with the place. I definitely wanted to go there. But the Air Force officers I talked to convinced me that, to be in the Air Force one should really be a pilot, and I didn’t think I could be a pilot because I didn’t have 20/20 vision. I looked at the other service academies and decided on the Naval Academy, where I learned that even without 20/20 (I have 20/40) I could qualify to be a Naval Flight Officer. It is ironic that I actually could have been a pilot in the Air Force, because their eyesight requirements are lower than those of the Navy, but I didn’t know that at the time. Fortunately, I found my calling because I really love carrier aviation. I went out on a carrier on a midshipman cruise one summer while at the Academy, and was enamored with the whole thing. I got five cat shots in a Prowler and after that there was no going back. I graduated from the Academy in ’98, got my Masters degree in National Security, and showed up at flight school at Pensacola in ’99.

  “My first choice would be Radar Intercept Officer on an F-14; second choice would be Electronic Counter-measures Officer on an EA-6B Prowler. The Prowlers will probably be replaced by the F/A-18G; they call it the Growler. So it seems like I will end up in the Super Hornet if I stay in, which I really want to do. I’ll be happy with whatever I get. Every aviator loves their platform. Nobody ever regrets the direction they went or their choice. Everyone is positive and always trying to sell you on their platform.

  NFO candidates take their turns in the famous Dilbert Dunker where they learn escape techniques from an aircraft downed in the sea.

  “Every event, every training flight is graded. They keep track of how each student is doing with what they call the Navy Standard Scores (NSS). The scoring system for flights is: Above Average, Average, Below Average, and Unsatisfactory, which is a ‘Down.’ Two Belows equals one Down. Your NSS reflects how many Aboves and Belows you have, compared to the 200 to 300 students who went just before you, so its all comparative. This is because the instructors come and go, and thus the grading changes a little bit; it’s kind of fluid. To keep track of where I am in relation to my class mates, it’s just a matter of counting up those NSS grades, and some people do that. That’s not something I obsess about. You’ll drive yourself nuts if you keep comparing yourself to your buddies. The thing to do is just to go into every flight and give it your best, 100 percent. I have faith in my instructors. I think they are pretty good and pretty fair, and I know it’s all gonna work out the way it should because these people have been in aviation for years. I trust them with the grades.

  “I’m sure people on the outside probably think it’s pretty cut-throat, but it’s not. I’ve never known anyone who screwed a buddy to get ahead in this program. Everybody always helps everybody else. You have to cooperate to get winged. That’s hard enough, and there is a huge attrition rate, even in Pre-flight, so you really can’t make it without your buddies. The workload is so intense that you have to split up the work. I haven’t met any lone rangers. You just can’t do it. I’ve worked in groups from the beginning. The instructors encourage it. I think it’s a necessity. You have to, to get it all done. And you rely on your buddies to cheer you up, to keep you stable and centered. It can be pretty stressful.

  “There are no particular problems in being female in the program. There are still not that many of us, so, naturally most of my friends are guys. There hasn’t been anything that has really got in my way. I think that if anybody does have prejudices and stereotypes, they brought them with them from the civilian world into the Navy, the way they were raised or the area of the country they come from. I don’t think the Navy breeds that at all. Most people just want to know, can you do your job? Are you safe to fly with? The percentage of women in the program is small, especially when you get to this stage. Right now I think there are six or seven female studen
ts in the squadron, out of over a hundred students. There are few of us, markedly fewer of us, but at the same time we are not such an oddity anymore. There are not many female instructors. I’ve flown with one since I started, and that’s from Primary on. I work in a pretty much all-male environment but I’m used to it. The Academy trained me for that. It would have been a bigger adjustment had I come from a civilian school where the ratio was 50/50, so I was kind of lucky in that respect. The military is kind of inherently masculine. That’s not necessary anymore. I think the situation has changed. You can just be yourself. Everything feminine isn’t bad anymore, and it doesn’t necessarily mean you are weak to be feminine. Again, people are interested in the bottom line. Can you fly? Can you navigate to the target? Can you get to the target on time? Are you safe? Do you know your emergency procedures? Can you make good judgement calls? Do you do thorough pre-flight planning? All that stuff is pretty much gender neutral.

  Members of an F-14 Tomcat squadron at NAS Miramar are briefed on the rules and requirements of their next hop in 2000.

  “To get through this program you really have to love it. That’s what I tell people who are just starting. If you don’t love it, don’t bother, ’cause it only gets harder and more demanding. Your attitude has to be: ‘I get to do this.’ Not, ‘I have to do this.’ I’m really lucky to be doing this. I saw a lot of my buddies get attrited for medical problems or because they didn’t have the grades for aviation. I’ve been really fortunate to be in this program and I’m not gonna make myself miserable just because it’s hard. You have to earn something to appreciate it. I knew a long time ago that I wanted to be in the Navy for a long-term career. If you love your job, it’s the biggest blessing in life. I would do this if they paid me in sand. I’d like to command a carrier one of these days. Right now, I’m just trying to get winged and fly as much as I possibly can.

  “The Naval Academy is a great place. It had a big part in making me who I am today. I’ll always be grateful and proud that I went there.”

  Recent Pensacola graduate Scott Whelpley is also headed for the Prowler community. Scott made it to the NFO program by an unusual route: “For nearly six years I was an enlisted Aviation Electronics Technician in the Navy. I applied for Officer Candidate School for Aviation and was turned down. I applied again and was accepted, but for the supply corps. I was told that I was too old for naval aviation. After the tenth week at OCS I asked if I could switch to aviation. ‘You’re too old and there is nothing we can do about it.’ I was thirty-one at the time. So I was commissioned a supply corps officer. Then I met a lieutenant commander who thought that what I had been told might not be true. He himself had been thirty-one when he went through the NFO program. He made some calls for me, and, after about four months and more rejections due to my age, I was finally accepted.

  Stanley “Swede” Vejtasa was one of the greatest aces of the Second World War. He went on to command the aircraft carrier USS Constellation.

  “I got a month’s advance pay, threw all my stuff in a U-Haul and was on the road to Pensacola. I’m older than most. A lot of these guys out of the Academy are twenty-three. I really admire them. They are so smart and grasp the stuff so quickly. I’m a little more stressed and concerned because I feel like this is my last hurrah, so I really need to get through the program. I’m having a good time but I’ve put a lot of pressure on myself because this will be the greatest thing that I’ve ever accomplished. I study all the time. I have to. I know the physiology guys would throw a fit if they knew, but there are times when I’m up ’til one and then get up at five, because I have to. It’s the only way I’ll get through it. It’s been ten years since I was in college.

  Instructors at NAS Pensacola between training sessions in 2000.

  Another NFO student who would land in the Prowler community is Scott Whelpley who refused to give up when told he was too old for the program, and was eventually accepted for it.

  “Everybody here wants to be the number one flight officer in the program. I know I’m somewhere in the middle of the pack but that never stops any of us from competing and trying to be better and better. We are tested and graded every single day. We have to know all the systems of the aircraft, all the procedures, all the checklists, all the emergency procedures … every single day something is added on top of what we just learned. But I’m so happy to be here. I’m very lucky. Back home, everybody is like, ‘Wow, Scott, you’re gonna be flyin’ a jet.’ If only they knew. It’s just me, me, the same guy you used to run around with and get in trouble with. If I can do this, anybody can do this. Obviously, you have to want it badly enough. It’s a Big Boy program here. You are responsible for knowing your stuff. Go ahead. Go home and do whatever you want to do, but you’d better know your stuff when you come back. It’s taught me discipline. Being ‘enlisted’ really humbled me and I think I needed that. It was what I needed prior to doing this. I think it has made me a better officer.

  “Yesterday was my fourth hop. Today will be my fifth and after that I have seven left. I’m not a pessimist or an optimist; I’m a realist. Anything can happen, so I’m just hoping. Hold on to your hat and don’t let go. Eight more events and that’s it, I get my wings. As soon as you are done with your last flight they come out and wet you down with champagne. They rip off your name tag and put on your ‘soft wings,’ and you get a punch in the chest, which is politically incorrect. After that we have a giant ceremony at the Naval Aviation Museum with the families invited. After we get winged, we are selected. I’m probably going to get S-3s or Prowlers. My first choice is Prowlers. I’ve been in the Navy for six years and I’ll owe them six after this. I really enjoy the Navy. It’s funny, I miss going out to sea. That might seem crazy but I really do. It’s one of the few things in this world that is still an adventure. You never know what’s gonna happen. I was on a small aircraft carrier, the USS New Orleans, in 1997 when we took a 45° roll during Typhoon Justin off the coast of New Guinea. That was pretty scary. We almost lost it. I’ve never been so frightened in my life. Everybody was surprised that the island didn’t break off. The ship had some really heavy damage. That is real adventure, it’s dangerous, but there is nothing in the world that I would rather be doing. No matter all the grey hair, I plan to stay in as long as they will keep me. I’ll get to the highest rank I possibly can. It’s all about being proficient. I’ll do whatever it takes. I’m willing to learn, and wherever the Navy takes me, I’m ready to go.

  NAS Pensacola flight instructors on the flight line.

  “Grades. Sometimes you get bad grades. Sometimes you have a bad flight. It’s humbling and sometimes you feel you’re not worthy. I had a great hop on Friday, Above Average, and I felt like I was the best flight officer. Yesterday I had an average hop and got an Average grade. Driving home, I was kicking myself—what did I do wrong? I suck. I’m horrible. It can go from one extreme to the other. You just push it all away and go back the next day.

  The days and weeks have flown. I’m almost afraid to look up and see how much more of the hill I have to conquer. I like looking back down behind me and thinking, ‘Hey, I’ve come this far. I’ll just keep my head down and take one day at a time, and just keep chuggin’ away.’ ”

  Another who came late to flying is Nick Wallace, who flew Sea Harriers with 801 Squadron, RN. Nick was a ship driver until July 1994, when he entered flying training. “I hit the front line in Sea Harriers in July 1999. Our orientation for going to the Gulf in January 2000 has really been going on all through our flying training. The Sea Harrier training squadron is given a weekly brief by an intelligence officer who often covers the Gulf or Bosnia. Before deploying to the Gulf, we go through a series of formal briefings and the rest of the squadron gets involved in station-level briefings by intelligence officers. The week before we sail we’ll get a threat update and an analysis update. Once we are on board, the briefs will continue. We’ll be well prepared for the threat we are possibly facing out there.

  Royal Navy Sea
King helicopter pilot Claire Donegan aboard HMS Illustrious in 2000;

  Naval aviators in their ready room aboard Illustrious.

  “It seems strange to say, but I hope I never have to go and do my job for real, because if you do go and do the job that we train for for real, it means that we are at war and diplomacy has failed. We will be patrolling the no-fly zones set up over Iraq and it’s quite possible that we’ll have contact with Iraqi aircraft. We’ll be flying in conjunction with American aircraft which provide the bulk of the numbers on the combat air patrols there, with help from the Sea Harriers and from various other countries as well. We’ll be working very closely with the Americans.

  “The Sea Harrier is unique. It’s not the fastest or the most modern airplane. It’s got a great radar, a great weapon, which makes it very formidable as an air defense fighter. And it’s got these nozzles which make it unique. Learning to fly it was … very different. You get used to learning how to fly aircraft faster and faster and lower and lower, and then you get to the Sea Harrier and they teach you how to stop in flight. From about 100 knots downward, its wing is not very efficient and produces very little lift, so once through 100 knots in a decelerating phase, you have to progressively put more and more power on to keep the aircraft in the air. Coordination. It certainly concentrates the mind, recovering to the ship. Going into a big airfield is fine. Half the time we land conventionally, going forward at speed. But on the boat it’s vertical landings every time; recovering to a moving airfield that is going up and down as well as forward, is a real challenge.