The general procedure on the bombing range was exactly as it had been in the F-4 except that I was now up front. Solo.
An adjustable bomb sight, or “pipper,” was mounted against the windshield in front of the pilot. It was set according to the proposed speed, angle of dive, and altitude at release of ordnance. In theory the bomb, rocket, or bullets would be released or shot when the aircraft was at an exact spot in the air, at an exact speed and angle, and would thus hit the target in the crosshairs. In practice we often released high, low, fast, slow, or at too shallow or steep an angle. Back then, no instrument indicated angle of dive, and no laser beam directed the bomb. Additionally the wind might be blowing more forcefully than forecast by the tower. So after release, upon hearing a bad score, I’d have to figure out the problem. For example, if the angle, speed, and altitude of release were accurate, and the pipper was on the bull’s-eye at release, but my bomb was off to the right, then I’d likely decide that the wind was stronger from the left than had been forecast; and so on the next drop I’d aim at a spot on the ground to offset the direction and velocity of the wind. Wind had more effect on bombs than on rockets and more effect on rockets than on bullets.
We soon discovered that simultaneously doing all of the following on the gunnery range in the T-33 was not simple: staying in the pattern, not lagging behind or crowding the previous aircraft, resetting the bomb sight as necessary, monitoring the fuel so that when fuel was low in one feeder tank, the next tank was selected, adjusting dive angles, adjusting airspeed, making the correct radio calls at the correct time—all while watching out for other aircraft.
The need for a forward air controller in combat became clear. He’d verbally clear a fighter-bomber to drop bombs on each pass, one after the other, and serve as the fighter-bomber pilot’s eyes and ears.
One day I completed my T-33 preflight, cranked up, closed my canopy, switched on my radio, and waited for the lead aircraft to initiate a radio check-in.
“Silver Flight, radio check,” called lead.
“Silver Two.”
“Silver Three.”
“Silver Four,” I called.
I was about to experience the pure aloneness and exhilarating tension that was possible in a four-ship-formation flight. I knew the airplane well by then, and I was able to fly nearly flawless formation. After we were cleared onto the range, I’d fly the range patterns, getting my aircraft situated above the target, which would be at nine o’clock low—it’s like looking from a very high building down at something on the ground (not straight down but at a thirty- to forty-five-degree angle). Then I’d pull the throttle to idle, roll into a ninety-degree-plus banked left turn, pull the nose around as it fell below the horizon line until I felt almost aligned with a straight path across the ground up to the target, and then abruptly roll out of my turn. I’d be in a wings-level dive toward the target. From the cockpit I’d see the target out in front of me, and the nose of the aircraft would be tracking across the ground straight toward it. At this point in the process I might see that the target was a few degrees left or right of a straight line from my aircraft nose to the target, and I’d make a quick correction while checking my altimeter.
Pipper tracking toward target.
Altitude, three hundred feet from drop.
Just right.
Pickle (meaning “press the bomb button on the stick grip”).
I’d then pull about four g’s out of the bottom of my dive to a nose-high climb attitude, push the throttles to 100 percent, dip a wing, and look back over my shoulder at the target below. Was it a shack? Yes! The tower operator announced, “Silver Four, shack.” I’d write down my score on a card that was clamped onto a stiff board attached to my right knee with Velcro.
After we’d expended bombs, rockets, and bullets, we’d all come home and I’d fly the traffic pattern and land. We’d meet in the van, talk about it all, laugh, go to the officer’s club, and talk some more.
But just after engine start, on this particular day, my engine temperature was out of bounds. I quickly shut down the engine and, before turning off the battery, called lead: “Silver Lead, Silver Four.”
“Go ahead, Silver Four.”
“Engine problems. Aborting.”
“Roger, Four. If you can get a spare, we’ll see you at the range.”
I had to move fast. I wanted to catch them on the way to the range.
A spare was available. I found the aircraft, did a quick but thorough preflight check, started the engine, checked instruments, lowered the canopy, and taxied out. I pictured the others at least a third of the way to the range, flying in a three-ship formation. I hated to miss a minute of formation flying.
After being cleared onto the runway for takeoff, I took off and turned to the heading that would take me to the range. I opened the throttle—pushed it to the wall. If I caught them before they got to the range, Captain Porter would be impressed, as would the others.
The F-4 that I’d been flying for two years had two powerful jet engines, and the throttles were side by side. The throttle handles came up out of the left console and moved forward or backward together, fitting into my gloved left hand as would two short, stubby gearshifts. In the F-4 (as well as in the T-37 and T-38) there was always that feel of two throttles, the knowledge that if an engine failed, you’d simply pull that throttle all the way back, click it over a little hump, thus shutting down the fuel and ignition supply, and then continue flying with the other engine. You wouldn’t get the normal power response, but you’d have enough power to fly home and land safely.
But in the T-33, just that one throttle rested under my left hand, and that felt odd. Additionally the T-33 had only a fraction of the power of the F-4, and on that day she seemed unusually slow on takeoff and I was in a hurry. I kept the aircraft at a low altitude, flying over New Mexico flatlands. Flying low, I could enjoy the speed. In spite of the relative lack of power, the old T-33 scooted right along once she got moving.
I caught up as the three-ship formation lazily entered a racetrack pattern to wait for entry onto the range.
Once on the range, we all flew our patterns, made our calls, dropped our practice bombs, shot our rockets and guns. During join-up, after the last pass, Captain Porter called over the radio, “Silver Flight. Fuel check.”
This meant each pilot had to call on the radio the amount of fuel left in his tank. Why, hell, I hadn’t even thought about fuel. I’d switched my tanks at appropriate times. But we always had enough, didn’t we? We’d usually try to land with over two hundred pounds of fuel, enough to easily get us to any of the nearest civilian fields in case the runway at Cannon was closed because of an emergency, and it took about two hundred pounds to fly back to the base from the bomb range. Therefore, after the range flying, we each needed in the vicinity of five hundred pounds for a comfortable flight home—four hundred minimum.
I looked at my fuel gauge. Silver 2 and 3 called in comfortable numbers. I was embarrassed, startled, and suddenly uneasy. “Silver Four. One niner zero pounds.” I could feel my neck and ears getting red.
Captain Porter radioed, “Say again, number four.”
“One niner zero pounds.”
Captain Porter immediately gave me a heading to fly and told me an altitude and power setting, a power setting that he knew would be the most fuel efficient. He called ahead to the airfield and declared an emergency. Fire trucks would be waiting, just in case. But if I crashed, I probably wouldn’t burn—from loose fuel, anyway.
Porter asked me again for a fuel reading, as he would several more times. He had decided I would land before the others, and not from a conventional overhead pattern. I’d fly straight in, and to assure that I was at proper altitudes and airspeeds all the way in, until just before touchdown I’d fly on Captain Porter’s wing. He’d make all the radio calls while flying the appropriate throttle setting and route.
At about a half mile from the runway, he told me to extend my gear and land straight ah
ead. He and I both knew I had to make the landing good. I couldn’t afford a go-around. He broke away and would come around to land after the other two aircraft had safely landed behind me. It all went smoothly, and I touched down with enough fuel to taxi in and close my throttle. I completed my after-flight checklist, got out of the airplane, and waited for the van. I was the first pickup. I climbed in, and the van drove toward the other pilots, standing in a group. I was sitting inside the van on the bench that ran around its interior, my helmet in my lap, when Captain Porter stuck his head in the door.
“Edgerton. You plumber. You dumb-ass plumber. Take him on in,” he said to the van driver. “We’ll wait for the next van.”
I rode in alone.
Captain Porter was unforgiving in the debriefing. How could a good pilot not check his fuel every thirty minutes? It was another of those cheap lessons. Seat belt, mile and minute ticks, takeoff trim, and now fuel check—lessons I’d now take on to Hurlburt Field, in Fort Walton Beach, Florida.
The OV-10
THE OV-10 WAS AN odd-looking bird. It sat nose low, tail high. Twin booms ran from the twin turboprop engines to the tail, where a high horizontal stabilizer (or tail wing) rested between two vertical stabilizers. This meant that it looked a bit like the old P-38, a famous World War II fighter. In fact the OV-10 was almost exactly half the weight (ten thousand pounds compared to about twenty thousand pounds), with half the horsepower of the P-38 (about fifteen hundred versus about three thousand). Because it was relatively fresh off the assembly line (1967), both the inside and the outside of the OV-10 looked and smelled new—not at all like the old, worn T-33s. The instrument panel was relatively simple. It was a two-seater, with tandem seats like a fighter, and had fighterlike flight controls—stick in the middle, throttles on the left.
In the F-4 and other jets I’d flown, the clear Plexiglas canopy over my head stopped at about my shoulders, so I could see above me, left and right, but not below me unless I banked my aircraft. With the OV-10, the Plexiglas canopy was like a jet canopy, clear overhead, but the base of it came around and down nearly to my butt on each side. Flying along, I could lean to the left or right and look almost straight down. It was designed for, among other tasks, reconnaissance.
Our job at Hurlburt Field was to get used to flying the OV-10 and to learn how to be a forward air controller.
SOMEHOW PROPELLER ENGINES seem friendlier than jet engines. They sound friendlier. And you see how the engine is working—you see the propeller, whereas with a jet engine you can only hear the noise.
The OV-10 was fully aerobatic, and flying aerobatics was part of our familiarization week. In the classroom we learned the aircraft’s performance limits. In the air we learned the feel of those limits.
A main surprise was the OV-10’s rapid acceleration. Its top speed was around three hundred miles an hour, and it could land quite slowly and stop very quickly. It was designed for short, rapidly built dirt landing strips.
The props on the OV-10 were reversible. When the throttles (called power levers in the OV-10) were pulled all the way back to idle, lifted, and pulled back even farther, over a little bump, the propellers would turn in their sockets so that they provided reverse thrust. This force, along with the brakes, brought the airplane to a quick stop after landing, and it was always fun to see just how quick. We’d have contests for the shortest landing distance.
After checking out in the OV-10, two of us, in different aircraft, with an instructor in one backseat, flew to a practice area and directed each other in simulated air strikes. We each carried practice bombs to drop when we were the pretend fighter-bomber.
If I was the FAC and the other guy was simulating being the fighter-bomber, I’d make sure I saw him and he saw me, and then I’d let him know that I was going to “mark the target.” Say the other aircraft was Falcon 4 and I was Trapper 66.
“Falcon Four, this is Trapper Six Six. I have a tallyho [I see you]. I’m at your three o’clock position low. I’m above the big S in the road and I’m rocking my wings.”
“Roger, Trapper Six Six, I have a tally. Falcon Four.” (On an initial radio call it’s customary for the calling party to end with his call sign—in this case, Falcon 4.)
“Roger, Falcon.” (The number is often dropped after contact is established.) “Do you see the S in the road beneath me?”
“Roger that.”
“Your target is that road. I’m in for a smoke.” That meant I would shoot a smoke rocket to mark the target.
Generally, before shooting the rocket, the FAC set up his flight path so that the target was positioned off the left or right wing. Next came a ninety-degree turn and a dive toward the target from a predetermined altitude at a predetermined angle and airspeed. Controlling these variables increased the chances of an accurate smoke. But such planning was not always possible. I’d have a pipper setting (gun-sight setting), which would allow me to shoot an accurate rocket from a certain altitude and speed. I would roll in for the dive toward the road segment to be cut, my throttles in idle, and at the right instant I’d press a rocket-firing button on the hand grip of my flight stick. Then I’d pull up as quickly as possible because I would want to avoid ground fire. I’d move the throttles forward to 100 percent power, and as I climbed I would turn the aircraft one way and then the other, unpredictably (jinking, it was called) to prevent easy enemy gunnery tracking.
I would look back down over my shoulder (my nose would be pointed skyward) and see the smoke rising up from the ground near the area of the road that was supposed to be cut, and I’d make my next radio call: “Falcon. Do you have my smoke?”
“Affirmative.”
“The target is the road, thirty meters north of my smoke.” I would have missed the exact spot, which I knew from the coordinates I was assigned and from the description of the target, by thirty meters to the south. The procedure was complicated by the fact that I’d have to ensure that the fighter-bombers were flying over a safe area, and if I was directing them onto enemy troops, I’d have to be able to ensure that they did not attack friendly troops. “Falcon Four is cleared in.” I’d clear each fighter-bomber for each pass if there were more than one. No bombs were to be dropped without the FAC’s clearance. While the bomber dropped bombs, I’d have to remain clear of the bomber. I’d set up a figure-eight pattern near the target, sometimes directly over it, so that I could almost constantly monitor what was going on.
OUR TRAINING WOULD prepare us for air war over either Laos or Vietnam. To fly over Laos, we’d be stationed in Thailand. In Laos, large antiaircraft guns were stationed along the Ho Chi Minh Trail to protect supplies being shipped (by truck, bicycle, and foot) from North Vietnam along the trail into South Vietnam. While we directed air strikes there, we would be required to stay at least forty-five hundred feet—almost a mile—above the ground to reduce the chances of being hit by fire from those guns.
In Vietnam, on the other hand, there were few large antiaircraft guns, but there was plenty of small-arms fire and plenty of north Vietnamese and Vietcong troops engaging Americans and South Vietnamese. FACs there often flew at treetop level, directing fighter-bomber fire onto enemy troops.
We were learning all of this in classes and by word of mouth at Hurlburt Field in Florida while we decided whether to request Vietnam or Thailand. In Vietnam we might be living in tents some of the time. From over Laos we’d be able to return to our Thailand base and our BOQ after each flight, and visit the officer’s club for food and drink, but the mission there, because of the big guns along the trail, was considered more dangerous.
I was undecided and saw no need to hurry my decision.
BECAUSE JET FIGHTERS were stationed at nearby Eglin Air Force Base, we had to be on the lookout for them when we were flying to and from our practice missions. They almost always flew in pairs, a lead and a wingman, and the wingman often flew about thirty yards behind and perhaps fifty yards out from the side of the lead. We never worked with these fighters in simulated a
ir strikes—we always worked with each other—but because they were around much of the time, we had to be careful to avoid collisions.
One day I was heading out from base alone at about forty-five hundred feet when all of a sudden, at exactly my altitude, from left to right, came a fighter, about fifty yards in front of me. As it zipped across, I thought, Where’s the other one? With that, my whole windshield was filled with the other fighter, and my airplane jerked violently up and back down from the jet wash (the turbulent air following a jet). He barely—just barely—missed me. On landing, he reported that he thought he’d struck another aircraft that he hadn’t seen until the last second.
Shaken, I flew the rest of my mission and returned home to tell my story. No one had broken any flight regulations. We’d each had a lesson reinforced: Keep your head out of the cockpit.
I remember another flight at Hurlburt Field just as clearly. Sometimes we’d fly with one instructor for only a flight or two and then switch. One day I was assigned Captain Moore. Captain Moore was old enough to be a colonel. There were rumors that he’d been demoted for some unspecified bad incident or incidents. He seemed like a ne’er-do-well—loose, undisciplined, too talkative. During the preflight briefing he explained that he was going to show me how to find specific geographic spots on the ground very quickly. “Edgerton,” he finally said, “I’m going to teach you navigation—dead reckoning—like you’ve never been taught before. All you need is a compass, a watch, and a map. The compass is in the aircraft, the watch is on your wrist, and here’s the map. Let’s go fly.”
We arrived in the practice area. Captain Moore talked me through (1) determining wind direction, (2) confirming wind direction by flying from one known point to another, (3) calculating speed, distance, and time, (4) properly flying over a starting point, and (5) finding the destination point with a watch. He demonstrated the use of section lines on a map to help me simplify dead reckoning. After a short demonstration of a part of the lesson, he’d give me control of the aircraft and ask me to accomplish the procedure he’d just demonstrated. Then he’d explain more, give me control, and ask me to perform again, and so on.
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