Hunter Killer

by T. Mark McCurley

  By 2003, the Air Force was acquiring two new aircraft a month. It now had to find pilots to fly the expanding fleet of Predators. There were nine other pilots in my class. We stayed in the back of the group as Chuck talked, somewhat aloof. It was an unconscious defense against something we didn’t understand: RPA flight. Everything about the Predator was foreign. We were still trying to determine if the aircraft passed the smell test.

  Never before had a Predator formal training unit class had so many pilot volunteers. The guys with me saw the little Predator differently. To them, it wasn’t a dead-end assignment; it was an opportunity.

  Another pilot, Mike, stood next to me. I recognized Mike from our school days at the Air Force Academy, but I had never really known him personally. Our careers hadn’t crossed paths since graduation. He’d flown KC-135 aerial refueling tankers and F-16 fighters, while I flew trainers and the AWACS.

  Mike was a couple of inches taller than me. He had a runner’s build, and unlike my graying hair, his remained as black as when he’d entered the service. His eyes burned with an intensity I’ve seen in few officers. We caught up briefly before Chuck started.

  “You volunteer?” Mike asked.

  Volunteering was an important thing to us. One of the guys in the class had been assigned to Creech after being sent home early from a deployment. He’d knocked up an airman. The four of us who volunteered wanted it known that we chose this life. It was not foisted upon us.

  “Yeah, I wanted to avoid a third straight noncombat assignment,” I said. “You?”

  Mike shook his head.

  “I saw the writing on the wall,” he said. “Late rated and late to fighters meant it was unlikely I could see a command.” His career in aviation had been delayed, much like mine had been.

  “Tough,” I said.

  “It is what it is,” he said.

  I nodded understanding.

  From the back of the class, I looked at the young faces of the nineteen sensor operators who would train with us. These fresh-faced eighteen-year-olds would make up the second half of the crew. The pilot controlled the aircraft and fired the weapons. The sensor operator ran the targeting systems, cameras, and laser designators. Together, we had to form a tight, efficient crew.

  As we walked back to the classroom, I took stock of the class. Raw recruits, washouts from other career fields, problem children, and passed-over fighter pilots yearning to prove they deserved a shot were building the Predator community. We all had chips on our shoulders. We all wanted to prove we belonged in the skies over the battlefield. It was the pilots who never forgot who would excel.

  CHAPTER 2

  Learning to Fly

  All the pilots knew how to fly, but we learned quickly that that didn’t matter in the Predator. It was a couple of weeks into the program and I was just settling into the “box,” or cockpit, for my first flight.

  The box was a modified Sea-Land container technically called a ground control station (GCS). The tan container had a vault-like door at one end that opened into a narrow walkway that led to the “cockpit” at the other end. The floor and walls were covered in rough gray carpet and the lights were dim to eliminate glare on the monitors.

  Along one side of the walkway was a series of computer racks and two support stations. At the end of the container were two tan chairs in front of the main control station. A small table jutted out between the pilot station on the left and the sensor operator station on the right. A standard computer keyboard sat on the table in front of each station, bracketed by a throttle and control stick. Below the table was a set of rudder pedals. Both the pilot and sensor operator stations had a throttle on the left and a stick on the right, but only the pilot’s controls flew the aircraft. The sensor operator’s “throttle” and “stick” controlled the targeting pod.

  I shivered as I looked over my shoulder at Glenn, my instructor.

  “It’s cold in here,” I said. “Is it always like this?”

  “Mostly,” he said. “You’ll get used to it.”

  The HVAC system pumped freezing air into the numerous electronics racks to keep them from overheating. Temperatures could soar to more than one hundred degrees within five minutes if both HVACs failed. The performance of the Predators degraded under anything but optimal temperatures, so the ambient temperature for the crews ended up in the low fifties. The environment was ideal for the massive computers behind me, not the pilots controlling the Predators flying miles away. Crews often wore flight jackets even during the hot Las Vegas summers.

  “Run your checks,” he ordered calmly.

  I rubbed my hands together for warmth and reached for the controls. I checked the instruments to ensure the aircraft was performing well. We controlled the aircraft through two data links that sent commands to the planes and received video feeds and telemetry in return.

  Launch and landing, or recovery in Air Force–speak, used a line-of-sight transmitter mounted on a fifty-foot tower outside the GCS. It broadcast commands to the two football-shaped antennas near the front of the Predator. The line-of-sight link worked only if the aircraft could see the transmitter. Since few bases existed close to the fighting, mostly we flew using the beyond-line-of-sight system. That system used satellites in geosynchronous orbit that beamed the command signal to the Predators, connecting to a crew anywhere in the world.

  When I first received word of my assignment, I envisioned stepping into a small office to sit at a computer and monitor the progress of the aircraft. I had no idea how similar things would be to a standard cockpit. I finished scanning the data readouts that replaced the more traditional dials and switches of a traditional cockpit.

  “You ready?” Glenn said over the roar of two massive HVAC systems.

  I nodded.

  “Okay,” Glenn said. “Let’s practice some maneuvers.”

  Glenn sat on a rolling desk chair behind us as I flew the training mission. He’d flown in Vietnam, earning his credibility, in my opinion. He was like most pilots of the Vietnam era: bold, bright, cocky. He held us to the highest standards. He didn’t allow us to cut corners. Glenn didn’t care that the RPA community was still new and didn’t have the same traditions as the fighter community. He expected us to live up to the same standards he’d achieved.

  I grabbed the stick and throttle assembly and set my feet on the rudder pedals under the desk.

  “Just like pilot training,” Glenn said. “Check your airspace and let’s make a turn back to the center.”

  He meant turn to the center of the small block of air to the southeast of Creech Air Force Base where we were assigned to train. The endless brown of the Nevada desert slipped sideways underneath the Predator. From the pilot seat, I could see the tracker display at the top of the rack with its Google Maps–like view of the world. We could mark targets, define restricted areas, and even watch a small pink airplane icon trace our flight path.

  Under the tracker sat the heads-up display, or HUD. The pilot side had an artificial horizon, airspeed, altitude, flight path indicators, and engine instruments. The sensor operator HUD didn’t have any of the flight instruments. Instead, it displayed a set of cross hairs to mark center of the picture and readouts to describe the targeting pod’s position and target data. The camera, or “ball,” on the nose of the aircraft provided both the pilot and the sensor operator with the only view of the aircraft’s surroundings.

  I pushed the stick to the side. On the tracker, a little pink carrot showed up on a compass dial and spun in the same direction as I pushed the stick. I stopped it on a heading to the southeast by releasing the stick. Then I pressed the “Trim” button at the top of the stick to command the aircraft to fly to that heading.

  “Okay,” Glenn said. “You’ll notice that this takes a couple seconds.”

  There was a slight delay between the commands given through the flight controls and the aircraft’s r
eaction. The distance between the aircraft and the GCS determined this delay. In line-of-sight mode, the response was near instantaneous. On satellite control, it could take up to three seconds. It doesn’t seem like much, but when you’re trying to fly a precise path or line up a target, waiting three seconds for your command to reach the aircraft can be maddening.

  I counted silently.

  One potato, two potato . . .

  Flying the Predator was harder than flying a traditional aircraft. I wanted to feel the aircraft in flight, but there was no sound to indicate the speed or engine performance. No feeling of the wings that could indicate an impending stall or malfunction. All I had was spring-loaded feedback in the stick and rudder and a throttle that moved a little too loosely. I had none of the traditional senses beyond sight, and the ball was rarely pointed in the right direction to be useful. For most missions aircraft were trained on the ground, so flying was done using instruments. I had to abandon three thousand hours of experience in handling aircraft with traditional controls and relearn how to fly the Predator.

  “Okay, what’s next?” I said.

  Glenn checked his flight data card.

  “Last thing we got before heading back to the pattern is Ku.”

  Ku, pronounced kay-you, was the satellite frequency band that was used to control the aircraft. “Ku” rolled off the tongue a little easier than “satellite.” It was essential to make sure we got the link correct and knew how to reestablish control if the link was lost.

  “Bring up the Ku menu,” Glenn said.

  At the top of the tracker display was a menu bar. I ran the mouse to the right tab, clicked it, and opened a dialog box. It asked me for the frequencies, polarization, and a few other bits of information to set up the link.

  “Find the frequencies,” Glenn said.

  I scanned the data card and typed in the right numbers and clicked “Send.”

  The screen devolved to static. Confused, I looked back at Glenn.

  He shook his head.

  “Nice job. You just jammed CNN.”

  “Wait, what?” I looked up at the dialog box and down at the data card. The frequencies were right.

  “Check your polarization,” Glenn said. “The dialog defaults to horizontal. Our assigned frequency is in the vertical.”

  I felt stupid as I corrected my error. Immediately, the picture came back. The aircraft had entered a tight circle in the center of the area. The tracker display confirmed that the aircraft had executed its emergency mission. The Predator is programmed to fly home if the command link is broken.

  “Well,” Glenn said in his best deadpan, “I guess we don’t need to bother with the lost-link demo now.” There was a syllabus requirement to show how the aircraft flew home if it lost the communications connection with the cockpit.

  After my first flight, I met the guys from my carpool and headed home. Most mornings, we met at a parking lot on the outskirts of Las Vegas and carpooled the forty-five miles from the city to Creech. The rides to and from the base were a good time to catch up on gossip and grouse about the training.

  I arrived at the parking lot a few weeks into the training and started complaining about the program before we even got into the car. I had just completed a tour as an instructor, so I was overly critical of the program. I also harbored some pilot arrogance since we all still considered the Predator an abnormality. I forget what I said exactly, but one of my classmates, Oaf, called me out.

  “Okay, time-out,” Oaf said. “I’ve had enough. You’re now Grumpy.”

  “No, I’m not,” I said.

  The moment I fought back, Oaf called me “Grumpy” at every opportunity. There was no way I was going to let them give me “Grumpy” as a call sign. Squirrel was my tactical call sign. I’d gotten it on the first day of pilot training. Coming from my intelligence background, I couldn’t tell the class anything about my old job. So I tried to play it up by saying my job was classified. The whole deal was immature and poorly executed. The class leader decided then and there I should be known as “Secret Squirrel.” Once we started flying, the class started calling me “Flying Squirrel.” Later, it was truncated to just “Squirrel.” Now, that call sign remains my identity. After all, how many guys end up with the name Squirrel?

  But I’d complained enough about Creech that my new classmates wanted to rename me.

  Etiquette surrounding call signs is one of those unwritten rules of combat aviation. Many military units give call signs that are tied to an embarrassing story. There were a lot of guys in the community with call signs like “Crash,” “Skid,” “Divot,” and anything else that suggested they’d damaged an aircraft, or themselves. No one gets a call sign like “Maverick” or “Iceman” unless it is done in jest. Most pilots get a few call signs over a career as they transition to other aircraft or squadrons. There’s a way out if you don’t like your new call sign, though. It’s tradition that you can buy back your old name with liquor, and no one can take a call sign from you if you used it in combat.

  Lucky for me, I’d been “Squirrel” in combat, so I was safe. But Oaf was really making a bigger point with the new call sign: Stop being a dick. We were all battling our years of flying experience to learn how to pilot the Predator. A lot of the pilots were there under protest. Much of the talk on the trip to and from Creech was about plans to return to our previous aircraft. Even volunteers like me had no plans to make a career in the Predator community.

  —

  After the first few weeks, I was near the top of the class. Mike and I were competing for the coveted “distinguished graduate” honor. Several of the pilots in class busted a ride, which was Air Force lingo for failing a training flight. Only Mike and I hadn’t and maybe a couple of others. We both knew one mistake was all it would take to wind up second. I didn’t plan on failing.

  The sixth training flight is the most dreaded sortie in the qualification phase. By that time, pilots are far enough into their training that they often feel comfortable enough with the aircraft to fly it on their own. However, our skills were still underdeveloped. Ride six was historically the most failed sortie of the program.

  The GCS was its usual arctic cold, but by now I was used to it. I had one hand on the stick and the other on the throttle as I dropped into the pattern around the airfield to land. Landing the aircraft was the single most challenging aspect of learning to fly. Every pilot got humbled at some point on an approach.

  “Tower,” I said. “Deadly One One, point Whiskey at sixty-five hundred feet.”

  The control tower came back immediately.

  “Deadly One One, enter downwind for runway two seven, altimeter two nine nine seven.”

  I typed in the barometric pressure. The altimeter jumped a few hundred feet, showing we were closer to the ground than I’d thought. Sweat beaded on my brow. The drops ran down my back between my shoulder blades despite the chilling temperature inside the GCS. I could feel Glenn’s eyes on my instruments as he watched my every move.

  A misstep now could easily result in a crash.

  The HUD showed a wildly bucking aircraft. Winds flowed down from the surrounding Spring Mountains range, creating unpredictable eddies and currents at low altitude. The turbulence tossed the two-thousand-pound Predator around. The aircraft’s long wings were perfect for high-altitude flying, not landing. Even the slightest terrain change at low altitudes could result in wild lift changes. If you weren’t careful, the airplane could soar or crash without a moment’s notice.

  I flicked off the autopilot. My stick and throttle now acted like those in any manned aircraft. Push stick forward, cows get big. Pull stick back, cows get small. Push stick to the side, world tilts. Almost immediately, the aircraft bucked. I tried to maintain altitude, but the air currents tossed the Predator like a rag doll.

  “Don’t fight the drafts,” Glenn advised. “You’ll just end up ma
king it worse.”

  “Like a PIO?”—a pilot-induced oscillation.

  “Yes,” he said.

  In heavy turbulence, pilots often set the throttle and a known pitch angle where they can maintain altitude. The airplane bucked up and down but generally stayed somewhere close to the desired altitude.

  “Good,” he said. “Start off with a standard overhead.”

  “Copy,” I said. “Before landing check.”

  The sensor operator, an experienced instructor, came to life. During this first phase, we had little interaction with the sensor operators except when landing. He read off the checklist items.

  “Gear down,” he intoned.

  I checked the gear. It was already down, having served as my main form of drag to help the aircraft descend. Three little icons glowed green in the HUD, indicating the gear was safely down.

  “Down and three green,” I said.

  We didn’t trust that indicator, though.

  “Clear to move the ball?” the sensor operator said.

  On the early flights, the sensor operators rarely touched the ball while the pilots learned to fly. One of the few times they did move it was to check the gear. We always considered a visual check more reliable than the green indicators. The ball swung about, pointed straight down at the nose wheel.

  “Nose wheel steering, sir.”

  I kicked the rudder pedals, and the wheel in the image moved left, then right.

  “Brief,” the sensor operator said.

  As pilot, it was my job to talk the crew through the landing plan.