Hunter Killer

by T. Mark McCurley

  “Okay, crew, this will be a normal landing using the ball; call out any limits [from the instruments]; if we have an emergency, I will land straight ahead, anyone on the crew can call ‘go around’ if you see something dumb, different, or dangerous develop. Our approach speed will be seventy-four knots with a climb/glide of sixty-eight,” I said. “Questions?” The briefing was short and meant to prepare the crew for issues before they were encountered.

  “No questions, sir,” the sensor operator said. “Checklist complete.”

  The sensor operator set the camera to look straight ahead. I lowered the nose and started a turn toward the runway. Once lined up, I put the cross hairs on the near end of the runway, my aim point.

  “Tower, Deadly One One, gear down.”

  “Deadly One One, cleared for the option.”

  Tower had cleared me to land, make a low approach, or practice a touch-and-go. The mountains outside slid to the left. A pair of prisons a few miles away flashed past. I picked up US Route 95 and adjusted my turn to roll out just inside it.

  “Watch your parameters,” Glenn said.

  My glide slope indicator showed that I was close to my planned path, though a hair low. I added a touch of power. This had little effect, since the bucking nose sent the aircraft all over the place. I manhandled the Predator onto the best flight path as the plane slowed to seventy-four knots, just a hair slower than the traffic shadowing it on the interstate nearby.

  “Don’t fight it,” he said. “Keep an eye on your glide slope. Sink rates are your worst enemy now.”

  The Predator soared upward as it hit the lip of the paved runway. Hot air rising off the concrete pushed the lightweight airplane away from the ground. I instinctively pushed forward on the stick to control its ascent. The plane careered downward.

  “Go around,” Glenn said.

  His command was tinged with rebuke and frustration.

  I could feel him over my shoulder, the disappointment seeping out like a fog. When I jerked the stick back, I didn’t add power first. The Predator lacked speed to pull out of the dive.

  “Power, then pitch,” he said.

  “On the go, crew,” I announced, angry with myself.

  As I banked the Predator around the airfield for another approach, I reflected on what I’d done wrong. I should have known better by now. Shoving the stick forward that close to the ground was never good. You either hit nose first and the spring-loaded gear would flip the airplane on its back, or you shot downward so fast you’d have to pull back on the stick so hard the nose would shoot up, striking the tail or prop on the ground.

  As we worked our way back into the pattern, Glenn replaced me in the seat. The aircraft pitched and bucked like before. This time, he held it slightly high on the glide path. I watched the sink rate develop over the concrete just like before. The video showed nothing at first, and then a few seconds later I sensed a downward motion in the picture.

  As the aircraft neared the runway, Glenn rode the glide path until it looked like we were going to hit the ground nose first. Glenn pulled back on the stick. As the nose tracked, the lift changed on the wings and slowed our descent. Glenn’s hands twitched as he maneuvered the stick to keep the nose set in place and keep the wings level. Finally out of energy, the aircraft settled to the ground. Our only indication in the cockpit was a slight vibration in the camera’s video as the stabilizing gimbals adjusted to the bump.

  Glenn slowed the Predator, taxied it to the designated parking slot, and shut down the engine. I left the cockpit and after a necessary break went to join him in the debrief room.

  —

  The briefing room was just large enough for a standard picnic-size table and office chairs. Opposite the door was a drop-down screen and computer to work the projector. The sidewalls had whiteboards where the instructors could diagram missions.

  Glenn was waiting for me at the picnic table. After I briefed the mission and the botched landing, it was Glenn’s turn to speak. We both knew I would no longer be eligible for the coveted “distinguished graduate” honor.

  “Squirrel, I’m sorry, but I have to bust you,” he said.

  “Sir,” I said, “I don’t deserve to pass. I would have asked you to bust me had you tried to pass me.”

  It was actually the truth. My integrity wouldn’t allow me to accept a pass after I had so clearly failed. I wasn’t sure which of us was more embarrassed. Glenn nodded and I left the briefing room.

  Mike was still in the flight room as I left. He was getting ready for his mission.

  “Squirrel,” he said, “how’s the second-best pilot in Predator?”

  It was a bad joke between us to accuse the other of being second-best. It kept the competition, as all military aviation is, civil.

  “Looks like he just moved up to number one,” I shot back.

  I wasn’t angry with Mike. He had no idea I’d busted the ride. I was angry with myself. Mike seemed surprised and pulled me aside.

  “What happened?” Mike asked.

  I told him about the busted ride.

  “Hey,” he said. “It happens. We all are getting crushed in this program.”

  “Thanks,” I said.

  I knew other guys were busting rides, but it didn’t happen to me. As I walked out, I tried to let the bad mission go. I knew tomorrow I’d have a chance to redeem myself. As I walked into the desert sun, I reminded myself that some days the knight gets the dragon.

  But today, the dragon had squashed me into ketchup.

  CHAPTER 3

  Fight’s On

  The blue van raced down the black asphalt road. I turned the Predator on a parallel course so we could track the van once it cleared the security checkpoint. We didn’t know who he was or where he was going.

  Today, our mission was to find out.

  He was probably just a range worker checking on a variety of the targets on Range 63. For today, we considered him a simulated insurgent. This was an intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance, or ISR, mission, the most basic skill set we learned in the mission phase of our training. These were the skills we’d use to track insurgents in Baghdad or in the mountains of Afghanistan. This was also how we provided the troops on the ground with a bird’s-eye view of their objective.

  Once we learned how to find and track the enemy, we got to simulate engaging them with the two Hellfire missiles hanging under the wings. The weapons portion of the training worried me. Flying an ISR mission meant keeping the aircraft close enough to the target so the sensor operator could keep the camera trained on the individual or compound or car. Simple enough.

  But delivering a missile was a whole different skill. The Predator’s primary weapon was the AGM-114 Hellfire missile. Originally designed as a helicopter-fired antitank missile, the Hellfire had a small, seventeen-pound explosive warhead designed to penetrate armor. Later variants were scored like a grenade, which produced a wall of shrapnel on impact, converting the missile into an effective antipersonnel weapon.

  Weapons didn’t show up on the Predator until the introduction of the MQ-1B in 2001. The targeting pod had been upgraded, which enabled the crew to lock onto a target. Before the upgrade, the sensor operator tracked targets with the camera by hand. This setup wasn’t ideal, since a tired sensor operator could relax at the wrong time, pulling the cross hairs off a target at a critical moment, causing a miss. Raytheon responded to the requirement and designed a tracking system to lock the targeting pod on a target.

  I had no close air support experience, which could derail the second half of my training. I was still a close second to Mike in the rankings, and I wanted to stay that way, so I went hunting for the Predator’s 3-3 tactics manual. The three-dash-three, as we pronounced it, was the baseline tactics guide that told us how to accomplish each of our assigned combat missions.

  The manual would typically be found
among a series of mostly unclassified documents for every weapons system in the Air Force. Searching through the squadron’s library, I couldn’t find anything. I did unearth an outdated article from the Gulf War, written by an Army helicopter pilot about the A model of the missile, used only on helicopters. We were shooting the modified K model.

  I started asking around, hitting up the instructors for any information or a copy of the manual.

  “Where is the 3-3 tactics manual?” I asked.

  My request was met by a shrug each time. Even Glenn didn’t know where it was. The Predator had been in the Air Force fleet for nearly ten years and I realized it still didn’t have a manual. I was flabbergasted. How could you have effective training without a tactics manual?

  I decided to write my own.

  At home, I had my old T-37 manual from my flight instructor days. The first part of the manual dealt with basic pilot skills. All Air Force pilots learned the basics on the T-37 in the 1990s, so the manual proved valuable as a model for what I was trying to do. But I had no idea how to write the tactics portion, so I approached Mike. He was a fighter pilot and had the tactical experience I needed.

  “So what have you got?” he asked me as he sat down at my rolltop desk in my home office.

  I handed him the folder of papers that made up my attempt to write a Predator 3-3.

  “Well,” I said. “I couldn’t find any 3-3s from tactical aircraft.”

  Mike nodded. A 3-3 tactics manual for any fighter was restricted, even if it was unclassified. Squadrons didn’t let outsiders have them on a whim.

  “I basically formatted this based off the T-37,” I said to Mike.

  Mike flipped right to the tactics page.

  “I see you finished your Hellfire section.”

  “Yeah, it’s rough,” I said.

  I pulled up the appropriate file on my computer.

  “I’ve got the basic diagrams in place,” I said. “I used them as a template to describe how to employ a missile. Everything from 9-Line to post-strike procedures.”

  Mike reviewed the section quietly.

  “It’s not how a fighter would do it,” he said.

  “But we aren’t fighters,” I said.

  Mike looked up.

  “Every fighter trains a certain way, but the overall procedures are the same,” he said. “To do it any other way is unprofessional.”

  He was right. The RPA community was in its infancy and the manual was an attempt to instill some professionalism into the ranks. Most people called the aircraft a drone, but, as Chuck said in his welcome speech, we didn’t care for the term because it took all of the professionalism out of the job. The aircraft didn’t fly or fight by itself. It was not autonomous. We might not be sitting in the Predator, but that shouldn’t be mistaken to mean the Predator lacked a cockpit or pilot. We were in control of everything, including the weapons.

  “Well, tear it up,” I said.

  For the next several days, Mike improved the tactics section. In all, drafting the document took a bit more than a month. Without the pressure of competing for “distinguished graduate,” I concentrated on writing, with Mike’s assistance. My flight skills and fighting techniques developed rapidly, thanks in part to the work I was doing on the manual.

  But there was no substitute for hands-on training. My first weapons ride was a disaster. I had no idea how to even pull up the weapons menu on the tracker. Without a simulator to practice on, I had little way to understand what I needed to do in flight.

  I had to confess to my instructor that I had no idea what I was doing. His expression mirrored the one I would have given students I flew with during my instructor tours. I got the dreaded “You didn’t do your homework?” expression. He slowly walked me through the checklist, pointing out each switch and menu. With his patience and Mike’s help with the 3-3, I quickly picked up on how to fire a missile.

  When I reached the final phase of training, I was still in the top five in the class. But that final phase was even more difficult than learning to fire the Hellfire. This phase—three sorties in all—had us acting like forward air controllers. The mission was called strike coordination and reconnaissance. We stacked fighters in orbits and fed them targets. Basically, we were like a flying control tower. It took a lot of concentration and coordination to keep all the moving pieces on track.

  —

  The Texas Air National Guard sent several F-16s to support our class. I was on my last sortie and only a few missions away from my final check ride. The scenario had me searching for several Scud missiles hidden in the desert. Once we found them, it was my job to talk the F-16s onto the target. We had a two-hour block to complete the mission.

  In the mission phase of training, the sensor operators and the pilots trained together, but not as an organic team. On this day, Sarah was in the seat next to me. I’d flown with Sarah in the past, so we were familiar with each other. She’d joined the Air Force at eighteen after graduating from high school in New York. She was a petite woman, and the control rack dwarfed her. But she had a keen eye and a reputation as one of the class’s best sensor operators.

  The rest of the class took the full two hours to find and eliminate the Scuds, but we found both them and the supporting surface-to-air missile (SAM) batteries within minutes. Our fortunate find gave us nearly a whole hour to build our talk-ons, a series of photographs and sketches to accompany the 9-Lines we built. They made it easier to describe a target to another pilot. It took only fifteen minutes to eliminate all the targets. I sat back, scenario complete, and looked at Glenn. We still had forty-five minutes of flying time.

  “Anything you want to do?” I asked. “We’ve got the time.”

  Glenn looked up from his clipboard, where he made notes.

  “Whatever you want; your requirements are complete,” he said.

  He wanted me to come up with more targets, but I didn’t want to take the time creating a couple while the F-16 just waited. I radioed the F-16 to let him know we were finished. I wasn’t sure if he had anything he wanted to do.

  “Viper Two Two, Deadly One One,” I called over the radio. “Scenario complete.”

  I was Deadly One One and the F-16 was Viper Two Two. A few minutes later, Viper came back on the radio. He suggested working some air-to-air engagements. I looked over at Glenn sitting between my station and the sensor operator’s station.

  We hadn’t briefed air-to-air engagements and I wanted to get his approval before I responded. In the Air Force, we don’t deviate from the plan, because aviation is cruel to those who make mistakes. Even a slight misjudgment when we mixed it up could mean crashing a multimillion-dollar fighter, or death.

  Glenn nodded approval and I got on the radio with the F-16 pilot. We quickly agreed on some safety rules using the same altitude restrictions from the previous scenario.

  This was unique.

  Predators didn’t engage in basic fighter maneuvers or dogfighting. RPAs had a losing record when it came to dogfighting after an Iraqi MiG famously shot down a Predator orbiting Baghdad during the invasion of Iraq.

  That Predator was loaded with a pair of Stinger missiles. The Iraqi pilot overshot his first pass, but the excited Predator pilot fired a Stinger outside its maximum range. The Stinger was designed to take down aircraft from the ground, not from under the wing. The missile had little chance to hit the mark and failed to track the MiG as it came around for another pass. The Iraqi pilot didn’t miss the launch. He tracked the Stinger’s smoke trail and fired a countervolley of two missiles at the Predator. The Iraqi MiG’s missiles tracked just fine.

  I didn’t like my chances over the Nevada desert.

  “Deadly One One, Viper Two Two. Fight’s on.”

  I looked up at the map over the HUD and saw the F-16 about twenty miles north of me. Viper Two Two turned inbound and started toward me.

&
nbsp; “So what are you going to do?” Glenn asked.

  “See what he sees,” I said, not feeling as confident as I tried to sound.

  I turned the Predator north toward Viper Two Two. I assumed the Predator’s radar signature would be small and difficult to detect.

  I was wrong.

  “Viper Two Two, kill one MQ-1, BRAA two seven zero, ten, twenty thousand.”

  He spotted me within ten seconds and simulated firing a missile. The BRAA call outlined my bearing, range, altitude, and azimuth from a specified spot on the ground known as the bull’s-eye. I was west of our bull’s-eye point at ten miles and twenty thousand feet.

  Viper Two Two turned outbound to reset for another run.

  Glenn chuckled.

  “What’ve you got planned now?” Glenn asked.

  “Any suggestions?”

  Glenn shook his head. I think he enjoyed watching the virtual carnage.

  “This is new to me,” he said. “I’m just curious to see what you do.”

  I didn’t know how to take that comment. He was a combat-tested fighter pilot. I was certain he’d forgotten more about fighter tactics than I knew. I wasn’t trained in fighter maneuvers, just some very basic air-to-air tactics, so I tried to remember the basics from flight school. I wasn’t going to give up.

  “Viper Two Two inbound.”

  I gritted my teeth.

  “Viper Two Two, Deadly One One. Fight’s on.”

  Hey, if I was going to play with the big boys, I should at least use the right terminology.

  Instead of heading toward him, I turned and put my wingtip on him. I cheated in a way, since I knew in what direction he traveled. This wasn’t much of a stretch in combat since AWACS or ground control would tell me where a threat was. Sarah spun the ball around and switched to infrared (IR). She could pick up the fighter’s IR flare.

  “Put a track on him,” I said.

  “Roger,” Sarah said.

  I watched her spin the ball around until she picked up the heat signature of the F-16.