No Man's Land

by Kevin Sullivan

  DEDICATION

  ‘One day you will ask me which is more important?

  My life or yours? I will say mine and you will walk away not

  knowing that you are my life.’ Kahlil Gibran

  For Lauren

  CONTENTS

  Dedication

  Prologue

  Part I: Knife Fight

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Part II: Aftermath

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Epilogue

  Acknowledgements

  Bibliography

  Photo Section

  About the Author

  Copyright

  PROLOGUE

  ‘Sully . . . Carrot. One versus one, neutral set-up. Angels fifteen. Four hundred knots. Call ready.’

  Abeam my Tomcat F-14 is a blue and grey camouflaged Skyhawk A-4. The pilot’s callsign is ‘Carrot’ because of his full head of orange hair. He’s an extremely lethal adversary pilot who flew fighters in the US Marine Corps before his personal invitation to become a Top Gun instructor. His exemplary performance during his course earmarked him for personal selection to this prestigious position.

  My callsign is ‘Sully’, coincidentally matching the nickname of pilot Chesley Sullenberger, who in 2008 famously performed an emergency landing of US Airways Flight 1549.

  It’s 1982 and the height of the Cold War. I’m a fighter pilot in the US Navy and have been selected to attend Top Gun, five weeks of ‘postgraduate’-level training in air-to-air combat and tactics, formally known as the US Navy Fighter Weapons School. Few fighter pilots have the opportunity to attend this school – in fact, a squadron may only be allowed to send one two-man crew per year.

  The ground instruction phase of the Top Gun training provides us with current intelligence on potential threat aircraft and weapons systems. Because we can sail into harm’s way at the drop of a hat, the flight phase has to prepare the crew to operate in a one-versus-unknown environment. If we ever fly in combat over Europe, we’ll be fighting against an enemy with inferior aircraft but superior numbers. The sobering message from the course is that we have to learn to survive and fight in an arena of one-versus-four at a minimum.

  On completion of the course, we will be awarded the coveted Top Gun patch, which adorns a special position on a pilot’s flight suit, just below the left shoulder. It’s the PhD of fighter qualifications.

  The Top Gun course takes a building-block approach, starting with the one-versus-one scenario: two aerial gladiators facing off to the death. The opponent, nicknamed the ‘bogey’, is a Top Gun instructor hand-picked for their skill and lethality. Every engagement involves brutally employing the Top Gun motto: ‘No Points for Second Place’.

  On this day, flying above the Pacific Ocean far from our base in San Diego, I’m progressing through the one-versus-one phase. I’m flying my F-14 Tomcat versus a dissimilar aircraft that mimics a Cold War adversary, in this case, an A-4 Skyhawk (sometimes it’s an F-5 Tiger 2 fighter). The instructors flying these jets simulate known Soviet tactics. For the students, it’s hard work just to survive; the bogey pilots are the best in the navy.

  The A-4F Skyhawk is a single-seat jet that the school has highly modified to have the same, if not superior, thrust-to-weight performance as the F-14, but with an inferior weapons system and missile capability. We’ve been instructed on the ways to fight and defeat this threat. Basically, the Tomcat’s pilot has to use its superior thrust and turning capability to force the fight into the vertical. The pilot needs to maintain his energy, in the form of speed and use of g-force, to succeed.

  But aerial combat is much more than just pulling maximum g-force and shooting down your opponent. It’s a three-dimensional chess match of energy management, weapons-system employment, communication, teamwork and endurance of the physical exertion of flying to the aircraft’s maximum g capabilities. Plan A is rarely executed as desired – the high-speed, high-stakes arena of air-to-air combat requires continual innovation, creativity and discipline to survive and to win. I feel sure I am prepared. I have demonstrated my skill and aggression flying with my squadron. They know I am ready to advance my lethal skills to the next level.

  Carrot has set the starting parameters for our first visual engagement. Our altitude is 15,000 feet, separated by a distance of 5000 feet laterally, and we will start the fight at 400 nautical miles per hour of airspeed (our speed relative to the air). Now it’s time to fight and to perform.

  ‘Sully’s ready,’ I say as I select full afterburner on my engines. The fuel flow through the engines is a staggering 48,000 pounds per hour.

  ‘Fight’s on!’

  ‘Fight’s on,’ I repeat as I turn hard into the Skyhawk A-4, hearing the wing roar as the big Tomcat F-14 wing slices through the air. The g-force escalates to six and a half times more than I normally weigh, and I have to twist and contort my body to maintain sight of the A-4. I’m exerting myself as much if I were wrestling an elephant. We are turning at the maximum rate, and my objective is to make Carrot trade his airspeed for turning advantage. He’ll lose energy if he does this, and I’ll maintain mine, then I’ll have the energy advantage to vertically separate from him and shoot my ‘missiles’.

  This is the plan. I have to use my airspeed, altitude and g in order to maintain my energy state, and I have to compare that with the aircraft I’m fighting against. If I observe that he’s turning tighter, I know he’s trading energy for positional advantage. I must be patient while I turn hard to neutralise his threat. I’m seeing exactly what I want to see, and watch the A-4 shoot past my tail. We started in a neutral position and now he’s almost behind me; therefore he’s traded all his energy for this advantage of position . . . right? Wrong. As Carrot slips past my tail, I roll my wings level and pull straight up. Surely there’s no way he could match my climb – but he does.

  I got it all wrong. Carrot was climbing better than me. He maintained his energy and tricked me into thinking he was out of puff. Now I’m paying the price as he latches onto my tail.

  ‘Guns, guns, guns,’ he calls, simulating an attack on my highly energised but disadvantaged Tomcat.

  Breathing hard from the high g-forces, I shake my head in disgust. ‘Knock it off,’ I yell. It’s our agreed safety phrase to stop fighting, to maintain sight of each other and set up for the next exercise.

  ‘Let’s not do that again, Sully,’ says Breeze, my radar intercept officer. Breeze is from Virginia, but he’s adapted quickly to the ‘breezy’ lifestyle of southern California. When he isn’t in my back seat fighting a Top Gun instructor, he likes to surf, sit in the sun and play racquetball. He’s known as a bit of a wild child and we will later share a stateroom on the USS Enterprise when the squadron deploys for cruise. He knows his stuff and is up to the challenges of aerial combat.

  I only have a minute or two to figure out how to not ‘do that again’ before we are ready for the next fight. I just got my ass kicked. On my kneepad I quickly scribble some shorthand notes depicting what each aircraft did
in sequence. We also carry small tape-recorders that we use to help reconstruct the fights later.

  My energy management is good, but Carrot’s is better. I have to do something different to gain an advantage or I’ll be eating Carrot’s machine-gun shells again. Oh yeah, at this level, it is all very real and very serious.

  The A-4 cockpit isn’t as big or open as the bubble canopy of the F-14. I can easily pivot my body to look back between the tails, but the A-4 pilot can’t. It’s the same visual restriction that a MiG pilot would have: the bad-guy aircraft Carrot is simulating. As long as he has me in front, he has the advantage. I need to try something different. I aim to exploit the reduced rearward visibility of the A-4, keeping in mind that the F-14 is one big jet. Making the bogey lose sight of me might give me the separation I need to jab the bogey from a distance with my superior air-to-air missiles. But this plan will test the limits of the coordination between Breeze and me; two sets of eyes are better than one.

  I brief Breeze on my plan so he’s prepared for my abrupt handling of our jet.

  ‘Okay, just don’t get us shot this time!’ he barks.

  We’re almost back at altitude to start the next engagement. This time, Carrot has positioned his A-4 closer to me. Our starting speed is slower – 300 knots – a disadvantage to me and an advantage to the A-4. We’re ready.

  ‘Fight’s on!’

  Even though this is training and I see an A-4, I imagine a potential future reality: an enemy aircraft about to attack from close range, and I have to neutralise his advantage and go on the offensive.

  In full afterburner, I turn at the maximum rate towards the A-4. Carrot is doing the same. As we pass canopy-to-canopy, I reverse my turn to fake a change of direction. I can almost see Carrot grinning at this apparently fatal move, but when I pass behind his aircraft I reverse my turn again and dive.

  My plan works.

  ‘No joy,’ Carrot transmits to indicate he’s lost sight of me. Unfortunately, I’ve lost sight of him, too.

  But Breeze has not. He confirms that he can still see Carrot, so we can continue the fight safely. I’ve banked my F-14 on one wing and am pushing the nose down slightly to accelerate without any g-force on the wing. We call this ‘unloading’ and we are lightly elevated out of our ejection seats. The afterburners are quickly adding energy to my unloaded Tomcat.

  Breeze is pretzelled around, pushing against a small handrail on his instrument panel while trying to talk my eyes onto the A-4. I glanced at my airspeed gauge: 350 to 400 then 450 knots. As we build speed, we’re building the separation I need to attack rapidly – if only I could see my target which is rapidly disappearing behind our wing and tail.

  Breeze is getting frustrated. Using a clock-code relative to our aircraft – twelve o’clock is straight ahead, six o’clock is directly behind etcetera – he’s trying to help me regain sight of Carrot, but I still can’t see him because we’ve opened up some distance with my acceleration. Luckily, Carrot still can’t see me either.

  ‘No joy,’ I reply when Breeze makes a clock-code sighting.

  This happens a few more times in rapid succession with the same result. In exasperation, Breeze jabs his finger on the canopy. ‘He’s right there!’

  Crazily enough, that works. I confirm my sighting with Breeze. Time to attack.

  I reduce my power slightly as I turn at maximum g to point at Carrot. I instruct Breeze to activate one of the short-range radar modes, that he controls in his cockpit, to provide a radar lock on the A-4.

  Now I can start shooting my missiles.

  ‘Fox 1, A-4, left-hand turn, angels 15.’ This indicates I’ve launched a radar-guided Sparrow missile at the A-4, which is turning left at 15,000 feet.

  ‘Continue,’ Carrot grunt, as he racks his jet into a maximum g defensive turn. He still can’t see me or my missile.

  I launch another Sparrow missile his way and make the notional call.

  We’re closing rapidly on Carrot. I move my thumb down one notch on my control stick and select the shorter-range Sidewinder missile, its guidance based on heat emanating from the target. Through my headphones, I hear the seeker head on my Sidewinder start barking its signal; it has locked on to the heat plume coming from the A-4’s engine.

  I pull the control stick trigger and send a Sidewinder towards Carrot’s wildly manoeuvring jet. ‘Fox 2, A-4, right-hand turn, angels 13.’

  Again I hear Carrot’s grunting reply: ‘Continue.’

  Okay. I launch another Sidewinder and make the call for my shot. If this was a real fight with real missiles, the enemy would have been in flames after the Sparrow missile I’d shot seconds before. He wouldn’t have seen it coming – we don’t give the enemy a heads-up that death is streaking his way.

  We’re getting closer. My thumb makes another selection to arm my gun: a 20-millimetre Vulcan Gatling gun, with six rotating barrels capable of firing 6000 rounds per minute. I decide to use it now to finish this fight. The shape of the A-4 is filling my forward windscreen as I manoeuvre to put the gunsight on my target.

  Just before I pull the trigger, Carrot finally sees me and turns aggressively to defeat my gunshot. I pick a point in front of his aircraft and pull the trigger, sending a stream of projectiles into his path. He flies straight through them.

  ‘Snapshot!’ I say to indicate a high-angle gun attack.

  I keep pointing at his aircraft and reselected afterburner. Then I escape at supersonic speed.

  ‘Knock it off,’ Carrot transmits. The fight is over. He couldn’t catch my accelerating F-14.

  I confirm the end of the fight and add another call. ‘Winchester’ means I’ve fired all my imaginary missiles and am out of ammunition.

  I train like I fight, and in this fight I used everything I had to survive and win.

  *

  That day was a turning point in my Top Gun training and my military aviation career. I improvised and executed a complex attack against a worthy adversary, fired all my missiles, and effectively communicated and coordinated with my radar intercept officer.

  Speed is life. If you have it then you can manoeuvre, and if you can manoeuvre then you can survive. In our world of one-versus-many, you can’t afford to slow down.

  We graduated from Top Gun four weeks later, and Breeze and I were awarded the coveted patch to sew onto our flight suits. I was full of confidence, ready to handle any combat scenario that was thrown at me. It didn’t matter if there was only one of me and many of them; I’d win because, in war, there are no points for second place.

  Back then, my country and a large portion of the Western world were fighting a Cold War. Although no shots were fired and no battles fought, we were on the verge of conflict at the push of a button.

  As it turned out, I was lucky, and I survived those years of conflict without having to employ my deadly skills as a fighter pilot. I didn’t take a life and I didn’t fire a shot, but I did lose many good friends.

  Eventually, I was invited to share my lethal experience with the Royal Australian Air Force as an exchange officer. My military career spanned nine years. I learned to fight and survive in the most extreme arenas of military aviation. Then I traded my navy dress blue uniform for that of a commercial pilot. Years later, on 7 October 2008, I went into battle in this uniform, using all my hard-won skills to survive a conflict that I was forced to fight by circumstance. I wasn’t fighting for my country or a way of life, but for my own life and the lives of those entrusted to me on Qantas Flight 72 from Singapore to Perth. We were in an Airbus A330, equipped with the latest in automation technology. Unfortunately, that technology, which was designed to keep us safe, dramatically malfunctioned and harmed us.

  In aviation, seconds count. Decisions made in extremis, unforeseen circumstances or the hand of Fate can alter one’s present and future existence drastically and sometimes fatally. And in just two seconds, my life and the lives of the other crew and 303 passengers aboard QF72 changed forever.

  To land that plan
e, I had to fall back on my fighter-pilot experience and the skills I’d been taught by my instructors and honed during my five weeks at Top Gun. I’m here to tell you that I won the fight.

  This is a good-news story. It’s a success story. We all survived and so did the plane. But in those two seconds, when the plane’s automation malfunctioned, we were brutally thrust into the unchartered territory of No Man’s Land. Our fight continues.

  I

  KNIFE FIGHT

  1.

  ‘Geez, Kev,’ says Pete. ‘I thought about going sick on this trip.’ He points at the amber master caution light on the console. The plane’s computers have detected a fault in the air system connected to one of our engines.

  Behind us, Ross chuckles. My reputation as a ‘shit magnet’ is widespread throughout the airline. This is aviation slang for a pilot who has attracted more than their fair share of malfunctions and emergency situations. It is true, though. As a Qantas pilot, I’ve had to deal with more shit than most. But they also know my reputation for being cooler than a cucumber smoothie when Fate tests me.

  ‘Yeah, well, that better be the worst thing that happens today.’ I stare them down with one eyebrow raised.

  Good thing these guys are two of the best. First Officer Pete Lipsett has had an extensive career flying helicopters in the Royal Australian Navy. He’s a few years younger than me, and I’m happy to have his experience next to me on the flight deck. Second Officer Ross Hales has been at Qantas for less than twelve months and on the Airbus A330 fleet for six months. His flying experience was built in general aviation, flying throughout Western Australia and the Northern Territory, and he’s a mature and calm operator. I would hate to face off against him on the footy field. He’s a strapping young lad.

  Like me, these pilots are in the career of their dreams and enjoying their passion for aviation. They also know I calmly handle everything that’s thrown my way, but they can’t suppress their Aussie sarcasm.

  We all laugh, then get back to business.

  It’s 7 October 2008, and for me, the captain of Qantas Flight 72, life is at its peak. I’m fifty-three years old, a captain in a profitable international airline with a good salary, and continuing my passion for flying as a commercial pilot.