Lost opportunities, IV
By lex, on June 10th, 2007
When the no-fly zones were first instituted following Saddam’s brutal suppression of the Shia in the south, Navy and Air Force fighters filled the counter-air lanes more or less continuously – a needlessly wearing pace of operations, especially after 1992 when the Iraqi Air Force stopped tempting fate by trolling around below the 32nd parallel. By the late 90′s, operations had become routinized, almost to a fault, with large force packages of anywhere between 8 and 20 aircraft assembling for fixed lengths known and “vul windows” and then returning either to airbases in Saudi or back to the aircraft carrier(s) at sea in the Arabian Gulf.
At first we used to have two dedicated lanes of defensive counter-air (DCA), plus a strike package of four to eight jets milling about in the middle supported by at least one EA-6B Prowler for electronic warfare support. To that Prowler would also typically be attached a two-ship of FA-18′s in close escort, while an E-2 patrolled just south of the Iraqi border to provide long range radar search and command and control. Bucket brigades of S-3′s came off mission searching the northern gulf for oil smugglers long enough to bring gas to thirsty mid-cycle fighters in Kuwait, while lumbering USAF tankers filled air refueling tracks in the gulf and KSA as well. In time we dispensed with the dedicated DCA almost entirely, since – apart from the closely protected Prowler – all of the TACAIR in country had a robust self-defense capability.
In the weeks and months immediately following Operation Desert Fox, above and beyond emplacing surface-to-air missile batteries in the southern No-Fly zone, Saddam had taken to randomly launching a fighter or two at the end of each vul window. They would trail the exiting force packages out of “the box” in order to give Saddam the propaganda victory of claiming that his invincible air force had once again chased away the “cowardly ravens” of the coalition. Much thought and no small amount of jet gas was spent pondering ways to catch these bandits in their poaching across the line, but to no avail – the MiG launches were not frequent enough to justify a level of effort operation, and having no real tactical or strategic impact were ignored by the heavies.
But not by us, we few, we happy few, we band of box hoppers. We avidly devoured the after action reports of these sorties with glittering eyes, imagining. Visualizing the tactics that would put us in position to shoot. Seeing the kill.
The things that follow you may find off-putting – peaceful souls will recoil from the bloodlust, and there will be many who disagree with the merits of my argument. I will draw distinctions, always an unpopular course – and I will speak around the notion of an elite.
We do not often talk of these things in the service. Indeed, the national spirit rebels against soi disant “elites,” but the sentiments are nevertheless authentic. Even those who disagree my conclusions will have to concede that – accurate or not – these are the perspectives of those inside the fighter community.
It is not my intent to antagonize, offend, nor even to persuade. My wish is simply to inform. This is, in fact, how many of us feel.
No one finds himself in a fighter by accident – for those who fly them, they are the pinnacle of professional achievement and the very top of a dramatically narrowing pyramid. It’s no mean feat to get commissioned, physically, morally or academically – there were 10,000 applicants for my class at USNA, 3500 or so were “qualified” for admission, the top 2,000 or so were offered positions, 1300 showed up to swear the oath, and just over a thousand of us graduated. The competition is just as fierce in the other commissioning routes.
Once you hit the fleet, getting into flight school is competitive, based on performance and physical qualification, with many ways to fall off the tracks along the way. Of my entering academy class, over half wanted to fly. By the time we’d graduated about 300 still wanted to and were physically qualified – there were 200 billets available. The others did something else.
Leaving primary flight school, perhaps a third of each cohort selects for the jet pipeline, sometimes less. The rest go the maritime route (props) or select to helicopters. There were about 35 students in my primary class – on the first day of class, when asked, “Who wants jet?” all but one of us put his hand up. Six months later only half did, and just eight of us were selected for the jet pipeline.
Once in jets, the competition and winnowing steepens – you’re young, you’re hard charging, aggressive – you want it all. So does everyone else. When everybody wants something – whether it’s a juicy set of orders to a great job or location, or whether it’s a seat in high tech fighter, the Navy has a simple way of deciding who to choose: Performance. I was up against 25 other guys when the time came for seat selection, all of us were “selectively retained graduates” – in the top third of our jet pipeline class when winged, and kept back as instructors for students who were in some cases only a few months behind us in the pipeline. Of those 25 who had finished in the top one-third of their jet class, eight of us got fighters and 5 of us got Hornets. Two of those eight were dead within a year.
Others in the naval service claim that fighter pilots have a reputation for arrogance. Fighter pilots generally concede the point, arguing that even if that reputation was true, that at least it was honestly earned. I don’t want to overstate the point: It’s safe to say that not everybody wants to serve, and of those that serve not everyone wants to fly, and not everyone who wants to fly wants to fly jets, and not everyone who flies jets wants to fly fighters. But even given all that, it’s also safe to say that everybody that flies fighters wants to be there. And I think I’m safe in saying that everyone who has ever flown a fighter wants an aerial kill.
Few, I think, have ever wanted one as much as I. I can scarcely believe that anyone might ever have wanted one more.
(To be continued…)
“I think I’m safe in saying that everyone who has ever flown a fighter wants an aerial kill.
Few, I think, have ever wanted one as much as I. I can scarcely believe that anyone might ever have wanted one more.”
This right here is one of the top reasons I read Lex. He was kind, creative, knowledgeable, charming, and ever the fighter pilot. I guess it’s the complexity of the paradox that draws me, and oh, how I loooove a true paradox. How are these qualities freely and rightly contained within one person? Ferocity and Grace (yes, the divine capital “G”) should go together, and I try to stir up a bit of that in me by watching Lex do it in his blog.
Thanks to all of you gracious warriors who let me read along.
As always I finish the piece wanting more! On the military academies – my nephew finished West Point – and he was saying of those few who are accepted a huge percentage drop out in a short time – can’t take the regimen and discipline? That percentage – 10% 20% ( can’t remember) is already factored in – the school knows by experience how many will drop out so they get to the number they always wanted in the first place.
It astounded me to think – how hard it is to get in – and to just – quit. So soon.
On military flight school – as he said – so competitive and I would assume – keep up or leave. Lots of pressure I would think.
His story of the Iraqi jets trying to tempt them reminded me of something from the first Gulf War. When the our F14s would come in with radars on – many times the intended targets would just scatter – flee.
The Iraqis found from bitter experience in the 1980 war with Iran – and the F14s they (Iran) managed to keep flying – how deadly those missiles and radar were.
Our F14 pilots started calling their radar “MIG Repellant”.
Now off to walk the dog. This is a good place to start the day.
Lex’s comments about an “elite” are interesting. I recently had a conversation with an old friend who was a project/sales/Navy Rep engineer on the F-18 program. He spent the last 10 years of his career with McDonnell Douglas liasing with Navy folks at North Island.
In any case my friend was talking about a documentary he’d seen with interviews of survivors of the Doolittle Raid on Tokyo. He’d come away with the impression that most of those pilots thought of themselves as “ordinary folks” doing a job that they had to do without a whiff of elitism about them.
That said the world moves on. Lex was a Baby Boomer (I am a little bit ahead of the leading edge of that Boom having been born in 1943). And since many of those Boomers were taught that they were really something “special”, it’s easy to understand how pilots from the Baby Boom and future generations might be susceptible to elitism.
Of course it’s not braggin’ if you kin do it—and USN carrier pilots can do it.
Mike – this is just my opinion – based on absolutely nothing
But I think pilots have always been pilots as far as bravado – but if they have been in a heroic action – they tend to be humble – as most heroes are.
I am thinking from the scene in The Right Stuff , where one of the new “hotshot” pilots coming to Edwards – going for a drink at Pancho Barnes Happy Bottom Riding Club – coming in with the usual swagger – is asked by a reporter who he thinks the hottest pilot is.
Of course, after the question his comrades are expecting the usual “me, of course” but after a moments hesitation he points to the wall of pictures of test pilots killed and says “ they are all on a wall
Of course, I may be completely off base but I think those who have achieved somewhere near the “top of the pyramid” have to have a humility about them, since they learned what it takes to get there.
I could be completely off here, too.
As you all get to know me perhaps my screen name could be (a) “Bill the keeper of useless trivia”, or (b) “Bill, keeper of things all things B.S”, or (C) (almost afraid to put that forward
BTW I learned some time ago how Pancho’s got it’s name – she used to rent horses there and they supposedly were gentle horses; hence the “happy bottom”.
This being a Navy-oriented group I wonder if Patuxent has had in its past a similarly colorful “watering hole”
I am not a fighter pilot, but I have known my fair share of their offshoots, the test pilots. Many test pilots are, of course, former fighter jocks so I learned a few things about them. It seems to me that arrogance of the fighter jock (is it really arrogance if you are actually that good? perhaps the aformentioned word ‘bravado’ fits better) is a necessary part of who they are and is, in fact, nurtured by the system that creates and sustains them. You MUST believe you are one of the best in the air to willingly throw yourself into a one-on-one fight to the death. He who does so with little hesitation often carries the day. Therefore, they partly ARE the best because they believe themselves to be so, in a self-reinforcing spiral.
Fighter jocks are in a bind. As an attack puke (A-6) in bombing competitions if one crew came out with a 30′ CEP and another crew beat them with a 20′ CEP it was OK, you won, bud, let’s go have a beer. If’n we were dropping 500 pounders both crews would have wiped out the hostile target.
Fighter guys have a different aspect. Second place is not OK, second place means you are….mostly likely dead.
Was jumped overhead the ship on occasion by a Tomcat, most times my butt was beat, but once in a while I’d catch one low on fuel who couldn’t hit afterburner and toasted ‘em.
The guys who whipped me were very vocal in the chow line afterwards.
The guys I nailed from the 6 position pretended they didn’t know me.