Viper Pilot: A Memoir of Air Combat (30 page)

Slapping the chaff button with my left hand, I pulled off left and down. Twisting sideways, I stared behind me for the SAM.

“BEEP . . . BEEP . . . BEEP . . .” The RWR frantically tried to tell me that the missile was close enough for its on-board guidance to take over. Terminal guidance.

I hoped not.

Mouth dry, eyes wide, I twisted back right and brought the jet around with me. Down! down! Yanking the throttle out of afterburner, I slapped out more chaff.

“ELI One . . . defending SA-6 . . . eastbound over the airfield!”

His reply was instantaneous. “ELI Two . . . No joy on the SAM. Blind at 6,000 feet . . .”

So he’d lost sight of me and didn’t see the SAM. I was now heading south right off the end of Khan Bani Sad. Bottoming out at 3,000 feet, I yanked the nose up, slammed the burner in again, and rocketed upward.

“ELI Two . . . climb up above ten thousand and head one-five-zero . . . ELI One is passing five thousand.”

Staring right, to the west, I forced myself to quarter the sky rather than let my eyes dart back and forth.

Off the wing . . . high . . . low. Check the HUD . . . Between the wing and the tail . . . high . . . low. Check the HUD. Fifty-five hundred feet and 400 knots . . . roll and pull. Inverted now, I looked toward where the SAM must be. Behind me and high.

But there was nothing.

“WARNING . . . WARNING . . .”

I flipped the jet upright and glanced at the display.
FUEL . . . FUEL
. . . was blinking at me.

Pulling hard with my right hand, I brought the F-16 back to the left. To the northeast, away from the airfield and away from Baghdad. If he was heading 150 degrees southeast, he’d be off my right wing by four or five miles.

Data-linking a position request, I pulled the throttle back to hold 400 knots and continued my left turn around to the south. Before Khan Bani Sad disappeared, I saw fires from my last pass glowing through the haze. I couldn’t see the hangar, but that was good. This meant the building, and whatever was inside of it, was burning.

I never did see the SAM. Maybe it hadn’t really launched. Or maybe I’d reacted quickly enough to send it off into space. As I spiraled upward through a cloud break well east of Baghdad, the data-link came back. Zing was also alive and well, cruising about three miles behind me and to the west.

Breaking through the clouds, the sunlight hit my face, and I blinked for a long, happy moment before lowering the tinted visor. Still several hundred miles deep inside enemy territory, I didn’t relax. But I felt the familiar rush of gratitude that always came on after an intense combat mission. Later on, lying on my cot in the darkness, I’d think of what could’ve happened. But for now, as the salty sweat dried on my face and the chaffing dampness under my harness cooled, I was grateful to be living and breathing.

Gently banking the F-16 to the left, I noticed my chaff dispenser said
EMPTY,
and the decoy had been shot off.
Wonder when that had happened?
So there had been a SAM, after all. That was a chilling thought—I decided not to think about it.

As my breathing returned to normal, I caught a flash of sunlight on metal and saw the other F-16 shoot up through the clouds. The friendly radar symbol appeared on my radar warning display, and I knew Zing had locked onto me. Staying well clear of Baghdad, we kept climbing in order to put some altitude between us and the clouds. Clouds hid SAMs and Triple-A.

And I’d had enough of that for one birthday.

12

Endgame

I
T LOOKED LIKE A GIRAFFE.

I blinked.

Then blinked again and raised my visor. Rolling up on one wing, I skirted along at 400 knots just over the Baghdad rooftops and stared at the thing loping across the road below me.

It
was
a giraffe. No shit.

This was the morning of April 8 and I’d just crossed the Tigris River in southern Baghdad and was heading north toward the al-Quds district to kill tanks. The river made a huge, thumb-shaped loop near Dora Farms and the old Baghdad Muthenna airport. Just above it lay the Baghdad Zoo, from which the animal had evidently escaped.

Grunting against the Gs, I reefed the fighter into a hard level turn back toward the west. Below me was a huge, semicircular complex dedicated to Saddam’s megalomania. At the far end lay a wide boulevard with arches at both ends. Letting up on the Gs, I realized the arches were actually enormous arms, each grasping a sword.

Saddam’s Arches of Victory.

Smirking a bit at the irony, I reversed the turn and came back around, heading northeast toward the Tigris. Arches of Victory—well, there wouldn’t be much of that for Hussein, since infidels like me were buzzing overhead and wild animals were running loose in the street.

Just ahead, the sluggish, seaweed-green river cut startlingly through the browns and grays of Baghdad. There were a half-dozen bridges I wanted to scope out, because enemy troops were using the northern suburbs as a safe haven. If they tried to come south to fight, they’d have to cross those bridges. Two of them, the Sinak and Jumhuriya, were right at the center of the action.

This particular morning, the Gamblers had three two-ships roaming about looking for trouble. We each took different killboxes and flew around trying to draw fire. When we found someone dumb enough to shoot, we’d mark the position and figure the best way to attack. This would depend on the battlefield, how many weapons we had remaining, and the terrain. Environmental factors were actually a big part of a Weasel attack. Like overflying water to avoid ground threats and using the sun’s position to interfere with enemy optical trackers. Some tactics hadn’t changed since World War I.

But urban Weaseling was tough. Too many hiding places for SAMs and mobile Triple-A, and the potential for fratricide of friendly units was disconcertingly high. To complicate things, sometimes our own grunts would shoot at us, unable to distinguish between Iraqi and U.S. aircraft. Moreover, ever since the Marines and Army had entered Baghdad, there’d been heavy street-fighting for days.

In fact, we were over Baghdad because just ten minutes earlier my two-ship had answered an emergency call for close air-support. FACING 43, an A-10 Warthog, had been hit by a shoulder-launched SAM. He had the dubious choice of landing at the newly liberated international airport or trying to limp back to a forward airstrip like Tallil—not surprisingly, he chose Tallil. But the jet couldn’t make it, and the poor guy ejected over Baghdad. Luckily for him, some 3rd Infantry Division combat engineers watched him float down and sent a squad to rescue him.

The pilot, Major Jim Ewald, quite rightly assumed everything around him was hostile until the grunts shouted, “Hey pilot dude . . . come on out. We’re Americans.”

It was all over by the time we got there, which is how I ended up stalking giraffes. “LAPEL . . . this is CHIEFTAIN.”

“Go ahead.” CHIEFTAIN controlled fighter activity for the Navy and Marines. Theoretically.

“Ah . . . we’ve got AROMA 31, two Hornets, inbound your sector at Angels ten and SNOOP 23 inbound at seven thousand.”

“LAPEL copies, we’ll stay west of the river.”

“Copy. KARMA is trying to reach you on Strike Prime.”

“Got it. Thanks.”

KARMA was the AWACS today, and he couldn’t talk to me because I was too low. That suited me fine. I sighed and pulled up over Muthenna airport in central Baghdad. No doubt he wanted to know my shoe size or some other vital bit of information.

In fact, he didn’t. KARMA ordered us up north about thirty miles to a suspected chemical-weapons facility. We found an entire complex guarded by tanks and armored personnel carriers. The other Gambler flights joined us, and we had a regular shooting gallery. I destroyed two tanks with CBUs and strafed a truck that made a break for the highway. He didn’t make it.

ELI 21 and TOXIC 25 both took turns bombing and strafing. Between the six of us, we accounted for seven tanks and four trucks. Storm’n Norman, who was ELI 21, also had a 20-mm round explode in his own gun barrel.

T
WO DAYS LATER, ON
A
PRIL 10, WE WERE BACK UP NORTH
again, looking for mobile SAMs. Six CeeJays, divided into three flights of two, had started the day north of Baghdad hunting ROLANDs. This missile system was originally a joint Franco-German project and, with the history of love and cooperation between those two nations, you can imagine how that panned out.

However, it was fielded eventually, and Saddam bought about a hundred of the ROLAND II version back in the early 1980s. It’s an all-weather, short-range system with its own Pulse Doppler radar and optical tracker. Very quick and mounted on trucks, all-terrain vehicles, or tank chassis, the ROLAND was extremely hard to see visually or electronically. Iraqis would hide behind buildings or under overpasses to escape detection. They’d get target information from their own system, spotters, or air traffic control radars, then scoot out, lock and shoot, then scuttle back into hiding, like hermit crabs. Iraqi ROLANDs had killed a few Iranian jets, several British Tornado fighters, and at least one American A-10.

We’d put a Killer element (of the Hunter Killers) over the area at about 15,000 feet. Their job was to listen to the Hunters, develop a “picture” of the situation, and be ready to attack. The Hunters would then take turns flying low over suspected locations to draw fire. We called this “slapping the bull.” If a ROLAND, or any target, could be provoked into firing then, while the Hunters evaded the missiles, the Killers got a visual on the SAM and would swoop in to attack.

This was best done with six aircraft, called a Six-Pack, with the extra flight acting as spotters. The spotters would fly between the Hunters and the Killers and watch the ground. This was absolutely critical when hunting SA-6s, SA-8s, or ROLANDs. The spotters would also act as extra Hunters or Killers, if needed. A Six-Pack also gave us lots of flexibility with weapons and extended our time over a target by rotating flights back and forth to the tanker.

The communications involved were the simple “attacking-defending-shooting” contracts we’d used against the SA-3s on April 6. This was almost always done on a clear frequency, using plain English. Weasels don’t usually have the luxury of convoluted code words—and the delay inherent in using secure radios could be fatal. So we just talked. And it usually worked.

But not today.

“FABLE 33 . . . this is ELI 63 on your Victor.” Storm’n had been leading the first six-pack that morning, and I assumed he wanted to pass a situation report.

The aerial refueling tracks had moved north now that southern Iraq was more or less subdued. I’d just come out of the track and was headed north toward the Alpha Sierra series of killboxes north of Baghdad.

“Go.”

“Two Dogs . . . found aircraft up at Balad, and we took out at least nine of them. We’re off target now, and I think you’d better come up here and see if we missed anything.”

Damn it
. I frowned and shook my head in disgust. I was sure that Storm’n hadn’t left anything behind. Sighing, I replied, “Roger that . . . fifteen mikes.”

Nine aircraft. Targets were getting harder to find these days. I looked out at the now-familiar gray-and-black clouds that perpetually hung over Baghdad these days. Hussein and his psychopathic sons had fled the city, and no one knew where they were hiding. However, all bets were on his hometown of Tikrit, so the threats had to be cleared for the grunts to advance farther north. As a result, the Weasels were roaming up and down the 89 series killboxes along Highway 1. Balad was the biggest MiG base in Iraq, and it lay between the highway and the Tigris River about thirty miles north of the capital. We’d showed up there on April 2 and I’d destroyed seven aircraft that the Iraqi Air Force had left lying around. Apparently, Storm’n and the boys found some more.

Eighteen minutes after leaving the refueling track, I keyed the mike. “FABLE Two . . . Balad is right two o’clock low, twelve miles.” I then sent a data-link.

My wingman that day was a young captain who’d been brought in to work on the mission-planning team. Called “Chucky”—after the title doll in the horror movies, because he had red hair and tended to become satanic with a few drinks in him—he was a good pilot and had been a great help. As alluded to earlier, mission-planning truly sucked for guys that were used to being
in
the action, not watching it. But it had to be done right, so you grabbed top-notch guys from other squadrons to do it. They all volunteered, because otherwise they’d be left behind, and at least this got them close to the action. Close is usually as good as it got, but the 77th Fighter Squadron commander, Storm’n, permitted these guys to fly, too. This was partly because he was a good man, who knew the value of rewarding performance, and also because our mission-planning products improved drastically after the planners got some current experience.

“FABLE Two . . . contact.” He had seen the runway and sounded a bit excited.

But if Storm’n and his Six-Pack had been beating up on the airfield for twenty minutes or so, I figured there wouldn’t be much left. Balad was plain to see. There were two big runways that came together in a “V” with the point facing southeast. We’d taken particular pleasure in knocking the crap out of this place, since it had been a thorn in our sides between the wars. I leaned forward, stared at the once-proud fighter base, and grinned.

Not so proud anymore.

Thin columns of black smoke rose from all over the center section of runway. They looked like pillars with no roof to support. At about eight miles, I zippered the mike and gradually swung around to the north in the standard Weasel arc. Balad lay just west of the Tigris, and the long, gray runways were easy to see against the flood plain. Several of us had been flying with binoculars, so I flipped the autopilot on and stared at the base.

The main area was between the eastern runway and the river. There were lots of buildings, a road network, and housing. I shrugged. Nothing worth sticking my nose down there for. Holding the binoculars with one hand, I reached down and adjusted the autopilot to keep the turn coming. The burned-out fuselages from our last trip here were clearly visible. I smiled. The Iraqi air-defense gunners had been
pissed
off. I always wondered how the Iraqi fighter pilots felt as they peeked out of their shelters at the Gamblers swirling overhead and strafing the shit out of their base. Probably the same way the 363rd Ops Group commander felt when our returning jets would roar overhead and spill his coffee. Impotent.

There’d been so much Triple-A over the airfield that day it looked like a small thunderstorm. But no SAMs, which was strange. Nor any today, I confirmed with a glance at the RWR.
Yet.
No, everything of value looked like it had been smacked hard. Planes were burning bright, hot yellow flames with dark-red edges gave way to the thin plumes of black smoke.

Suddenly, a series of rippling flashes caught my eye, and I dropped the binoculars. Anti-aircraft fire from at least three different pits had found us. Judging by the rapid twinkling, I’d guess it was 57-mm and, a few seconds later, I saw the bursts.

“FABLE 33, Triple-A, Balad,” I said calmly. We were about three miles from the base, so I wasn’t concerned. However, where there’s Triple-A there are usually SAMs.

“FA . . . FABLE Two copies. I see the bursts!” Again, I smiled at his excitement, but it was his first combat mission, and I understood. We were crossing the northern end of both runways looking down the funnel at the point of the “V.”

“Two, heads-up for SAMs. We’ll continue arcing around to the east.”

“FABLE Two copies.” He sounded slightly incredulous. We’d said all this on a clear frequency, because it was easier and maybe some intelligence officer down there would understand. He might then get the gunners and SAM guys to shoot at us. I’d certainly hit the Triple-A pits if nothing else showed up but I’d rather bag some bigger game. Like a SAM or more aircraft.

As we crossed the river heading southeast, the visibility got a little better. There were high broken clouds, and narrow beams of sunlight would poke through like fingers reaching for the ground. It wasn’t great, but then again it never was. I touched the RWR volume to make certain it was up and watched for missiles.

The big lakes west of Baghdad were gray smudges along the horizon. The city itself was due south of me and lay dark and defeated, quiet for the first time since the war began. Yesterday, Baghdad had been declared an open city, and Hussein’s regime was formally over. The Marines famously had pulled down the forty-foot statue in Firdos Square, which had been erected for Saddam’s sixty-fifth birthday. Happy birthday, fucker. I’d still seen flashes and tracer fire as we’d overflown the capital, but no Triple-A or SAMs. I sighed again. It meant we’d have to go farther north to hunt.

Looking southeast, I had an idea and unfolded my big tactical map. Glancing at it, I tugged out the latest SAM chart and compared the two. There was an airfield at Baqubah, about six miles at my left ten o’clock, and, as far as I knew, no one had ever hit it.

“FABLE Two, float west.” I zippered the mike and reversed slowly to the east, putting Balad behind me. A huge, ambiguously named “military complex” was also marked on my map just outside of town.

“Two . . . look at right two o’clock.” I rolled out headed east. “See the town?”

“Affirm.”

“Call contact on the east-west running hardball road north of the town.”

“Contact.”

“Target is the airfield, north of that road and west of the big river bend.”