Chris Penningroth’s Weltanschauung

     Today was a superb day! Scrappy, Pitch, Scooter, and I were going to double-turn ACM sorties.  The original plan was to try to play "ACM Baseball," with Scrappy and Pitch "batting" first sortie and Scooter and I "batting" second.  We set up four waypoints in the sky in the shape of a diamond.  The object was to start at "homeplate," and fly from first base (the first waypoint) to second base, to third base, and back home.  Red Air would play outfield by attempting to get a simulated kill on Blue Air, and if Red Air scored a missile or gun hit on Blue Air, Blue had to return to "homeplate" and start the trip around the bases over again (sort of like getting tagged out).  If Blue got around the bases back to "homeplate" without getting tagged out, Blue scored.  After both sorties, whomever had made it around the bases the most would win. 

     As life happens, Scrappy had a problem with his jet just after takeoff, so he held at the field with Pitch chasing him while Scooter and I flew some high-aspect BFM.  We got about five sets done, which is actually quite a bit.  Two things were working in our favor:  We got airspace close to the field and it was VFR (no divert fuel required). 

     On the second sortie, all four of us managed to get out to the airspace, but the weather didn’t really facilitate a "baseball" game by that time, so we switched to something more like Tap-the-CAP.  It was still a blast, even though Scrappy was in a completely clean jet (unlike the rest of us who were carrying centerline tanks). 

     With the second flight of the day my monthly training requirement was completed (I’d made RAP, as we say)! Of course, now this means no more flying for the rest of the month!

     Today Drago, Motor, Sox, and I flew a pit-and-go pair of ACM sorties.  Drago and Boat flew Blue first sortie, Sox and I flew Blue on the second.  We had a great time on both sides (so to say). 

     It went like most ACM sorties.  The one interesting moment happened when Motor intelligently used the sun as a backdrop to dive in on me, preventing me from seeing him.  Sox called out for me to evade, but since I couldn’t see which direction Motor was coming from (up, down, or sideways), I elected to simply fly in the circle I was going in and make some small jinking maneuvers, essentially remaining predictable so Motor could fly around me.  A lot of fighter pilots would likely have taken the opportunity to practice a vigorous no-sight defense.  I wasn’t comfortable with that, and maybe I ought to have been, since I knew Sox saw Motor and could have knocked off the fight if I’d rolled the wrong way into Motor, and maybe I’d've saved us from the browbeating I would (probably rightly) get in the debrief for not being aggressive enough getting out of Motor’s gunsight.

     After we got back and reviewed tapes, Motor was pretty excited that he had in fact gotten some "Frames" on me from his attack, meaning if he’d been firing his gun, the shells would have hit my jet.  He was so impressed with himself he kept crowing about it for several minutes.  He only stopped when he noticed I was counting "Frames" in my tape on his jet.

     The difference:  I knew he was there and simply chose to not maneuver aggressively without being certain where he was, thereby ensuring no close passes would occur.  He just didn’t know I was attacking him at all. 

     If in real life, it would have been like the difference between performing damage control (or lets face it, probably having to bail out) while wondering what I could have done better (a no-sight defense) and wondering "Holy Smokes! What just happened!?!"

     Sometimes the lesson learned isn’t exactly about the technical aspects of the flight! 

     Today’s mission was to be a medium altitude surface attack tactics flight.  Rost would lead our four-ship while Drago led a second four-ship against a pair of actual Red Air and a bunch of simulated SAMs.  It was a little benign, but still fun.  Red Air leaned on Drago’s flight, so they got to clean up the air picture and pretended to attack the pretend SAMs for us.  Our four-ship flew to our targets unmolested (which was what made it benign), even when we ran a second attack drill. 

     This was about as ho-hum as it gets trying to coax 18 tons of metal and JP-8 at 500mph through hundreds of horizontal and tens of vertical miles!

     Today Huck, Boat, Gilligan, and I went all-out to try to make life miserable for Kane, Topper, Bosco, and Rost.  We threw ‘em the kitchen sink and they handled us pretty well. 

     The interesting thing was we were fighting near the leading edge of a blizzard that was approaching the airspace and was due to hit our base late that evening.  The oceans below were unusually calm for this time of year.  The serene scenes below of snow-capped islands reflected in the calm seas beneath gentle bands of clouds certainly made a nice backdrop for the main event!

     The first shot in the arm was a really fun SEAD mission.  Gilligan, Lt Col Z, Scooter, and I flew out to the training area with my old friend Cash and his wingman Motor playing Red Air.  We shot our way in, shot our way out, took a couple extra shots at some theoretical SAMs for good measure. 

     The second shot in the arm was a no-kidding immunization.  Maybe it’s just me, but I really don’t mind getting shots.  I like the idea of being immune to any and every disease possible.  I’ve got antibodies for everything from anthrax to yellow fever!     

     Stalker, Stiffler, Gilligan, and I all went out today to knock out some ACM.  Stalker and I kept the Blue role all day.  We knocked out two defensive perch sets, two intercepts, and a handful of "Tap the CAP" sets in before we all ran out of gas.  We pulled a lot of G’s and had a lot of fun, plus we learned (or re-learned) one or two items.  It was good training!

     Shep and I traded in our skis today for a pair of Vipers and took to the skies instead of the slopes.  In what’s become standard ops for me, we were to be Red Air for an ACM ride. 

     Naturally, we had 2 wing-mounted fuel tanks, while the adversaries had only one centerline tank.  Just to make it that much easier for them.

     The most challenging part of the flight today was the ILS through the snow band.  I was 400′ high before I saw the runway.  I haven’t shot an actual approach that low since about March 2002.  I had wanted to do a no-HUD approach off the "steam gauges," and while the flight ahead of us didn’t sound like they were having any problem, we ended up getting a report of reduced visibility, so I terminated the no-HUD practice and dialed the HUD steering symbology back from no intensity to medium intensity (the HUD wasn’t actually off, no one in their right mind actually turns it off because that’s just begging to have it stay off when you really need it; medium intensity works best because at high intensity it actually becomes difficult to see through rain or snow).  To be honest, with the HUD on, it wasn’t really very challenging. 

     It was still a lot of fun!

     Today was Operations Group War Day! We basically put both squadrons together and tried to do two really large-scale practice missions.  Despite being selected to play Aggressor yet again, it was a lot of fun!

     Deuce and Scrappy handled most of the planning for the morning go, and they did a great job coordinating everything from airspace to takeoff times to push times for four different missions.  Ultimately it was a safe event and we got several good lessons learned out of the series of missions. 

     Tonight the plan was for six of us to launch out for an early night sortie to practice attacks in two different formations to see how they’d work out.  Scooter and I were going to try to practice dropping JDAM (which is unbelievably easy) and another flight led by Hoser was going to practice SEAD.  We’d worked everything out so that we would stay high and they would stay low, but we’d all be in the same airspace, so we would have to pay attention to everyone else in addition to our own flights.  God bless whomever invented LINK-16, because when that’s working, it increases your situational awareness at least 169%. 

     As often happens in winter at our location, we had been experiencing "Snow bands" all day.  We knew this was happening when we briefed, so we timed our launch to coincide with the middle of one of the snow bands, and we were going to tailor our mission to last just long enough to land after the next snow band had passed.  This meant we all stepped to our jets as it was pouring down snow.  This wasn’t a huge problem, the snow removal crews just kept plowing the taxiway (sorry, base housing families who had to shovel the street in addition to the driveway!), and a de-ice crew stood by to clean off whatever accumulated on the jets. 

     Everything was relatively fine as we taxied to the end of the runway for our last-chance checks.  The problem was once we were there, the snow band didn’t end.  It just kept snowing, with visibility staying fairly low.  After sitting in EOR for about fifteen minutes, weather finally told the SOF that there wouldn’t be a break in this particular snow band, so we weather-cancelled the entire go. 

     I’m glad we leaned forward to try to get to fly, but we hate to get to EOR only to get our flights cancelled.  We’d put in the maximum amount of time possible in order to get absolutely no flight training.  With so many things to do, it’s crushing; but it’s the cost of doing business. 

     All things considered, I can think of a lot of other things I’d rather not do than taxi an F-16 around in the snow.