Flying an F/A-18 Hornet convertible

Received this in an e-mail this morning....makes an interesting
read.....

---------------------------start--------------------------



F-18 vs. KC-10 - or Flying a Hornet Convertible

Subject: Who says a six hour mission has to be boring?

Thought y'all might get a kick out of a recent experience of mine.
I'll chop this for an Approach article. Thinking the bits about the
hot air force chicks is probably gonna have to come out. I'll leave in
all the trash talkin' though.

In case anyone asks, flying around in an F18 without a canopy is bad
for the skin. Twenty thousand feet over Afghanistan in an open air
McDonnell Douglas Cabriolet is just a bad bad place. Air's real dry up
there, cause the skin to dry out. That and the wind chill of course.

KC10 take-up reel on the refueling hose didn't do it's job. Didn't
take up. After some wailing and flailing The KC10 and I disconnected
but I still had part of it with me. The basket and seven feet of hose.
The hose had a 10 pound fitting on it that was quickly revealed when
the wind stripped off the rubber sheath from the hose.

Once revealed it proceeded to beating the living **** out of my
airplane. "This is gonna be bad, this is gonna be real bad," I
thought. I was right.

After twenty sufficiently violent whacks the canopy gave up the ghost.
I never thought about what a shattering canopy would sound like. Up
until then of course.

I figured since it's made of plastic it shouldn't sound like glass.
Wrong.

Sounded just like when you go flying through a plate glass window. Of
course all the glass went out vice in. Cockpit went from eight grand
to ambient in about a heartbeat. Which was a pretty small unit of time
right then.

Don't know exactly where the KC10 went. Last I saw him he was turning
for the south west, spewing gas in the air and spewing words over the
radio.

"Bossman" had no time for little 'ole me. One of his Air Force
brethren was experience discomfort. Had to yell at him to get his
attention.

At first (before I put the top down) I thought I could make it home.

"Okay, it's 650 away, I got 13.5....probably have to go pretty slow
and kinda low. And that hunk o' **** on my nose can't be doing much
for my gas mileage. This should warrant a ready deck. Yeah one or two
passes before they have to barricade me. And I ain't boltered yet
so..."

Then the glass shattered.

"Okay, Jacobabad it is. My boarding rate at a 10,000 foot airstrip is
even better."

Nav system told me it was 260 NM away. My body told me it was pretty
damn cold up there. The KC10 remains were still trying to get at my
head so I started descending and decelerating (opposing states so I'm
not sure I did either one that efficiently).

Leveled off at twelve thousand. I stopped getting beat up, the fitting
just hung in the slipstream by my canopy bow, at 230 knots. So there I
was...Eight thousand feet above Afghanistan at 230 knots. "You know,
If a guy really wanted to get shot by a MANPAD he'd fly a profile a
lot like what I'm doing right now." Oh well.

It's at times like this when you just make a decision and go with it.
If you pull it off then it was, "...outstanding airmanship and in
keeping with the highest tradition of the United States Naval
Service..."

If you don't pull it off, if you get bagged, well...maybe they'll name
a safety award or the new Base gym after you.

My wingman was still with me through all this. Because of some late
tankers and shuffling to get guys that were using our tanker to go
further north he only had 10K in gas so he definitely wasn't gonna
make it back. Well, not definitely, he could still tank after all.

But because of how I had to sit in the cockpit to minimize the wind
blast I needed him to watch over me.

I was pretty much hunkered down for the ride at this point. Seat
lowered, visor down, cockpit heat up full and hunched over staring at
one of the TV screens in the cockpit. It's weird the thoughts that
come to you during times like this.

"You know sitting this close to the screen is bad for my eyes." Had to
snicker over that one.

I could look right and left and see the Afghanistan and then the
Pakistan scenery slowly drifting by -- too slowly.

On the descent the airplane's computer was displaying how long it
would take me to get to the divert given my decelerating airspeed.

"Okay, 20 minutes not bad I can do that no pro...oh thirty minutes
now.

Okay piece of cake... Forty!? ****." Settled out at forty eight.

In the end I didn't really look outside much Just peeked over the
dashboard every couple of minutes to make sure the velocity vector was
on top of the upcoming ridgelines.

This part of the world is not pretty by the way.

Once everyone realised the seriousness of the situation they started
to talk to me. The AWACS switched me over to the E2 in charge of the
south.

They started relaying stuff I needed to tell the boat. The parts the
jet would need in order to make a flight back out again. The fact that
my wingman was going to make the 0900 recovery vice the 0730, stuff
like that.

"The boat wants to know how badly the canopy is cracked." I couldn't
believe that one. I thought he would have heard all the wind in the
cockpit and known. "It's not cracked, it's gone. I'm flying a
convertible."

Apparently that line made it through all the nets loud and clear. The
next day I was talking with the CSAR guys in Jbad and they said they
got spun up when the read that on chat. (It's all real time chat
nowadays.)

What did not get through was the driver of the convertible. I know the
E2 guy knew who I was. The conversation by the end had degenerated to
call signs – Gretzky and Duck. Not professional but somewhat
comforting that the ship was waiting for me to return at 0900 vice my
wingman. All this technology!

As far as the cockpit was concerned there were two different and
distinct regions. From my knees down I was toasty and warm. "This
little piggy" was getting sweaty in fact. Then the chilly zone above
that.

The wind was swirling around pretty good and I was trying to grab all
the paper and shove it into my helmet bag. Only lost one bit of
classified stuff. Not too bad all things considered.

After twenty minutes I started getting the shakes; after thirty they
were fully developed. I tried to stuff my whole body down by the
rudder pedals with limited success. Kept my hands warm though.

Thank God for auto pilot.

About this time my wingman came up and said, "Hey can you reach out
and grab that thing, pull it in?" I looked over at him (not that he
could see me) with a look of shock. Stick my arm out into that wind,
get my arm blasted back and thrashed on the glass shards sticking up
everywhere?

"Have you lost your mind?!" "Oh yeah, guess it's kinda windy. Sorry."
Like I said, it's strange the thoughts you have sometime.

My wingman and I talked about the airfield. Frequencies, layout, the
fact that the locals like to shoot at planes landing there. You know,
just normal airport talk.

We talked about landing on a runway, something neither of us had done
for three months.

And we dumped fuel to lighten the load. We both were carrying two
thousand pounds of unexpended ordnance so the Air Force guys were
gonna love us.

Lastly we dropped the landing gear in close formation and compared
airspeed and AOA to make sure the KC10 hadn't damaged my AOA and
airspeed probes as well.

I had him land first because I thought the hose might drag on the
ground and get rolled up on by the nose wheel. After that who knew
what would happen.

The plane flew fine with all that junk on it. Just had to use the
rudder pedals, which is kind of an emergency procedure for a Hornet
pilot.

When I slowed to on speed I got the "sunroof effect" pretty bad. You
know when you're zorching down the road and you open the sunroof but
leave all the other windows up? That vibration you get until you crack
another window? Well I got kind of an advanced case of that during my
Space Shuttle descent to final. We both rolled out fine.

Well maybe not fine. We had to use all ten thousand feet and both had
smoking brakes. Our brakes hadn't been used like that in awhile. On
the boat the wire brings you to a gentle stop without them, of
course.

The emergency crews were waiting for us, and they were pointing and
gawking as would be appropriate for a situation such as this. Couple
natives looked on in a disinterested matter.

Of course I had to do a flight physical after all this. Had to make
sure I wasn't on drugs before I launched on my six hour mission into
Afghanistan .

The facilities in Jacobabad ain't that bad. I'm here to tell you we
are number one in tent technology. Our tents kick ass.

They got AC and everything. Since it's an Air Force base they got all
the best entertainment. Drew Carry and Joan Jett had been there
already. Shania Twain was supposedly coming too (broke my heart, if
only I'd had better timing...).

And of course the Toga Party on Saturday. Can't forget that. Yeah,
it's kinda like the boat. Except for the booze and the Toga Parties.
Other than that it's just like the boat.

Other random observations:

Air Force got all the good buildings. Marines are on the outskirts,
again.

The boys from the 101st are spoiling for a fight. Hate coming in
behind the Marines all the time.

Dust over everything. Lots of people there that don't look like they
are in the normal military.

I don't care what any psychology major would say about it, it's just
cool carrying a gun everywhere.

MREs are not too bad. Could see how people would get sick of them
though.

Tent city was a little slice of American suburbia right in rural
Pakistan .

Only Air Force base I've ever been on that didn't have any hot
chicks. Of course I was only there for 24 hours.

The place is a FOD nightmare.

The maintainers showed up about four hours after I did. After the
appropriate amount of gawking they got to work and fixed it well
enough for the RTB in under four hours. Nice job all around.

Both the end of the basket and hose were removed, the canopy had been
replaced and the LEX repaired with 300 mile an hour tape. ("Americans.
Can Do Easy.")

Three of the guys showed up and then disappeared with two big boxes of
geedunk. They were on a booze hunt. They succeeded.

The Air Force settled all the maintainers into two spare tents and
they had a grand 'ole time.

The next morning I took off low and fast at sunrise. Low and fast was
due to the locals and the guns, of course. Not because it was fun.

I checked in and the E2 said, "It's good to hear your voice again."

The RTB was uneventful right up until the end.

A PTS shaft died and subsequently one of my Hydraulic systems gave up
the ghost when I dropped the gear. I got a couple of spurious flight
control cautions but didn't really give it much thought as I was
working the landing.

As I started the approach turn the nose started to wander and I got
another caution tone. I lost one aileron, one rudder and half a
horizontal stab. I hit the reset button and I think everything
cleared.

Then I saw the Hydraulic Cautions come up. Hitting the reset button
suddenly went from normal response on short final to a big mistake.

When the aileron failed again I realized I sorta needed to get aboard
the first time.

"Man, first I miss Shania and now this. This is just not my week."

I got it aboard because the Hornet is a fantastic jet.

I got a Fair grade for the pass because I'm not very smooth when I'm
rattled.

I pretty much assumed I was in trouble throughout all this.

A canopy has got to cost 70 or 80 grand.

Depending on how much repairing the windscreen and the airframe were,
it could cost over 200 grand -- which would mean a Class B mishap --
which would mean I was screwed again.

Thinking all of this and then seeing the CO waiting for me when I
landed made my heart sink.

But that was not the reason he was there. The decision was made
somewhere to make a big deal about this in a good way.

Just like that – Dirt Bag to Hero. Funny.

This isn't the first thing that's happened to me out here you know.
We're flying the **** out of these jets and it's starting to show. I
had to come back from the box with an engine shut down a week or two
before.

I'm starting to feel like that LT that keeps getting hosed in "The
Bridges at Toko Ri ."

I got my letter in after all. I'm getting too short for this ****.

Oh well, statistically speaking the rest of cruise should be smooth
sailing. What are the odds something like this will happen again?

I love planting the seeds of irony.

--------------------------end----------------------------

Greasy

"Marine Airdale" wrote in message ...
Received this in an e-mail this morning....makes an interesting
read.....
---------------------------start--------------------------
F-18 vs. KC-10 - or Flying a Hornet Convertible

snip

Another advantage of the boom over the hose and drogue. This is, unfortunately, not all that uncommon.

Curt
KVPS

Thanks for posting.

--

Scott

What Franklin Delano Roosevelt falsely charged in 1936 is visibly true
today. “A small group” is intent on concentrating “into their own hands an
almost complete control over other people’s property, other people’s money,
other people’s labor – other people’s lives.”
http://tinyurl.com/klygnc

"Marine Airdale" wrote in message
...
Received this in an e-mail this morning....makes an interesting
read.....

---------------------------start--------------------------
snip
I got my letter in after all. I'm getting too short for this ****.

Oh well, statistically speaking the rest of cruise should be smooth
sailing. What are the odds something like this will happen again?

I love planting the seeds of irony.

--------------------------end----------------------------

Thanks for this, it's an interesting story. Just one question: what is your
correspondent intimating by "I got my letter in after all. I'm getting too
short for this ****."?
--
Andrew Chaplin
SIT MIHI GLADIUS SICUT SANCTO MARTINO
(If you're going to e-mail me, you'll have to get "yourfinger." out.)

Andrew Chaplin wrote:

Thanks for this, it's an interesting story. Just one question: what is your
correspondent intimating by "I got my letter in after all. I'm getting too
short for this ****."?

He has met his time obligation and is leaving the Navy.

On Aug 11, 4:59*pm, Marine Airdale wrote:
Received this in an e-mail this morning....makes an interesting
read.....

---------------------------start--------------------------

F-18 vs. KC-10 - or Flying a Hornet Convertible

Subject: Who says a six hour mission has to be boring?

Thought y'all might get a kick out of a recent experience of mine.
I'll chop this for an Approach article. Thinking the bits about the
hot air force chicks is probably gonna have to come out. I'll leave in
all the trash talkin' though.

In case anyone asks, flying around in an F18 without a canopy is bad
for the skin. Twenty thousand feet over *Afghanistan in an open air
McDonnell Douglas Cabriolet is just a bad bad place. Air's real dry up
there, cause the skin to dry out. That and the wind chill of course.

KC10 take-up reel on the refueling hose didn't do it's job. Didn't
take up. After some wailing and flailing The KC10 and I disconnected
but I still had part of it with me. The basket and seven feet of hose.
The hose had a 10 pound fitting on it that was quickly revealed when
the wind stripped off the rubber sheath from the hose.

Once revealed it proceeded to beating the living **** out of my
airplane. "This is gonna be bad, this is gonna be real bad," I
thought. * I was right.

After twenty sufficiently violent whacks the canopy gave up the ghost.
I never thought about what a shattering canopy would sound like. Up
until then of course.

I figured since it's made of plastic it shouldn't sound like glass.
Wrong.

Sounded just like when you go flying through a plate glass window. Of
course all the glass went out vice in. Cockpit went from eight grand
to ambient in about a heartbeat. Which was a pretty small unit of time
right then.

Don't know exactly where the KC10 went. Last I saw him he was turning
for the south west, spewing gas in the air and spewing words over the
radio.

"Bossman" had no time for little 'ole me. One of his Air Force
brethren was experience discomfort. Had to yell at him to get his
attention.

At first (before I put the top down) I thought I could make it home.

"Okay, it's 650 away, I got 13.5....probably have to go pretty slow
and kinda low. And that hunk o' **** on my nose can't be doing much
for my gas mileage. This should warrant a ready deck. Yeah one or two
passes before they have to barricade me. And I ain't boltered yet
so..."

Then the glass shattered.

"Okay, Jacobabad it is. My boarding rate at a 10,000 foot airstrip is
even better."

Nav system told me it was 260 NM away. My body told me it was pretty
damn cold up there. The KC10 remains were still trying to get at my
head so I started descending and decelerating (opposing states so I'm
not sure I did either one that efficiently).

Leveled off at twelve thousand. I stopped getting beat up, the fitting
just hung in the slipstream by my canopy bow, at 230 knots. So there I
was...Eight thousand feet above *Afghanistan *at 230 knots. "You know,
If a guy really wanted to get shot by a MANPAD he'd fly a profile a
lot like what I'm doing right now." Oh well.

It's at times like this when you just make a decision and go with it.
If you pull it off then it was, "...outstanding airmanship and in
keeping with the highest tradition of the United States Naval
Service..."

If you don't pull it off, if you get bagged, well...maybe they'll name
a safety award or the new Base gym after you.

My wingman was still with me through all this. Because of some late
tankers and shuffling to get guys that were using our tanker to go
further north he only had 10K in gas so he definitely wasn't gonna
make it back. Well, not definitely, he could still tank after all.

But because of how I had to sit in the cockpit to minimize the wind
blast I needed him to watch over me.

I was pretty much hunkered down for the ride at this point. Seat
lowered, visor down, cockpit heat up full and hunched over staring at
one of the TV screens in the cockpit. It's weird the thoughts that
come to you during times like this.

"You know sitting this close to the screen is bad for my eyes." Had to
snicker over that one.

I could look right and left and see the *Afghanistan *and then the
Pakistan *scenery slowly drifting by -- too slowly.

On the descent the airplane's computer was displaying how long it
would take me to get to the divert given my decelerating airspeed.

"Okay, *20 minutes not bad I can do that no pro...oh thirty minutes
now.

Okay piece of cake... Forty!? ****." Settled out at forty eight.

In the end I didn't really look outside much Just peeked over the
dashboard every couple of minutes to make sure the velocity vector was
on top of the upcoming ridgelines.

This part of the world is not pretty by the way.

Once everyone realised the seriousness of the situation they started
to talk to me. The AWACS switched me over to the E2 in charge of the
south.

They started relaying stuff I needed to tell the boat. The parts the
jet would need in order to make a flight back out again. The fact that
my wingman was going to make the 0900 recovery vice the 0730, stuff
like that.

"The boat wants to know how badly the canopy is cracked." I couldn't
believe that one. I thought he would have heard all the wind in the
cockpit and known. "It's not cracked, it's gone. I'm flying a
convertible."

Apparently that line made it through all the nets loud and clear. The
next day I was talking with the CSAR guys in Jbad and they said they
got spun up when the read that on chat. (It's all real time chat
nowadays.)

What did not get through was the driver of the convertible. I know the
E2 guy knew who I was. *The conversation by the end had degenerated to
call signs – Gretzky and Duck. Not professional but somewhat
comforting that the ship was waiting for me to return at 0900 vice my
wingman. All this technology!

As far as the cockpit was concerned there were two different and
distinct regions. From my knees down I was toasty and warm. "This
little piggy" was getting sweaty in fact. Then the chilly zone above
that.

The wind was swirling around pretty good and I was trying to grab all
the paper and shove it into my helmet bag. Only lost one bit of
classified stuff. Not too bad all things considered.

After twenty minutes I started getting the shakes; after thirty they
were fully developed. I tried to stuff my whole body down by the
rudder pedals with limited success. Kept my hands warm though.

Thank God for auto pilot.

About this time my wingman came up and said, "Hey can you reach out
and grab that thing, pull it in?" I looked over at him (not that he
could see me) with a look of shock. Stick my arm out into that wind,
get my arm blasted back and thrashed on the glass shards sticking up
everywhere?

"Have you lost your mind?!" "Oh yeah, guess it's kinda windy. Sorry."
Like I said, it's strange the thoughts you have sometime.

My wingman and I talked about the airfield. Frequencies, layout, the
fact that the locals like to shoot at planes landing there. You know,
just normal airport talk.

We talked about landing on a runway, something neither of us had done
for three months.

And we dumped fuel to lighten the load. We both were carrying two
thousand pounds of unexpended ordnance so the Air Force guys were
gonna love us.

Lastly we dropped the landing gear in close formation and compared
airspeed and AOA to make sure the KC10 hadn't damaged my AOA and
airspeed probes as well.

I had him land first because I thought the hose might drag on the
ground and get rolled up on by the nose wheel. After that who knew
what would happen.

The plane flew fine with all that junk on it. Just had to use the
rudder pedals, which is kind of an emergency procedure for a Hornet
pilot.

When I slowed to on speed I got the "sunroof effect" pretty bad. You
know when you're zorching down the road and you open the sunroof but
leave all the other windows up? That vibration you get until you crack
another window? Well I got kind of an advanced case of that during my
Space Shuttle descent to final. We both rolled out fine.

Well maybe not fine. We had to use all ten thousand feet and both had
smoking brakes. Our brakes hadn't been used like that in awhile. On
the boat the wire brings you to a gentle stop without them, of
course.

The emergency crews were waiting for us, and they were pointing and
gawking as would be appropriate for a situation such as this. Couple
natives looked on in a disinterested matter.

Of course I had to do a flight physical after all this. Had to make
sure I wasn't on drugs before I launched on my six hour mission into
Afghanistan .

The facilities in Jacobabad ain't that bad. I'm here to tell you we
are number one in tent technology. Our tents kick ass.

They got AC and everything. Since it's an Air Force base they got all
the best entertainment. Drew Carry and Joan Jett had been there
already. Shania Twain was supposedly coming too (broke my heart, if
only I'd had better timing...).

And of course the Toga Party on Saturday. Can't forget that. Yeah,
it's kinda like the boat. Except for the booze and the Toga Parties.
Other than that it's just like the boat.

Other random observations:

Air Force got all the good buildings. Marines are on the outskirts,
again.

The boys from the 101st are spoiling for a fight. Hate coming in
behind the Marines all the time.

Dust over everything. *Lots of people there that don't look like they
are in the normal military.

I don't care what any psychology major would say about it, it's just
cool carrying a gun everywhere.

MREs are not too bad. Could see how people would get sick of them
though.

Tent city was a little slice of American suburbia right in rural
Pakistan .

Only Air Force base I've ever been on that didn't have any hot
chicks. *Of course I was only there for 24 hours.

The place is a FOD nightmare.

The maintainers showed up about four hours after I did. After the
appropriate amount of gawking they got to work and fixed it well
enough for the RTB in under four hours. Nice job all around.

Both the end of the basket and hose were removed, the canopy had been
replaced and the LEX repaired with 300 mile an hour tape. ("Americans.
Can Do Easy.")

Three of the guys showed up and then disappeared with two big boxes of
geedunk. *They were on a booze hunt. *They succeeded.

The Air Force settled all the maintainers into two spare tents and
they had a grand 'ole time.

The next morning I took off low and fast at sunrise. Low and fast was
due to the locals and the guns, of course. Not because it was fun.

I checked in and the E2 said, "It's good to hear your voice again."

The RTB was uneventful right up until the end.

A PTS shaft died and subsequently one of my Hydraulic systems gave up
the ghost when I dropped the gear. I got a couple of spurious flight
control cautions but didn't really give it much thought as I was
working the landing.

As I started the approach turn the nose started to wander and I got
another caution tone. I lost one aileron, one rudder and half a
horizontal stab. I hit the reset button and I think everything
cleared.

Then I saw the Hydraulic Cautions come up. Hitting the reset button
suddenly went from normal response on short final to a big mistake.

When the aileron failed again I realized I sorta needed to get aboard
the first time.

"Man, first I miss Shania and now this. This is just not my week."

I got it aboard because the Hornet is a fantastic jet.

I got a Fair grade for the pass because I'm not very smooth when I'm
rattled.

I pretty much assumed I was in trouble throughout all this.

A canopy has got to cost 70 or 80 grand.

Depending on how much repairing the windscreen and the airframe were,
it could cost over 200 grand -- which would mean a Class B mishap --
which would mean I was screwed again.

Thinking all of this and then seeing the CO waiting for me when I
landed made my heart sink.

But that was not the reason he was there. The decision was made
somewhere to make a big deal about this in a good way.

Just like that – Dirt Bag to Hero. *Funny.

This isn't the first thing that's happened to me out here you know.
We're flying the **** out of these jets and it's starting to show. I
had to come back from the box with an engine shut down a week or two
before.

I'm starting to feel like that LT that keeps getting hosed in "The
Bridges at *Toko * Ri ."

I got my letter in after all. I'm getting too short for this ****.

Oh well, statistically speaking the rest of cruise should be smooth
sailing. What are the odds something like this will happen again?

I love planting the seeds of irony.

--------------------------end----------------------------

Greasy

Not quite Oyster's tale but well told.