Leaderboard

Awkward pause.

Not my video. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lTR-J3iBCYs <iframe width="420" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/lTR-J3iBCYs" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe> My story. “Knock it off! Knock it off! I’m out of control!” “Viper 1 Knock it off, you’re at 10,000 feet.” What just happened? My 26,000 pound F-16 is flopping around like a Giant Oak leaf in an Autumn tornado. Both sides of the cockpit are instantly glowing with a Christmas tree of warning lights now illuminated. The heads up display flashes off and on with snippets of info here and there when the computers gain some semblance of situational awareness – 000 on the airspeed. I haven't seen that before. The only time that is good is back in the chalks. I wonder if this jet will ever be there again? I am 90 miles off the coast in the dead of winter with ocean temperatures somewhere in the low 40’s. 10 seconds ago I was having the time of my life on a defensive 3k with the boss. My goal was simple – live. His was also simple – kill. I started out in a position of disadvantage, a scripted setup that left me with a late pickup of a bandit 3000 feet away at my 7:00. “Next set will be a defensive 3k for number 2.” “2.” “1’s ready.” “2’s ready.” “Fights on!” I’m craning my neck over the left rail of the Martin Baker Ejection seat to see the entire left side of the canopy filled with another F-16. I am looking at the top front of his Viper but he is quickly pulling lead to unleash with the gun. The massive intake of the General Electric is beginning to show light and I know if I don’t move now, another second will pepper my jet with a hail of twenty millimeter from the cannon over his left shoulder. 6000 rounds a minute will make quick work of the aluminum and computers I call my office. Jink now! I slam the stick back and over with as much G as she’ll give me to dodge the bullets in flight. The only un-guided weapon on the F-16, he is duck hunting with a 6-barreled Gatling Gun. A smart duck simply needs to get out of the way and try to remain unpredictable for any follow up shots. The Viper is one of the most maneuverable jets in the air and in the phone booth it is lethal in a knife fight. My second goal is to stuff his shot, spit him out front and turn my disadvantaged starting point into an exercise in offense. I snaproll the jet off axis with my eyes firmly fixated on his plane throughout the maneuver – lose sight lose the fight. With the best visibility of any jet on the planet there is no excuse to not watch his every move. He is quickly on to my rouse and seeing my jet plant in the air in front of him, he has no choice but to pull off high to preserve his range. He probably could keep aiming for one more attempt but with the speed I just lost during the jink, if he misses he will definitely end up neutral or worse in a defensive crouch. I see his nose pull off to the right and that is my chance to stuff him even more. I continue the roll and pull max G right at him. Suddenly the plane snaps 120 degrees and I am beak to beak. Neutral. A fantastic position to be in, for only seconds earlier I was faced with certain death and instantly I have negated his advantage. I’ve never seen it happen that quick, usually these things result in a quick kill, at best you may be able to fend him off for a while but ultimately he should win with his advantageous starting position. How did this just happen? Write that down and use it again – I just mastered Defensive BFM! I could see the surprise in his jet across the circle as he violently maneuvered his jet out of plane. I was about to be able to employ weapons, I simply needed to pull him into the HUD and shoot. Easy. Pull. Awww, come on girl, just give me a little more so I can wrap this up. The F-16 was the first all-electric jet. It’s inherent instability yielded fantastic maneuverability but needed computers to reign it all in. HAL decided how much Angle of Attack to give you, how much thrust to give you, how much G and the onset rate. He would even decide what controls to give when you wanted to roll. Sometimes he would give you some rudder, sometimes some aileron. He always trimmed for 1 G and even put the flaps up and down depending on your speed. This made the Viper the easiest plane on the planet to fly. Any 152 pilot could easily take off and land if you showed them where the gear handle was. The problem was that every so often, the pilot became a voting member. The jet was designed to avoid you flying outside of the envelope. It wont let you stall and it will limit your G’s to 9 to avoid the 12-15 it is easily capable of. With that vote, every now and then you want a little bit more and under very certain circumstances, it is possible to “Assault” and override these limiters. The jet usually lets you know, the nose will stop tracking where you want it to go and you simply let go of the stick to give Hal back the reigns. Unfortunately today I went way past that point and when I wanted more, Hal let me have it. The jet instantly went out of control to the point the computers had no idea what was going on. I became offensive simply due to a maneuver the jet was not capable of doing – a tumble that instantly swapped ends. There would be no offensive advantage for me today. I was falling out of control and I was falling fast. A crowbar wouldn’t have had a straighter path to the ground. I was now living the infamous “Top Gun flat spin” that killed Goose. The jet was absolutely flat with zero airspeed and a stable triangular pattern with the nose tracking gently up and right and down and left. The wings and tail were alive with the computer trying frantically to regain control but it was futile with the bad information it was receiving from the AOA and Airspeed indicators. It was too far gone to reel it back on its on. The Vertical speed was pegged at better than minus 6000 feet per minute and I was at 10 thousand feet above the ocean. At 6000’ it was time to get out of the jet. “Caution Caution!” Bitching Betty is having a conniption. OUT OF CONTROL RECOVERY I’ve written these words and other emergency procedures before flying for years. I’ve done countless recoveries in the sim. Rote. A3.1.9. OUT-OF-CONTROL RECOVERY: A3.1.9.1. Controls - Release A3.1.9.2. Throttle - (GE) Idle, (PW) MIL if in AB. Well, that didn’t work. I look like a rodeo cowboy with my arms now flailing around while this wild Bronco shows no sense of taming. Good thing I let go of the controls. It is amazing how time dilation sets in. Everything begins to slow down and my mind starts to wander. That water looks cold. I wonder if the parachute rigger was on his game the day he packed the chute? How long can I live in this poopy suit if my raft doesn’t inflate? This is going to hurt my back. That sucks. How long will it take the Coast Guard to get out here? Can they even make it this far? Maybe I should have been a Helo pilot. I am going to owe a lot of booze to those guys when they pick me up. How many guys are on that helo anyways? Can they share a bottle? Cheap ass, buy them each a nice 25 year old Scotch, it is the least you can do. Is TIB really a good show, I’ve never actually seen them. What did they say in water survival about sharks? There is a fishing kit in case I’m out here for a few days. How big of a fish can I catch with a number 2 hook? That will keep my mind occupied. Fishing. At least I have that going for me. As the jet fell lifelessly towards the cold, wet abyss below, I resolved to fish after I turned my F-16 back to the tax payers. I could just imagine the look on the rescue guy’s face as I ask him to hold the fishstick I just caught while he hoists me up to safety. I was determined to have it stuffed and mounted above the mantle as a reminder to never go out of control again. “8000 feet.” My flight lead is doing circles around me and calling out my altitudes. I’m screwed. I do the math of the time he took to call the last two altitudes and even with time dilation I am screaming downhill in a hurry. I can’t believe I am going to punch. I can feel my heart beat faster and my breathing picks up a notch. Adrenaline is coursing through my veins. I’ve put civilian planes intentionally out of control thousands of times flying aerobatics. End over end Lomcevaks, gyroscopic inverted accelerated flat spins – I was very comfortable when out of control. My heart doesn’t pick up a single beat per minute when my civilian plane tumbles or tail slides. Apply the procedure, fly away and do it again. Fun. This was different. I didn’t put my jet here on purpose. Since the jet was designed to be inherently unstable, it is very comfortable when it is out of control with no computer aid. I however, am not. “Warning Warning!” Thanks Betty. Why don’t you bitch at Hal to get us out of this mess. She went from Caution to Warning. That can’t be good. What does the Dash-1 say? “Warning - May result in serious injury or death” or something like that. A3.1.9.5. If Still Out-Of-Control: A3.1.9.6. MPO Switch - OVRD and Hold A3.1.9.7. Stick - Cycle in Phase MPO switch. Manual Pitch Override. HAL is FUBAR and it is time for me to take over and show this jet who’s boss. Because I know better than a 30 million dollar computer and the army of 100 pound rocket surgeon brains who programmed it. The idea is to cycle the stick at the same time the jet is oscillating. As the jet noses down, I apply full down. When the nose rises, I pull the stick to the aft stop. The MPO switch overrides the limits on deflection and gives a few more degrees to the horizontal stab movement. In theory, the extra uumph should get me out of this pickle. Full up. Full Down. Full Up. Full down. The nose of the jet is still keeping pace. A metronome, rocking up and down with no sign of recovery. Boy that water looks cold. About 2 hours until sunset. I hope I don’t spend the night out here. It is supposed to be below freezing. My dog is going to go hungry. Do I need SOS in residence when I completed correspondence? Come on old girl, give me some love. Up. Down. Any minute now Viper 1 is going to call out 6000’. I’m over the ocean, I don’t have to worry about hitting any mountains. Maybe I’ll stay with it a little longer. 2k is our controlled ejection altitude, how does 4000’ sound. What is up with that new UPT patch? Will I ever fly again if I put a good jet in the drink? Is the jet good? Maybe something is wrong with one of the controls. I’m breathing heavy now. The jet is not recovering. This is not like the sim. This is not like the sim at all. Up Dowwwwnnnn. The nose slowed this time on the down stroke. It paused for just a second. An RCH of hope. It had not done that yet. Hold it. Hold it down. Come on old girl. Stay down. Get some airspeed. Nose towards the ground. Gravity is good now. Fly out of this mess. I’ve got my entire weight forcing the stick to the forward stop. Probably 200# of crazy strength gluing the stick down. Stay there and lets go get a beer together. Back Up. Like it came unglued and rocketed back skyward. Son of a motherless goat! YGTBSM. So close. Come on man. Give me a break. 6000 feet is written in blood. Going lower is foolish. Get that out of your mind right now. At 6k you will punch no matter how close you think you are to recovery. Too many guys have tried to recover unrecoverable jets and left their families to pick up the pieces. When you hit the mins, plant your head back against the headrest, put both hands on the ejection handle and cowboy up. Deal with the consequences later and live to tell the tale on Baseops.net to a bunch of guys who think telling stories on Baseops.net is foolish. I can’t win. There is a story of a Navy trainer where they were in an intentional spin and couldn’t recover. Both pilots bailed out, the plane recovered and went on to fly over several states unmanned until it ran out of gas and crashed. That would be my luck. Either way, I’m out on the next cycle. Balls. Up. Down. Down. Down…. The nose is hanging up again on the down oscillation. Come on. Work with me here. Airspeed. 60knots. 70. 80. Aah. Down. Altitude 7400 feet. Stay there honey. You stay right there. 90 knots. 110. Come on sweet heart. Show me some love. 150. 6900’ I'm flying. *sigh* “Viper 2 recovered.” “Copy Viper 2. Come left 90 degrees and put home plate on the nose. 1’s in for the BD check.” I’ve still got gas for another set and lead wants to go home. Wuss. Maybe next time. Epilogue I was out of control for around 30 seconds. A life time. When you talk to bros who have punched, they remember everything. The click of the handle firing the motor. The smell of the rocket. The canopy separating and the aircraft falling below as they shoot upwards and away. That 30 seconds was an eternity. I had a million more thoughts that I didn’t put to paper about my family and good times in life. I’ve had some close calls, but I really didn’t think this jet was coming home. You think a lot about the seat during that time. It turns out that because of the parallax, Viper 1 had called his altitude on that initial radio call. I was really at 13000’ when he called 10,000. The next call that I heard as 8k was really 11k. He had put his jet truly level with mine as he flew around me and corrected himself on the altitude. 11k to me was impossible as I was descending, so my mind heard 8,000’ and that put me on the timeline to get out of the jet. The next call, I had committed to punch. In the confusion, and looking at the tapes, I did have a good altitude readout but since I heard it verbally I had tuned it out. I made an effort in the sim afterwards to really watch the altimeter during practice events. Lastly, watching leads tapes, he squeezed the gun trigger right after I went out of control and I defeated the shot. To all those who have joked about jinking with the MPO, although I don’t recommend it, going out of control is effective.

So, is the Air Staff just sitting on this year's ACP and hoping all of the eligibles will forget about it? Most of the eligibles I know were on the fence about staying or leaving *with* the bonus. The decision seems pretty easy without it! Let me do the math: No bonus + no committment + sequestered flying hours + guard/reserve hiring + airline potential = What's the downside? If you plan on punching, punch early! The rest will be stuck when Big Blue catches onto the mass exodus and uses Stop Loss or other drastic measures to curb it. -9-

Then why did I spend so much time in MOPP 4 at Kunsan?

Motion detector on the door ops checks good.

"Can we get a target description?" "Well, our IMINT can't get a clear shot at him, it's like he's the predator or something. However, HUMINT says he's the goofy asshole wearing the top 1/3 of a shiny silver poncho & makeup like an extra from Mad Max, so confidence is high that VID will be a cinch."

Well we all know you can't spell manslaughter without "laughter."

Yes, yes...and then after the Wing all call/CGO development brief the Wing Commander could be barely contain himself...he drew a deep excited breath in as he looked around at his Squadron Commanders, smirked at the Group CC, high fived his execs, chest bumped the Vice, shrugged and said, "APRIL FOOLS!!" At first they laughed uncomfortably, and then the laughter grew and then...hush...they all gave each other that look that reads, "ohhh yea, I feel F'in SHARP in these ABUs today!" --- Of course I'm only kidding and do hope Gen Welsh is moving in this direction, but reading into what the Wing CC/bossman said, there could be a simple yes or no answer to these things...combat experience (yes or no)...IP time...(yes or no). More true is, Wing Executive Combat Experience SouthWasian Vacation or IP time earned while flying with a General (and another proficient IP to do all that pilot stuff). The other stuff...no change from previous boards. I'd say your Wing Executive Pilot Officer's number one push from the Wing CC still outweighs IP time. His/her previous two executive jobs prior to getting close to the wing commander were where he or she earned was given strats based on nothing deploying tough deployments/mission execution but being willing to work in an environment where the weapon system is never discussed and making crap solid edits to you and your buddies OPRs only advances his/her PRF further. Strats...#1 strats, generally go to the Execs...and these mean a lot to a board member...often less more than being a Leader/Pilot and taking care of people as a Flight Commander. It's as easy as this...the current organizational mindset is that at some point in your life you've got to ask yourself a question and then give a retire as a flying lt col/major/MSgt career answer. The Question: Are you an Officer or a Pilot? And for me, that's what's wrong with the Air Force--for me, that question is based on an organizational paradigm bred by folks who have worked in the halls of a five sided building for the last ten years hoping for a combat staff deployment to enhance their combat resume. Well, shoe clerks...I have news for you, we recognize that WE are the solution. We've learned to say NO, that question sucks...I'm a leader. The warrior mindset that the air force needs going forward has already been born. The scream of the twin towers crash were our mother's birthpains. We spent the last ten years of our Laconic youth surfing on an ocean of fuel over Baghdad Babylon and Alexandria Kandahar--a storm of steel riding in from the west on a tidal wave of fuel. We've called down lightning from the mouth's of eagles, and taken parts of men to Europe to be raised like Lazarus. These and other lessons--like the look of children who won't forget the loss of their father or forget their father's time away from home--have taught enough of us that before any containers get checked we need to go to the bathroom, puke up the koolaid, look ourselves in the mirror and realize you aren't an officer or a pilot, you're YOU and by God if you aren't a LEADER it's time to find another J.O.B. to do. We are leaders first--in or out of the flight suit; in or out of the cockpit; not caring who gets the credit for mission results and pushing forward because we won't fail the dude/chick on our wing...we've learned that LEADERSHIP...in the primal, substitution/sacrifice, servant, fall on a grenade to save your men sense of the word is who we are. And no matter how many different schemes the shoe clerks come up with or how many stones the pentagonal freemasons build into our career pyramids, the collective memory of a generation will be carried forward--much the same way it was for Leonidas Gen Welsh, so if he can do anything to turn the tide, all the better. But I know, much as he does, that the best is yet to come...just hold the gap, the immortal politicians are making a run at us now. You want to get promoted be a leader: be so good at your primary, secondary and additional job (whatever you do) that dudes under you and above you ask you the hard questions and verify information with you, only do things you WANT to do and then be extremely good at them, be such a good person to everyone you come in contact with that they want to be around you again because they know how good of an influence you are on them, most importantly SERVE others. After you get those fundamentals down, then go about the business of asking yourself the hard questions...do I care enough about the future of my country to put aside my hatred of what I am about to do in order to remain relevant in this climate. And yes, though it hurts me to say it...that might mean being an exec or doing a masters degree...do something to be given a DP. Finally, don't ever think you've earned it or are better than your bros...luck and timing make up about 69% of everything related to promotion. /rant

And I think, with Hoss' explanation, this thread is done....

Their eyes are wide open, dude. Especially that guy in the front.

Fini Flight. You either know it will be your fini flight or you don’t. I had mine planed out for months. “Viper 2, traffic eleven o’clock , 3 miles slightly high. Slow mover.” “2’s tally” That is the first thing he has said in the last 30 minutes. Right after taking the runway I checked him in on the departure frequency and he had not said another word since. Radio discipline is absolutely necessary in our job, something I did not realize fully until flying over the skies of Iraq. Working with JTAC’s, air controllers other flights, predators, helicopters and humvees all on the same frequency - there is no time for small talk. Every word needs to have a meaning. Brevity. There are no umms or aahhhs – nothing extraneous. Think about what you are going to say and find the 3-1 term to say it. A book a thousand pages long with a chapter specifically written on how to say things. Every flight in the last five years we have debriefed to it and so far this flight is going well. An HH-60 Blackhawk helicopter passes motionless a thousand feet above our flight, the workhorse taxi of Iraq. The doors are open and a few dudes are sitting on the edge with their boots hanging into the air. One gives a hang loose sign as we rocket past at 500 knots. Our flight is at 500 feet and 500 knots, hugging the trees, weaving and bobbing in and out of the valleys. Nap of the earth flying using the terrain to hide from the SAM threats that abound around us. The General Electric I am strapped to is not even sweating. It will still give me 300 more knots with a 2 inch flick of the throttle. I am covering a mile every 6 seconds but it is comfortable now. I have time to check out houses and notice fisherman in the lakes. What was a blur a few years ago has slowed down immensely and given me time to think well ahead of the jet. I have a map in my left hand and a photo of the target along with the attack we will be using strapped to my knee. A quick study of the terrain we will see will pay huge dividends in about 5 minutes. I have my pen handy to jot down any notes the ground controller will give me when we check in. All this with a 2 second time to impact the earth with any wrong moves. The laws about texting and driving always crack me up – we are on a different level. I was 3 seconds late on my last turn point and need to push it up a little to get there on time. I have a two minute window to deliver, but bombs on target on time to the second is the goal. This will be the lat time I drop bombs for a long time and I want to shack the SA-6 site on the first run attack. The next plane I fly won’t do low levels and I know I am going to miss the Viper. I have had an outstanding time with my squadron the last few years and have been mentored by some of the finest pilots in the Air force. My final flight won’t be without some tears, I’ll be leaving some great friends and my first love – the F-16. The plan is a 10 LAT, Rip 6, 1 pass and haul ass. 1 shot with no re-attacks. Nothing worse than stirring up the hornets nest with the sound of a NASCAR race and going through dry. A re-attack with an aware enemy is much more risky. The element of surprise is a tactic that worked for Ghengas Kaahn and a flight of fighters alike. The initial point looks exactly as briefed, a small bridge over the creek at a low point in the valley. We are going to egress back over the mountains and be gone and out of sight just as quick as we arrived. Ghosts of destruction. 5 miles out, we still cannot see the target at these low altitudes. Viper 2 checks 45 degrees to the right. I immediately check 30 and climb 15 degrees nose high. Things are starting to happen fast. Off the left is an opening in the road and as I climb, an SA-6 is just becoming visible through the trees. His radar just woke up to the fact that I was there, the operator woken up by an alarm and the computer asking for consent to fire. Off my right, Viper 2 squares up to the target on a simultaneous attack. He needs to pickle before my bombs impact so he can see where to drop. I roll inverted and point. 10 degrees low, target just below the nose. Track. Small adjustment left. Wait. I am only 1000 feet above the ground with the target rapidly approaching. These are dumb bombs. Old school. They go where you pickle and if you miss you miss. No fancy lasers or GPS to put them back on track. The sport of kings and a skill the CAF is rapidly losing with less flying and the adaptation of high tech guided weapons. I have less than 5 seconds to figure all this out. 520 knots, heading down hill. Watch the throttle. Aim. Put the thing on the thing. Let the green stuff do its magic, the hamsters working overtime to calculate it out. Warheads on foreheads. Whatever. The pipper tracks right over the center. Pickle. Hold. Track. The death dot passes squarely across the target and is moving rapidly. In milliseconds, 6 bombs ripple off the jet in quick succession. 2 lofts his bombs in from a mile out so he doesn’t get nailed by the frag of mine. We both pull 5 g’s in an aggressive left hand turn, back to formation, back down low and back out of sight. Gone. Blue Death. 12 BDU bombs leaving a pile of hair, teeth and eyeballs in our wake…. A perfect training mission and a perfect way to end my career in the plane I have come to love. The end of the Fini Flight is usually met with the same enthusiasm on the ramp. It is traditional for friends and family along with the entire squadron to meet the jet as it taxis in. Long over are the days of multiple burner low approaches inches over the squadron building but there still is some unique style to ending ones career in a particular fighter. I have seen guys taxi back with gorilla masks on, blow up dolls fully inflated and my personal favorite – helmet removed and replaced with one of those beer caps, 2 Bud Lights strapped to the sides of a yellow plastic ball cap with a straw going to both. The canopy opened on his jet and he tossed a dozen empties over the side. “Thank God he didn’t crash” is all the commander could say. “Could you imagine the accident report on that one with a case of beer in the wreckage.” It is not over with the landing, as the pilot takes his last step off the ladder it begins. Some try to run but most know to stay put. My squadron gets one of the cops to handcuff pilots to the tie down rings on the ramp just to make sure they don’t go anywhere. Kids get the small fire extinguishers, and mom gets the hose from the fire truck to soak the pilot down. This is a fantastic exercise when snow is on the ground – as it turns out, the rubber, watertight dry suit we wear during the winter months is also fantastic at holding water on the inside. Often times, someone will unzip the dry suit, shove the fire hose in, sts, fill it up with water and zip it back closed. Probably 50 gallons or so get trapped and freezing temperatures offer no reprieve. This much water weight will pin the pilot to the ground until the water drains out of his sleeves. A bottle of champagne is shared by the bros, we call the pilot a quitter and generally throw a big party in the bar that evening. Tradition, and something every fighter pilot should have. I had flown that same flight a hundred times but my planned fini flight in the Viper did not happen that way. None of it. Not even close. Back in November of 2009, my buddy Monty had his fini flight as well but he didn’t know it. A few days after his last flight, on an off day, he was out in his front yard doing a little lawn maintenance when a Pontiac GTO went out of control and jumped the curb up into his yard killing him instantly. He died trimming his trees on a day off. Unbelievable. Fighter pilots know exactly how they will part the surly bonds of earth. It happens one of two ways. You die telling stories of your past glory at a relatively young old age from liver complications from the whiskey you drank to help make those stories entertaining – OR – you plow in at tremendous speed, out of control and on fire, completely content in the fact that you just took 5 flankers with you. A national frickin hero. A decorated combat veteran and one of the finest fighter pilots this world has ever known did not go down in a blaze of glory with his hair on fire. He was not slain by AAA even though it had been aimed at him. He was not damaged by SAM’s even though they were trained on his jet. He has had countless emergencies and brushes with death over his decade and a half flying fighters and he came out unscathed. He was a phenomenal fighter pilot, well respected in the community, and unfortunately he did not go out on his own terms. Monty was the kind of pilot that everyone wanted to follow into battle. As one of my early F-16 instructors, he was unanimously voted as one of the best. He had an easy going personality combined with an unbelievable knowledge of tactics and golden hands that made him an extremely talented aviator. He was also a good friend and mentor and played a tremendous part in my follow on assignment. I had dinner with he and his wife just a week earlier. 3 years later and I still have trouble making sense of the way he parted this earth. Tragic. Monty grew up in Ohio and Ohio is where he wanted to be buried. We flew jets out to Selfridge Michigan the next weekend to honor him with a missing man fly over of his funeral. Unfortunately, just after we landed, the storm of the year started to pass through. Detroit and Chicago O’Hare shut down and the entire country was being crippled by a massive front. Snow had just started falling when we landed, the forecast was getting worse and it looked as if there would be absolutely no way to get airborne the next day. We chatted with the crew at base ops regarding the next day’s flight and they were determined to do whatever it took to make it happen. They knew of the accident and knew what it would mean to Monty to get us airborne. We passed 2 dozen accidents on the way to the hotel that night, the snow had turned to freezing rain. Hell really had frozen over, there was no chance the flyover would happen. We met Monty’s family that evening and they were just as good of people as he was. I had been on a fishing trip with Monty and his dad down in Florida a few months prior and his old man was devastated. They were true friends. His wife was also a good friend of the squadron. A fantastic woman, also an Air Force pilot, who lost her husband far to early in their marriage. There was nothing to say so we talked about all the good times. They had all thanked us for bringing the jets out and understood that we wouldn’t be able to fly. The next morning we pressed out to the airport anyways. The storm had been devastating, cars had been in the ditch all night from sliding on the black ice and power outages were widespread from iced over trees falling on power lines. It dumped another 1.5 feet of snow on top of the ice over the night. The weather was still a few hundred feet overcast with freezing fog and mist. 45mph is all we dared to go but we had to at least try and make it happen. When we pulled up to the airport we were amazed at the sight of several snowplows already hard at work. The base ops manager said they called in extra employees and came in early. If the weather cleared, the runway would be ready. I have never seen an F-16 iced up as badly as these jets were. They looked pathetic and crippled with hundreds of ice sickles jetting off every point that water ran off. The wings were covered in snow and under that was a layer of frozen ice. The manager said the de-ice truck was ready when we were. We made the call to fire the jets up. There was no chance the weather would clear, but we felt we owed it to Monty to try. The truck de-iced us and we hobbled our way out to the runway single file. The cleared area was barely wide enough for an F-16 to sneak through. At the end of the runway we waited. And waited. We were all watching our watches, waiting for the no later time knowing the funeral had already started. We had about a half hour to go until it would be too late. None of us said a word. At the 29 minute point, tower called and said we had the absolute minimum weather we needed to lift off. “1’s Ready.” “2’s Ready.” “3’s Ready.” “Tower, Viper flight ready” “Good luck boys, cleared for takeoff.” The tower controllers knew the importance of this flight as well. It was dark, gray and dreary. Absolutely miserable out. Off we went a minute later and immediately into the weather. A few minutes into the climb, lead broke the silence. “Well fellas, here we go.” We were in the weather forever. If the ceiling was the same over the cemetery, there was no way we would be able to do the flyover. We pressed on anyways. Passing through 25,000 feet we finally broke through the clouds. The misery and dreariness of the weather below was left behind and we broke out into a crystal clear blue sky above. It was a beautiful sight to see the sun, but a white blanket of thick clouds stretched out as far as we could see. The satellite image showed it stretched for a thousand miles. 100 miles to go and there was no hole in site. There was no chance this was going to happen but we owed it to Monty to press on anyways. A check of the weather with the center controller said the clouds in the area were overcast from 400-800 feet with 1-2 miles of visibility. “Viper flight, cleared to descend to 1500’. Good luck fellas.” The center controller knew how important this flight was as well. Down we went, back into the black abyss. The blue sky disappeared and the gentle white clouds quickly turned grey and then black. The weather sucked but we pressed down anyways. “Viper flight, cleared to 1000’” On the AUX radio, lead called our buddy with a handheld on the ground. “It doesn’t look good fellas, I’d estimate a few hundred feet at best.” 1000’ was the minimum vectoring altitude in the area and as low as we are legally allowed to go. If the clouds were at 800’ we would have to call it a day. Miraculously, and against all odds, we broke out of the weather at 1500’. We were in a radar trail formation with 2 miles between each jet. One by one we popped out of the weather and slowly joined up. We had 5 minutes of loiter time and we were holding about 20 miles away. There was still a wall of weather between us and where we were going. We were in a sucker hole, just wide enough for us to fumble around and wait. It was still a long shot even though we were so close. At the 4th minute, the weather parted and a rainbow appeared right above the cemetery. “You see that Rainbow?” “Yep. This is meant to happen” The rainbow, no kidding ended right on the mark point for the cemetery. Viper 2 was on the left wing, I was on the right. In between lead and myself was an empty space for another Viper. Where Monty’s jet belonged. The missing man. We flew slowly over his funeral during taps. His broken wings put back together and placed on his chest in the coffin. His body was on the ground but there is absolutely no doubt that we were actually flying on his wing that chilly morning. There is no way that flyover should have happened, but somehow it did. Monty was watching over us and he wouldn’t have wanted it any other way. After we flew over, the clouds closed up and we were again swallowed by the weather. Our good buddy was laid to rest with a proper send off. He dedicated his life to the service of our country, it is the least we could do to pay him back. We had a few more beers that night and reminisced more about our friend. Old Monty stories turned up from other squadrons that we had never heard. Different time, different place, but same old Monty. What a great guy. The next afternoon the weather finally broke. I led the lonely flight home and landed at night. A handful of pilots met me at the jet, the rest were still in transit from Ohio. There was no ceremony, no fire hose, no pictures, or Champaign. A simple handshake to a few of my good friends to commemorate my fini flight in the F-16 was all I needed. That long flight home was my last in the mighty Viper. “Here’s To Monty” we all said in unison. I rubbed my hand down the nose of the jet for the last time and took my gear inside. I cut my teeth on the Viper, and Monty was a big part of that. Not by any means what I planned for a fini, but I wouldn’t have it any other way. I miss that bird, but I miss my friend more. I’ll see him again the next time I fly. Here’s To Monty.