Post your favorite "war story" here.
Here's mine. I was flying a dawn patrol mission once in Oklahoma. Our aircraft was the T-38 Talon that day. A fun little twin jet, but it was made in the fifties and known for funny malfunctions like stuck throttles.
I was flying with Jim Duncan that morning. We checked out a jet to do some "navigational practice" but of course we were really going to fly to the mall in Wichita.
At the run-up at the end of the runway, all the instruments looked fine, we let go of the brakes and raced down the strip in afterburners, quickly reaching 120 kias. It was a hot day, though, so the "refusal point" (the point at which you can no longer stop the plane before the runway ends) was actually ahead of the "take-off point" (the point at which the plane leaves the ground.) Which leaves a very bad "Twilight Zone" area where you are going to fast to stop and not fast enough to take off.
It was right there when I heard a loud "BANG" in my right engine. The Emergency Fire T-Handle lit up, along with enough other caution lights to light a Christmas tree. We were on fire.
I quickly pulled the T-handle to extinguish the fire. Now I had to make a life-or-death decision, and I had about 1/10 of a second to do it.
Try to brake and possibly end up like the six million dollar man when my landing gear sheared off in the grass and the plane tumbled?
Or take a burning aircraft into the air?
I chose to pull up and try to make it around the pattern. I still had one good engine after all. RAPCON (Radar Approach Control) called me and said "Baron 07 you are on fire and trailing smoke." I replied, "Roger, RAPCON, Baron 07 is declaring and emergency and requesting a go 'round. Clear the pattern please and give me a vector."
(Which basically means get everyone the Hell outta my way, I'm going from where I am now straight to the other end of the runway and I'm gonna land on it come Hell or High Water.)
I felt good about that because it was my first emergency (other than a fuel imbalance but that's another story) and I had a good plan. They tend to get rather angry when you call them and ask "What should I do?" You are, after all, a fighter pilot. And they take great care to convince you that you are the greatest that ever lived for this very reason. There's no time to doubt yourself. (Which BTW is why I sometimes come off a little arrogant to people I meet, it's not my fault, really.)
I flew the aircraft off the ground, then suddenly I heard another loud "BANG" from the left engine. Now there were very few lights on the dash that weren't blinking at me. The alarms were screaming in my ears. I began to really wonder if I was going to make it, because our aircraft did not have zero/zero ejection seats. Ours were 100/100. 100 feet of altitude or 100 MPH were required.
Zero/zero seats will turn you right side up automatically and they have little rocket engines that take you up to a safe altitude before your chute opens. Ours were just 100 pound bombs that would just as likely shoot you straight into the ground with your chute opening afterward and settling on the crater. (We called that doing a "Bugs Bunny".)
We still had a little thrust, so I pulled back slightly and we gained altitude, I was beginning to feel a little better. I put a left bank into the stick and ...
The aircraft banked RIGHT! This is not good. We were no longer pilots. Now we were just passengers. ( I found out later that the fire had burned through the control cables.) I did feel relieved, though. Because now it was a no-brainer. We had to eject.
I told Jim, "Prepare to egress, stow all loose items!" A few things right herre about bailing out of a plane. First pull in your legs or you'll be a lot SHORTER, if you know what I mean. Second, stow loose items or that pencil in your lap will make it impossible to have children later. third, lean your neck back and tighten up your neck muscles or your tongue will touch your toes as you punch out.
If you've ever jumped out the the swingset, you know what a "zoom and boom" maneuver is. We trade all our speed for altitude, the plane stalls out, we eject at the top. I used the trim tabs to trim the plane nose down so that it would go straight back to the ground after we left. then I yelled, "EJECT! EJECT! EJECT! ( You always say it three times and never use that word until you mean it. We used to tell the students that if they heard us say "eject" the third time, they would be flying solo, whether they were ready for it or not.)
Jumping out at around 100 mph must feel much like getting swatted with a flyswatter does to a fly. The wind is incredible. The "buttkicker strap" threw my seat away from me and since the "zero delay lanyard" was connected, the seat automatically pulled my ripcord. I got a good chute, no twists or line-overs.
I looked over and saw Jim, he gave me a "thumbs up" to indicate he was fine.
The plane wobbled a bit, then...
FLATTENED OUT AND TOOK OFF LIKE A GUIDED MISSLE! I couldn't believe what I was seeing. It shouldn't be able to do that... but it was. Straight out and straight at Enid OK which was five miles off the end of our runway. I found out later that it did destroy a structure. Nuked it good, but no one was there at the time, since it was 0430 in the morning. And of course the Air Force rebuilt the structure for the owners, better than new.
As for me, I came down in a freshly plowed field and ate approximately 3 lbs. of Oklahoma dirt. Otherwise I was fine. I had to retell this story to the next 5 classes of incoming students, since I was the only pilot on the base that had ejected at the time.
Jim came down on the power lines, but he was fine too. His only gripe was that some Okies had come along but wouldn't help him climb down unless he gave them his helmet. (A very expensive item that is specifically formed to the individual pilot's head.)
The Air Force's investigation revealed that I had taken a birdstrike to the right engine and that the pieces of broken turbine had traveled over to the other engine and broken it, so I didn't have to pay for a 6 million dollar aircraft! Whew!
We fondly call that, "Giving the plane back to the taxpayers!"
So I lived happily ever after..so far.
Diction, anyone?
