stands out clearly. It was a night when complacency gave wayas is its tendencyto terror.
A line of thunderstorms was slowly crossing the Mississippi River to our west, but according to the forecast, we would have clear but hazy weather for the low-level route and the drop. The night was very dark with no moon, and haze blotted out most stars, yet the air was smooth. Our call sign was Ruler 12, number two, in a three-ship formation, sitting at the standard 2,000 feet in trail behind the leader. Ruler 13 was another 2,000 feet behind us. This was a visual formation, but we were using our station keeping equipment (SKE) as a backup, to monitor the position of the other planes in the formation. The SKE information was displayed on the radar scope, but our scope was inoperative that night. It was not a problem, though, since the scopes in the other planes worked, and we did not anticipate weather penetration. Visual contact was all we needed. All was well until shortly after we dropped down to our standard 1,000-foot altitude for night operations.
The warning was ever so subtle. I momentarily lost sight of Lead's lights as some soupy cloud flashed by us. But such conditions weren't unusual this time of year. It must have been some patchy fog. There were no thunderstorms forecast for this area until much later in the night, 'Right, Jeff?' I sought reassurance from my copilot.
'Right.'
We knew that the leader had a good radar and hoped he would not lead us into something nasty. I relaxed as the fog disappeared and the security of Ruler 11's formation lights reappeared. But then Hell paid us a visit.
Lead's lights disappeared again. Something grabbed us. The huge claws of some giant demon into whose stormy lair we had blundered gripped us and began to shake us savagely. The Herc lurched, jolted, and slammed, as if the weather demons were using us in some sinister demolition game.
'CLIMB! CLIMB!' yelled Russ Gatlin, my navigator. As he spoke I was thrusting the throttles forward and rotating, knowing that I had to get away from the ground immediately. But the Herc was bucking so hard that I couldn't read the gauges. The pitot-static instruments were fluctuating wildly, what I could see of them. I fought off a twinge of panic, trying to modulate the back pressure to get a climb going but not too much, lest I overrotate and let the airspeed decay.
As I fought the storm, I tried to remember the procedures for inadvertent weather penetration. Since I was number two, and slightly on the right side, the procedure called for me to turn right forty-five degrees, hold that course for one minute, and then resume the base heading. Three would do the opposite. This would give the formationnow dangerously blinda much safer spacing. But that procedure obviously wasn't going to work here in the throws of a struggle for survival where we couldn't even hold a steady heading.
About that time I heard the leader's frantic radio call. 'Everybody turn south, NOW!'
South was the direction from which we came, thus the direction of good weather, but there was a big problem with Lead's order: it did not separate us. All of us turning south at once would be like a platoon of soldiers executing a right face. They all turn yet remain in the same proximity to one another. But I knew that Lead was fighting his own battle for control and had no time to devote to separation.
The plane was climbing, but I did not want to make the turn Lead had ordered, at least not abruptly. Under the rolling, tossing conditions I felt that too much bank would induce control problems. I tried to hold about a ten- degree right bank and hoped the awful bucking would slack as we climbed. It worsened. Then the horrifying thought struck me that Lead was turning into us.
Knowing better, I glanced up. Taking my eyes off the instruments was an invitation to vertigoa state of confusion and disorientationbut it was an instinctive move. I was expecting to see lights emerge from the murk. For a few horrid seconds the storm was the lesser threat. They would be into us in a heartbeat: life ending and eternity beginning in a savage collision; a ripping and tearing of metal; his props devouring us; our wing tip piercing him; tons of fuel detonating; an enormous furnace of twisted metal plunging out of the maelstrom.
And as I glanced back again at the pitch black gloom, the sky flashed with a nuclear brilliance and the plane shuddered in a deafening blast. The ride became even more violent as the flashes and booms continued to thrash us. At one point the generators faltered under the electrical onslaught, and the cockpit went dark. But the blackout was only momentary. Yet I knew that if we lost power for any longer than a few seconds under these conditions, we would become hopelessly disoriented. We would roll over and enter a high-speed dive and probably pull the wings off in a desperate attempt to recover. Aviation history was replete with such accidents.
We were too busy to realize how tense our body muscles were, how clenched our teeth were, and how gripped we were with fear until it was over. And over it was, as quickly as it had begun. The gloom departed and the glorious lights of rural Mississippi lay before us. The air smoothed, and we became aware again of the hum of our props. Then the shock set in when we saw Lead sitting out there a couple thousand feet below uson our right side.
We learned later that Ruler 13 had watched the whole escapade on his SKE as he executed his escape turn. He saw the lead plane's symbol on the scope merge with ours. Only the altitude had separated us. And we never managed to find out why Lead's navigator didn't see the thunderstorm on his scope. The next morning I sat at my drafting table pouring over geologic maps, but my mind was still back in the cockpit, fighting the storm. It could have been badreally bad. But one thing was certain, I thought as I correlated electronic well logs, and it made me smile: I wouldn't trade places with anyone.
The squadron was a fairly kindred groupnot as fraternal as a fighter squadron but close. Still, we were split into two factions: the afternoon fliers and the night fliers. The afternoon guys were those who had jobs with flexible hours or maybe no job at all. That mission launched at 3:00 p.m. and landed at 5:00. About that time the night guys, those who more closely fit the 'weekend warrior' stereotype, began to arrive. Their mission launched about seven. The two groups became two different societies, sometimes seeing each other only on drill weekends, rarely flying together. And a measure of rivalry developed. The night fliers thought the day fliers were pretentious, overrated bums. The perception stemmed from the propensity of the day fliers to participate more than was required. Because they weren't shackled by restrictive jobs, they could fly any time the Guard wanted, and as a result they were the most experienced of the two factions. And the day fliers shunned night flying, doing only the minimum required, claiming that it was exceedingly stupid. I was among the nighthawks until the oil business went bust.
Although our unit had established a solid reputation for reliability and safety, there was one major blemish on our record. A deplorable scandal struck us in 1984. We never fully recovered. It all started innocently enough. Three crews were gathered for a three-ship nighttime drop mission to Bull Run Drop Zone. The briefing was completed, and all were milling around, waiting for the engineers to complete their preflights.
Lieutenant Colonel Jake Bland had stopped by the convenience store off base and bought a box of fried chicken and Tater Tots. He intended to eat them as time allowed, but unwisely set the box in the open and left the scene.
Jake was nearing retirement, but his enthusiasm for minute detail and absolute compliance with the 'regs' had never waned. He was a 'full-timer,' an employee of the Air Guard ('technician' was the accepted term). And he was also chief of 'stan/eval': the man in charge of a group of pilots, flight engineers, navigators, and loadmasters who administered periodic flight checks and written tests to the rank and file. Jake was a workaholic, full of energy and initiative, but was highstrung, and when he focused on a task, it was hazardous to distract him. His fastidiousness made him a target of the practical jokersof which we had manyand although he did have a sense of humor, it was a little shallow. Nevertheless, those who took the time to know him discovered a gentle, caring man who was a model of integrity, hard work, and dedication. There was always something that Jake needed to do. Rarely did we see him relax, even for a meal.
When he finished his duties and opened the box, he gazed down at the spoils. His blood heated and eyes bulged as he surveyed the stripped bones lying among the debris of a plundered biscuit. And the Tater Tots: gone.
His sense of decency told him that someone else had also picked up a chicken dinner and had substituted their finished box for a quick laugh. He would be calm. He would play along until his box was returned. He had heard people speak of a thing called patience. He knew he must have some, somewhere. He would call upon it. They would have their silly laugh, then he could have his meal and get on with the mission.
Fully five seconds passed when the patience gave out. The explosion was volcanic; the rage spewed like scalding lava over all within his range. Not knowing who did itthat was the worst for him. Most of them slunk away and drifted toward the planes, a few of the braver ones remaining behind to question him as breaks in his wrath allowed.
