full-color navigational chart of where you are, where you are going, and how you are oriented.
Moving back to the right-hand controller, you find that with a little practice, the targeting FLIR is quite easy to use, and has a field-of-view that can see almost everything in the lower hemisphere of the Strike Eagle. There are also several magnification settings, which can easily allow you to determine what you are looking at from a considerable range. Once you get an object centered up in the scope, you can lock it up and the FLIR will track it, no matter what maneuvers the pilot chooses to lay onto the bird. This proved useful, as John found when Boom- Boom gave him a mild demonstration of the Strike Eagle's maneuvering capabilities by pulling some hard turns at one of the navigational waypoints; the FLIR stayed steady on a telephone pole on the desert floor below.
Even though they only pulled about 31/2 Gs in these maneuvers, it was a telling experience for John, who is a big, burly sort of man. It felt like everything on his body began to head towards his feet, and he found the movement of his lips and cheeks towards the bottom of his face particularly eerie. As soon as Boom-Boom would start a run and the Gs came on, the G-suit around his waist and legs inflated to keep the blood from pooling in his abdomen, thus avoiding a blackout. Despite the stresses of the Gs, John found that he still could work the controllers and continue doing the tasks Boom-Boom asked him to perform. In fact, one of the surprises was that despite his relative lack of experience with the LANTIRN system (and rising nausea), he was easily able to learn the routine with the controllers, and he even managed to fire up the APG-70 radar and lock up Colonel Clawson and his WSO (callsign 'Fuzz') in Claw-1. He also managed to take a couple of SAR radar maps with the APG-70.
By then they were at the Saylor Creek Bombing Range, which was experiencing a series of intermittent snow/hail/rain showers. These made the air fairly rough during the runs that followed. Boom-Boom again followed Claw- 1, and set up the arming panel to drop one BDU-33 practice bomb on each run. John's job on each run was to lock up the aiming point, so the video recorder could evaluate the accuracy of the run. This involved slewing the FLIR turret around until the desired target in the array was centered in the screen, and then selecting the lock button to start the system autotracking. At the same time, the ground-based television optical scoring system (TOSS) would score each bomb dropped. What followed was a pinwheel of F-15Es, with each making a run about every thirty seconds. Boom-Boom and John started each run by lining up the target array on the nose of Claw-2 and putting the aircraft into a shallow 15deg dive. As soon as John would lock up the target with the targeting FLIR (or the APG-70 radar), the weapons delivery system would begin computing the proper course to the target. This was displayed to Boom-Boom as a steering cue, on the HUD; all he had to do was aim the 'fly-to' box at the steering cue, and the computers did the rest. Despite the high crosswind in the target area, the crews of all four Strike Eagles were easily scoring 'shacks' (direct hits) on their desired targets. The idea of this exercise was to see how accurately each crew could place a 'dumb' bomb on the target, with the assistance of the Strike Eagle's weapons delivery systems. Despite the popular public notion that Desert Storm was a war won with 'smart' munitions, the vast majority of the bombs dropped were unguided, and this will be the case for some time to come. Thus the need to stay in practice with the older-style weapons. After each run, Boom-Boom would pull Claw-2 off to the right and climb back to several thousand feet AGL to set up for the next run. Each time, as they banked overhead, Boom- Boom and John could see the runs of Claw-3 and -4 off to their right as they hit the ring of targets on the TOSS range.
When their supply of BDU-33s was expended, Claw Flight moved over to the Maverick missile target array a few miles away. The first of these was a circular array of oil drums (called Target 101). These showed up nicely on the targeting FLIR when warmed by the sun, which was breaking through the clouds from time to time. The 391st is the only Strike Eagle unit in the USAF equipped with the IIR Maverick missile, and they are quite skilled with it. Their tactic is to make side-by-side runs at the targets, two at a time, starting at 11 nm./20.1 km. with a 30deg split and a 10deg climb to the pushover at about 8 nm./14.6 km., then a 30deg merge with a 5deg dive at the weapons release point, and an egress (pilot talk for leaving) at about 2 nm./3.7 km. They then make a right-hand turn, with the number-two aircraft falling in behind the leader. This gives them time to acquire multiple targets, if desired, and hit them all on the same pass. Boom-Boom and John in Claw-2 made their first pass on the left side of the circular array, locking up three of the barrels and delivering three simulated missiles fairly successfully. It struck John then that less than an hour before, he had never touched an F-15E. Now he was delivering ordnance well enough to actually hit things.
Once Claw-3 and -4 had made their run on Target 101, the flight moved over to the Owyhee Pumping Station, which is also used as a target for the simulated missiles (the seeker heads are real, but do not fire). This time the WSOs of Claw-1 and -2, John and Fuzz, worked to lock up specific points on the pump house for the missiles to hit, thus producing a true precision strike, despite the rough air over the Idaho desert.
With the weapons practice finished, the flight headed back to land at Mountain Home AFB, some miles to the west. As they headed home, Boom-Boom was trying to coach John on some more procedures with the radar, but by this time the rough air had taken its toll, and John began to reach for the little manila envelope with the plastic bag in it. Boom-Boom was kind enough to keep the Strike Eagle level while John relieved himself — and felt better immediately. A few minutes later, they were in the Mountain Home AFB traffic pattern, preparing to land. With just a handful of aircraft in the pattern at this time of day, it took just a few minutes to contact the tower, gain clearance, drop into the landing pattern, and set up for landing.
The runway of a modern military airfield seems huge when you are approaching it in an aircraft the size of a fighter, and the vast tarmac almost seems wasted upon you, though as a passenger, you appreciate every square yard/meter of area to land upon. Boom-Boom made his approach with a practiced grace, in spite of a stiff crosswind that was crabbing the Strike Eagle to one side. As he flared the F-15E for touchdown, he extended the large air- brake, which acted like a drag parachute, rapidly slowing the jet to taxi speed. When you are taxiing one of the Eagle family, you almost feel as if you are up on stilts, and you wonder if you're going to fall over. It should be said, though, that the landing gear struts and brakes of the Strike Eagle are the toughest ever installed on a USAF tactical aircraft, and they work just fine!
After taxiing back to the 391st ramp, the crews of the four jets — including a somewhat wobbly and green- around-the-gills John Gresham — exited the aircraft. They immediately proceeded back to the Life Support Shop and turned in their gear for repair and maintenance. Though still a bit nauseous, John, smiling from ear to ear, proclaimed, 'God can take an arm or leg or whatever he wants. I've done what I always wanted to do!' As if on cue, the 391st flight surgeon showed up and asked if he wanted something for his nausea. When John replied in the affirmative, the flight surgeon handed him a small pill bottle of Phenergan, which settles the stomach and the inner ears. Later that day, after a nap and a shower, he was up and around, enthusiastically describing his adventure.
When we asked what he thought about flying in the big bird, this was his answer: 'If I had to go to a war and didn't know where or against whom, I'd want to take that plane with Boom-Boom as the driver!'
LOCKHEED MARTIN F-16C FIGHTING FALCON
The F-16 was the workhorse of this war. It did the baseline bombing, the body punching. It hauled the iron.
Officially it's the Fighting Falcon, but to its pilots it's the Viper (after the fighters in the TV series
