When the no-fly zones were first instituted following Saddam’s brutal suppression of the Shia in the south, Navy and Air Force fighters filled the counter-air lanes more or less continuously – a needlessly wearing pace of operations, especially after 1992 when the Iraqi Air Force stopped tempting fate by trolling around below the 32nd parallel. By the late 90′s, operations had become routinized, almost to a fault, with large force packages of anywhere between 8 and 20 aircraft assembling for fixed lengths known and “vul windows” and then returning either to airbases in Saudi or back to the aircraft carrier(s) at sea in the Arabian Gulf.
At first we used to have two dedicated lanes of defensive counter-air (DCA), plus a strike package of four to eight jets milling about in the middle supported by at least one EA-6B Prowler for electronic warfare support. To that Prowler would also typically be attached a two-ship of FA-18′s in close escort, while an E-2 patrolled just south of the Iraqi border to provide long range radar search and command and control. Bucket brigades of S-3′s came off mission searching the northern gulf for oil smugglers long enough to bring gas to thirsty mid-cycle fighters in Kuwait, while lumbering USAF tankers filled air refueling tracks in the gulf and KSA as well. In time we dispensed with the dedicated DCA almost entirely, since – apart from the closely protected Prowler – all of the TACAIR in country had a robust self-defense capability.
In the weeks and months immediately following Operation Desert Fox, above and beyond emplacing surface-to-air missile batteries in the southern No-Fly zone, Saddam had taken to randomly launching a fighter or two at the end of each vul window. They would trail the exiting force packages out of “the box” in order to give Saddam the propaganda victory of claiming that his invincible air force had once again chased away the “cowardly ravens” of the coalition. Much thought and no small amount of jet gas was spent pondering ways to catch these bandits in their poaching across the line, but to no avail – the MiG launches were not frequent enough to justify a level of effort operation, and having no real tactical or strategic impact were ignored by the heavies.
But not by us, we few, we happy few, we band of box hoppers. We avidly devoured the after action reports of these sorties with glittering eyes, imagining. Visualizing the tactics that would put us in position to shoot. Seeing the kill.
The things that follow you may find off-putting – peaceful souls will recoil from the bloodlust, and there will be many who disagree with the merits of my argument. I will draw distinctions, always an unpopular course – and I will speak around the notion of an elite.
We do not often talk of these things in the service. Indeed, the national spirit rebels against soi disant “elites,” but the sentiments are nevertheless authentic. Even those who disagree my conclusions will have to concede that – accurate or not – these are the perspectives of those inside the fighter community.
It is not my intent to antagonize, offend, nor even to persuade. My wish is simply to inform. This is, in fact, how many of us feel.
No one finds himself in a fighter by accident – for those who fly them, they are the pinnacle of professional achievement and the very top of a dramatically narrowing pyramid. It’s no mean feat to get commissioned, physically, morally or academically – there were 10,000 applicants for my class at USNA, 3500 or so were “qualified” for admission, the top 2,000 or so were offered positions, 1300 showed up to swear the oath, and just over a thousand of us graduated. The competition is just as fierce in the other commissioning routes.
Once you hit the fleet, getting into flight school is competitive, based on performance and physical qualification, with many ways to fall off the tracks along the way. Of my entering academy class, over half wanted to fly. By the time we’d graduated about 300 still wanted to and were physically qualified – there were 200 billets available. The others did something else.
Leaving primary flight school, perhaps a third of each cohort selects for the jet pipeline, sometimes less. The rest go the maritime route (props) or select to helicopters. There were about 35 students in my primary class – on the first day of class, when asked, “Who wants jet?” all but one of us put his hand up. Six months later only half did, and just eight of us were selected for the jet pipeline.
Once in jets, the competition and winnowing steepens – you’re young, you’re hard charging, aggressive – you want it all. So does everyone else. When everybody wants something – whether it’s a juicy set of orders to a great job or location, or whether it’s a seat in high tech fighter, the Navy has a simple way of deciding who to choose: Performance. I was up against 25 other guys when the time came for seat selection, all of us were “selectively retained graduates” – in the top third of our jet pipeline class when winged, and kept back as instructors for students who were in some cases only a few months behind us in the pipeline. Of those 25 who had finished in the top one-third of their jet class, eight of us got fighters and 5 of us got Hornets. Two of those eight were dead within a year.
Others in the naval service claim that fighter pilots have a reputation for arrogance. Fighter pilots generally concede the point, arguing that even if that reputation was true, that at least it was honestly earned. I don’t want to overstate the point: It’s safe to say that not everybody wants to serve, and of those that serve not everyone wants to fly, and not everyone who wants to fly wants to fly jets, and not everyone who flies jets wants to fly fighters. But even given all that, it’s also safe to say that everybody that flies fighters wants to be there. And I think I’m safe in saying that everyone who has ever flown a fighter wants an aerial kill.
Few, I think, have ever wanted one as much as I. I can scarcely believe that anyone might ever have wanted one more.
(To be continued…)
Cap’n,
No need for the qualifiers. It is what it is. When you are constantly training for a specific task, when your life revolves around that one thing, it’ll never be far from your thoughts.
Competition was the same in AW “A” school. Top 10 percent got their choice of platform. Top graduate got a promotion up 1 pay grade. Everyone else got what was available in order of needs of the Navy. I was second in my class, but it’s telling that of the top 3, there was only 1/2 point difference seperating us grade-wise. Everyone wanted the same thing: That extra money, and the choice of platform.
And you are very correct. You have to really WANT the job, because there are any number of others who also want the job, and are more than willing to wave at you as they pass you by. It wasn’t personal, most of the time, either. I got along great with everyone in my class, and we hit the beach together for some great liberty.
Come the morn’ however, it was all biddness, with each pushing the others to get to the front of the pack.
Respects,
ATN2 here. Had the appointment, but could not pass the physical or I would have given you a run for it! But when I signed off on one of my tacans there were several extra kilo watts of power and dbs sensitivity to give you as good a chance as I possibly could. I’m not sure you wanted the kill any more than we did. We just had to give you the best chance we could so you could get it for us.
Believe me I understand. I wrestled. Made the team at Iowa State when we thought having the national championship was our God given right. To reach the very top in your field is a high that few people ever experience.
Congratulations, and thanks for dedicating so much of your life to protecting our dream!
It’s a simplistic comparison, and taken from natives, but the only one I know…there are many birds in the skies, but very few eagles.
You are one of the “best of the best”, and I thank you, and your family, for answering the call with dedication, skill, and courage. There are many years left, so please try and leave the pain of leaving for the future, besides…you will never truly leave the sky. Eagles never do.
Veritas et Fidelis Semper
This is good stuff, Lex. I’m looking forward to the rest. You’re spot on so far. I’ll let you know if you stray:-) During one of my DH cruises, I actually concocted a scheme that might enable us to catch someone off-guard. The idea was that we would have a hurt-bird (Prowler or E-2) limping out of the no-fly zone. We would broadcast this openly hoping that they might be enticed by the thought of easy prey, at which time we would pounce. I don’t know if my idea ever even made it off the ship. Alas, I tried. As an aside, I had a guy ask me at a Formula One race this weekend if I knew John Stamos. Small world, brother.
Lex,
You may recall some time back when you almost were selected to participate on a panel for a court martial and weren’t sure whether or not that was for you.I recall I commented at the time that I never met a Captain that was a loser, an aviator that didn’t have his sh!t together, or a USNA grad that wasn’t all Navy.I’m okay with honest pride in a person that has something to be proud of.I’ve only met a few fighter jocks, but to a man could do mental gymnastics well beyond most bears in the woods.
As for thirsting after a kill…that’s what us taxpayers are paying for, and as for me, I like getting my moneys worth.
Welcome back, Chilly – howsabout that Key West det, brother?
You know I’ll carry your sticks
And thanks Phil – I remember that well, and it was kindly spoken.
Deborah, that’s a charming thing you’ve written, but I was mostly lucky all along. If you can’t dazzle ‘em with brilliance said I, you can baffle ‘em with BS.
Richard, thanks for the help: We get the press, you make it happen.
And Tim it’s true in every field that the cream rises – like I was telling Deborah, sometimes the curd hitches a ride
I’m looking at the odds here…. An entire Academy class, down to 10% before graduation, out of that down to maybe 2% by the time it’s all said and done and you’re flying in the fleet.
I liked the odds at my college better. Opening day at assembly the prof simply said, “Look at the person to your left, then at the person to your right. Only one of you will graduate from this institution as an engineer. Better make up your mind now on who it will be.”
Motivating, that. But 33% odds are a lot easier than 2%. One is hitting the penny slots. The other is hitting the PowerBall.
– Max
Oh, and Lex? *Such* a tease…
+1 on the arrogance of fighter jocks- but again, probably well-earned in their area of competence.
I’ve known a few, over more than a decade in the AF. When it comes to doing their job, none better than US pilots.
Lex, I knew you were in a very exclusive club with what you do – but I naively had NO idea HOW exclusive it really is. And I agree that whatever arrogance exists is clearly earned and somehow a right of passage I would imagine.
To echo Deborah’s eloquence – thank you once again for your service, your continued commitment to your country and oh yes, for sharing these stories and perspectives with us civilians.
In general… the fighter pilots I have known have been pretty arrogant. But you say that like that’s a bad thing. It’s not. I sure as hell don’t want some wuss protecting my country, flying in a state of the art aircraft, wondering, “Can I make the kill or not? Should I or not?”. Not that a wuss would make the grade in the aviation community. I just think that the attitude comes with the territory and the training and its a necessity. What is it that Stephen Coontz said, “The brains the size of peas and the balls the size of grapefruit”? I have found that the first part of that sentence is incorrect… its a package deal. Equal size. Arrogance comes with that and its a good thing.
What about attack pilots Bou? Muskmelons? just kidding. LOL.
Funny thing about the whole thing is, you get what you get outta flt training and 99.5% are happy and 75% come from AOCS or ROTC. Even funnier is because it’s such a pecking order you never get any slack to ruminate on your “exclusiveness” much except in the bar on wednesday night at Miramar..Which is probably a good thing w/ego’s and all..except for those who believed their own hype- Tomcatter’s!
b2
Words heard in the briefing (1976):
A neutralized enemy aircraft is a wreckage in the water. We’ll decide whether to courtmartial you or give you the Silver Star when you get back.
The unrelenting competitive pressure in the fighter world can lead those who are already part of a physically and mentally qualified elite into [I believe] a near permanent state of higher situational awareness. Not every fighter pilot reaches that level, but the potential and the opportunity are always there to become physically, mentally and emotionally one with their machine –to the point of rapidly accelerated awareness of the battlespace around them.
Take these people out of their aircraft and they are STILL HUNTERS –their training, experience, autonomic reflexes and emotional drive demand it. I’ll bet if you compared MRIs of fighter pilots with other pilots or non-aviators you would see significant differences in brain activity. A restless multi-synapse-firing impatience, because the problem has already been solved and acted upon in three dimensions simultaneously, without conscious thought of how the solution was found. It is the aviator’s faster coup d’oeil:
Coup d?
The unrelenting competitive pressure in the fighter world can lead those who are already part of a physically and mentally qualified elite into [I believe] a near permanent state of higher situational awareness. Not every fighter pilot reaches that level, but the potential and the opportunity are always there to become physically, mentally and emotionally one with their machine –to the point of rapidly accelerated awareness of the battlespace around them.
Take these people out of their aircraft and they are STILL HUNTERS –their training, experience, autonomic reflexes and emotional drive demand it. I’ll bet if you compared MRIs of fighter pilots with other pilots or non-aviators you would see significant differences in brain activity. A restless multi-synapse-firing impatience, because the problem has already been solved and acted upon in three dimensions simultaneously, without conscious thought of how the solution was found. It is the aviator’s faster coup d’oeil:
Coup d’Œil (French).
A view; glance; prospect; effect of things in the mass. example:
These principles are presented at a single coup d’œil.
In other words –you saw the whole situation at once. You could predict the immediate future with absolute, gut-level certainty. For an instant, or minutes, or hours, you simply cannot be wrong. Time stopped or slowed down to the point where multiple choices could be weighed in your mind. Elapsed clock time when all this is occuring is fractions of a second.
I don’t think its just arrogance. I think it is also brusk impatience, bordering on frustration with anyone who hasn’t seen the world at this velocity. Remember these:
Miles Browning
John Boyd
Moody Suiter
Shipmates,
It’s like Kid Rock says: “It ain’t braggin’ if you do it and you back it up…”
Respects,
Web Reconnaissance for 06/11/2007…
A short recon of what?ǂ
Web Reconnaissance for 06/11/2007…
A short recon of whats out there that might draw your attention….
Sorry, B2, I should have said Fighter/Attack. I’ve known my share of both.
I like my fighter pilots the same way I like my surgeons – well-deservedly arrogant.
“The Navy has a simple way of choosing pipelines-performance”
Don’t forget the quality spread…………
Or maybe that is just an NFO training thing. Whereby you finish 3rd in your class and get your last choice of aircraft-while the bottom guy got F-4′s……..
Its not always performance.
Now that said-B2 is right, you end up liking what you get. At least I did. Because in the end being on the Naval Aviation team still beats working for the USAF………..