0900 Friday 24 July 1987
Riyadh Air Base
Riyadh, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia
Preservation of one’s own culture does not require contempt or disrespect for other cultures.
—CESAR CHAVEZ, AMERICAN LABOR LEADER AND CIVIL RIGHTS ACTIVIST
We still have the most creative, diverse, innovative culture and open society—in a world where the ability to imagine and generate new ideas with speed and to implement them through global collaboration is the most important competitive advantage.
—THOMAS FRIEDMAN, AMERICAN JOURNALIST AND PULITZER PRIZE WINNER
Saudi Arabia and the Gulf Coast countries were terrified that the Iran-Iraq conflict in the 1980s would spill over into other countries. The Saudi government was the first to ask for American help, and in the last week of September 1981, two hundred 552nd Airborne Early Warning and Control Wing folks left Tinker Air Force Base near Oklahoma City for Saudi Arabia. Four E-3A Sentry AWACS aircraft departed on 1 October for a military airfield in downtown Riyadh. Few of us called the Sentry by its name; most called it “the Wacker.” The US force became known as European Liaison Force One (ELF One), because US Air Forces Europe ran the program until US Central Command’s establishment in 1983. Objectives for AWACS missions focused on expanding Saudi radar coverage of their eastern coast. The AWACS radar footprint gave the Saudis and ELF One plenty of warning for air attacks, or so it was hoped. The Wacker’s APY-1 radar has over two-hundred-mile coverage, detecting air and surface targets, like ships. Each day two AWACS flew fourteen-hour sorties near the Saudi-Kuwaiti border, providing electronic detection over Iraq’s Al Faw Peninsula and the Northern Arabian Gulf, or NAG. E-3A Sentries are powered by older Pratt & Whitney TF33 turbofan engines, which required refueling every five hours. ELF One refueling support came from European Tanker Task Force KC-135s rotated in and out of Riyadh Air Base every forty-five days.
AWACS support scheduled a primary KC-135 and manned spare for each mission. Sorties were not very long—about two and a half hours in duration, transferring sixty thousand pounds with each hookup. During summer months, heavy KC-135A models rotated between 1,500 and 2,000 feet from the end of the runway because of the blistering 107-degree heat. I wondered how many car alarms went off after our 2:00 a.m. takeoffs. Tanker crew chiefs supercooled the cockpits with hoses suspended in crew entry chutes running from an air-conditioning cart. Daytime temperatures in the cockpit rose to 130 degrees during the forty minutes from preflight and starting engines to takeoff. Each night I put two one-liter water bottles spiked with Gatorade lemon-lime powder in the freezer, one for each calf pocket of my flight suit. By the time we were airborne, our internal body temperatures were so hot that we felt the Gatorade go all the way down.
Shortly after 1000 in the morning of 17 May 1987, the AWACS detected a fast-moving Iraqi Mirage F1 two hundred miles and closing on the frigate USS Stark. Thinking the Stark was an oil tanker, the F1 launched Exocet antiship missiles at the radar returns. The first Exocet went through the bridge and exploded in the Combat Information Center. The second hit just forward of the first. Thirty-seven American sailors lost their lives during the Iran-Iraq conflict “Tanker War.” Tensions in the Gulf were at an all-time high when my crew arrived at Riyadh Air Base a month after the Stark incident. ELF One intel analysts briefed us on air threats—Iran, to the west, first, and Iraq last. Iranian F-14s had shot down some Iraqi aircraft using early production AIM-54 Phoenix air-to-air missiles with a range of over one hundred miles. Phoenix missiles were not comforting news for tanker crews; an IRIAF Tomcat over the Persian Gulf could fire at the AWACS or tankers in RAINBOW’s (the AWACS controlling the rendezvous on most missions) orbit and hightail it back to its base near Bushehr.
Each crew flew ELF One sorties every other day. Sorties were pretty easy; take off, fly out to RAINBOW’s orbit, off-load sixty thousand pounds of gas, and recover back to Riyadh Air Base. But the Tanker War was intensifying. In the early months of 1987, Kuwait asked the US and Russia to do something about the ongoing conflict. Iran began attacking Kuwaiti tanker ships carrying Iraqi crude oil through the Persian Gulf, and the world economy reacted accordingly. The attack on the USS Stark had been an unfortunate by-product of this ongoing war. Kuwait wanted superpower protection for its oil shipments, but more important, it wanted intervention to stop the war. The largest naval maritime protection effort since World War II, Operation Earnest Will, began shortly thereafter. Kuwait’s tankers would set sail reflagged under US registration to circumvent international law in an effort to keep safe. The very first reflagged Kuwaiti tanker, the MV Bridgeton, outbound from Kuwait City toward the mouth of the Persian Gulf, hit an underwater mine laid by Iran the night before. No one had thought to remove the mines from the Persian Gulf with all the fighter planes flying around. Up to this point, the US AWACS covered only the NAG. Coverage of the Persian Gulf near the Strait of Hormuz now became necessary.
Much to their credit, the Royal Saudi Air Force (RSAF) stepped up with their shiny new E-3A AWACS and offered a solution. The RSAF would cover the Strait of Hormuz, orbiting near the border with the United Arab Emirates. Orbiting a new AWACS near the strait was a very gutsy call, as the Iranian airfield at Bandar Abbas housed Tomcats carrying Phoenix missiles and F-4E Phantoms armed with the same missiles our F-15s used. Intel assessed that IRIAF Tomcats could refuel in Iranian airspace and race across the Persian Gulf to shoot Phoenix missiles into RSAF AWACS orbit from international waters. And the RSAF AWACS would need gas every five hours, just like its US counterpart. The ELF One staff did not ask for volunteers. Colonel Davis, the ELF One commander, chose our crew to refuel the RSAF AWACS on their very first operational mission. Besides the Iranian air threat, a few issues needed to be settled by picking our crew for such a prestigious RSAF operational first. Leone, my female aircraft commander, topped the list.
All of us understood the Muslim laws and culture of Saudi Arabia, in which we were guests. ELF One leaders picked their best crew, I would like to think, for this historic RSAF event. RSAF leaders made it obvious to even the most casual observer that Leone would not be allowed in any planning meetings for this sortie. The RSAF was a little miffed about taking gas from a tanker commanded by a woman. Pete, our navigator, attended coordination meetings, and, using his notes, mission planning went well—as long as Leone was not around while the RSAF crew was in the room. The sortie was really straightforward; just like refueling any AWACS RAINBOW mission. Pete made sure the AWACS mission crew commander, call sign SHARP ECHO, would tell us of any Iranian threats approaching our refueling formation. Any Tomcat passing Sirri or Abu Musa Island in the Persian Gulf was cause to retrograde. A Tomcat within 150 miles was our trip wire for scramming home.
A second instruction came during the last meeting. Pete found out that the RSAF AWACS wing commander, a full-bird colonel, would fly in the left seat. ELF One leadership told Pete to not, under any circumstances, let the colonel fall off or disconnect from the boom. If he fell off, the colonel would lose face in front of his troops, which would reflect poorly on us because a woman was flying the American tanker and would become the colonel’s scapegoat if anything went wrong. The boom system has movement limits that when reached cause the latches to disconnect the aircraft. Mike, our boom operator, was not going to let that happen while the colonel was refueling. Of course, this was all dependent upon the colonel’s flying ability. But ELF One leaders told us the same thing: do not let the colonel fall off. When we asked what to do if he reached a limit or was unstable, the answer was, again, do not let him fall off!
The summer heat was also our enemy. The KC-135’s thrust dropped significantly when the temperature was above ninety degrees, even with water injection. SHARP ECHO 01 took off at 0600 to avoid a heavyweight takeoff in the heat. We took off as RSAF 875 at 0900 on a two-hour flight to meet SHARP ECHO 01. Water Wagons were just pigs in that hundred-plus-degree heat. The takeoff roll was long, and the level-off was low and noisy. But our Wagon got airborne and headed southeast for the Emirati border. Pete contacted SHARP ECHO 01 on high-frequency radio to update our time of arrival to the refueling area. SHARP ECHO 01 called out a lot of radar contacts closing on the Strait of Hormuz, but no Iranian fighter traffic. As we rolled left over the ARCP, SHARP ECHO 01 was five miles behind us, its black-and-white-striped APY-1 radome spinning above the fuselage. Once stabilized in precontact, Mike flashed the PDI lights, and the colonel approached the nozzle. Leone reminded Mike to treat the RSAF colonel with tender care. Mike reached out, and the three of us up front felt the toggles latch. Mike said “Contact” over the interphone, and I flipped on all four pumps. The off-load totalizer wound up, and SHARP ECHO 01’s fuel tanks filled with gas. Mike gave us progress reports on the colonel’s position as we got lighter and he got heavier. Sitting next to the colonel in the right seat was an RSAF major, probably an instructor pilot in the E-3A. Mike could see the colonel working hard to stay in position, but for the most part, the jet was parked right where it needed to be.
But SHARP ECHO 01 was gaining weight at six thousand pounds per minute. Our pumps had forced about thirty-five thousand pounds into SHARP ECHO 01’s fuel tanks when the colonel started to move backward, closer and closer to the aft boom limit. The Saudi colonel didn’t increase his thrust by adjusting his throttles forward as he got heavier, causing him to fall behind. Mike blurted out the universally acknowledged phrase for a sticky international aviation situation as all of us sensed what was happening. He had the boom system in Manual Boom Latching, trying to keep the colonel hooked up. As he approached the aft limit, there was nothing left for Mike to do. He punched the colonel off, the toggles let go, and the contact light on our fuel panel extinguished. SHARP ECHO 01 moved back into the precontact position as the colonel’s voice came over the radio.
“RSAF 875, WHAT HAPPENED?!”
Not only had the colonel lost face but he also did it behind a woman—literally. Mike became the strategic sergeant with his very quick reply: “Sir, I’m sorry! Our system just fired through, and it’s all our fault. I’m resetting the system, so give me a minute to find out what’s wrong.”
Mike then moved his right thumb up from mic to the interphone on the boom’s ruddervator control stick and said, “Was that diplomatic enough?”
We laughed up front, but we knew that the first question ELF One would ask would be “Did the colonel fall off?”
And that was exactly the first question Colonel Davis asked as he came up the ladder after we landed. Mike was the first one to tell him that SHARP ECHO 01 went to the aft limit, moving farther back as he got heavier and not compensating with power. Colonel Davis asked, “So . . . what did you tell him?”
“He fell off after about thirty-five thousand pounds, and I said it was entirely our fault; the system had fired through for some reason, and I asked him to hold at the precontact position while I tested the system.
“He stayed for about three minutes, and then I flashed him back up to the boom. He stayed on for the rest of the off-load.”
“Good answer, Boom! Good answer!”
RSAF did call ELF One leaders stating they were not happy with the refueling, but the mission went well, so everyone seemed satisfied. Mike, the strategic sergeant, saved the US Air Force and his country some embarrassment.
A week later, it was time for us to leave Riyadh for England. Because of the heat and quiet hours at RAF Fairford, our takeoff was scheduled for 0120 in the morning. The tanker had a full load of gas, requiring another water-injected takeoff. Leone and I took turns flying missions, and it was my turn to fly. Holding short of runway 19 at Riyadh, Leone and I went through the takeoff procedures one last time. Looking down the runway, I could see that our flight path took us straight over downtown Riyadh, and the hotel we all lived at! If I had to be up at 0120 in the morning, so did Riyadh. The takeoff went as planned through level-off and flap retraction. J57 wet thrust takeoffs are loud—about 165 decibels. At 0121 in the morning, I pushed the yoke forward and leveled off at five hundred feet, very wet and noisy over downtown. I tapped the left rudder pedal, bringing our flight path right over the Al-Yamamah hotel. When we were directly overhead, I hollered, “Wake up, suckers!” as Leone, Pete, and Mike laughed. Colonel Davis came over comm one, chuckling and thanking us for the flyby. Our wheels touched down at RAF Fairford just after 0800. When I sat down in the ops building to finish paperwork, one of the Tanker Task Force staff asked Leone who did the takeoff. I raised my hand. He told us alarms had gone off all over Riyadh.
The lesson of flying ELF One missions was that my crew had to deal with cultural mannerisms different from those in the US while flying support missions for the Saudis. We had to understand the cultural differences and learn how to work with them, not against them. A German F-4 fighter pilot once told me Americans cook their own soup, meaning we tend to do things our own way and toss our international allies’ cultural norms aside. One tremendous experience of my flying career was visiting many nations and experiencing their cultures. An important lesson learned from traveling to many countries was how to say “Hello” and “Thank you” in their languages. Working in the defense industry gave me an opportunity to observe the corporate cultures of Fortune 500 companies. During a meeting with a Jordanian avionics firm, I greeted executives in Arabic, using phrases I’d learned from spending so much time in the Middle East, and their faces lit up. It’s an easy way to quickly break down cultural barriers when you can say a few words to customers and partners in their own tongue. The next time you are traveling to another country or visiting a foreign client for the first time, exert some effort and learn something about their culture.