1545 Monday 21 January 1991
King Abdulaziz International Airport
Jeddah, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia
Talent wins games, but teamwork and intelligence wins championships.
—MICHAEL JORDAN, BASKETBALL SUPERSTAR
You can talk about teamwork on a baseball team, but I’ll tell you, it takes teamwork when you have 2,900 men stationed on the USS Alabama in the South Pacific.
—BOB FELLER, BASEBALL PITCHER
Air refueling always seems to be a planning afterthought. I’ve had days too numerous to count when everyone in the room believed there would always be enough tankers and more gas airborne than needed. Now tankers were at a premium, even though 324 SAC tankers were deployed around the Middle East. Fighters were being launched without aerial refueling plans nailed down. Changes were being handled ad hoc, literally by airborne battle managers in the back ends of COUGAR, BUCKEYE, and BULLDOG, the three AWACS. In-flight changes create huge ripples in refueling plans, and airborne tankers are always at the end of the planning whip. Tanker crews at Jeddah flew two missions a day in order to ensure that the air campaign had enough fuel. A double turn, as we called it, made for a very long day, twenty hours or more. Desert Storm’s Combined Forces Air Commander General Horner could have used another fifty tanker airframes and one hundred more crews. They just weren’t there. And this day was going to be one of those “at the end of the whip” days.
My crew hadn’t been in the tanker ops building for two minutes before we saw D-Right standing at the top of the stairs pointing down at us.
“Sluggo, is your crew coming in to fly?”
“Yes, sir, we’re flying this afternoon.”
“Your flight is now canceled!” D-Right wagged his finger at the four of us. “Go to mission planning and wait for me there!”
D-Right rarely met a crew at the top of the stairs like that. Something urgent was happening. It was now stupid question time as I reached the top of the stairs and stood in front of D-Right. “What’s up?” I asked.
“We’re putting a four-ship together right now. You’re going to refuel a bunch of Vipers who didn’t get prestrike refueled.”
I looked at D-Right with a straight face. “They took off not knowing where their backside mission gas was coming from? That’s ballsy!”
D-Right did not have time for this.
“Sluggo, you and your crew just wait in mission planning, and I’ll be there in a minute. I need to find one more crew.”
Waiting in the mission planning room were D-Right’s first victims, Dan and his crew from Beale Air Force Base, in California. Dan would lead the cell formation, since he got tagged first. Minutes later, Heidi’s crew from Wurtsmith Air Force Base, in Michigan, walked in. Walrus’s crew from the Topeka, Kansas, Guard joined us at the table six minutes later. Our formation consisted of three water-burning KC-135A models and an E model with turbofan engines as Duckbutt. Walrus’s E model engine performance would become a significant mission planning element later on.
D-Right and an intelligence analyst walked up to our table and began briefing us for the emergency refueling mission. All of us sensed the urgency in D-Right’s face and voice. He was in a hurry. We did not know it yet, but we were too.
“Take off for LIME PRE track and go as far north as you dare. Three eight-ships of F-16s took off on a promise that the Black Hole would find them backside mission gas. Your four-ship is the Black Hole’s answer. You must be airborne in fifty—that’s five-zero—minutes, ladies and gentlemen, to meet them. If you don’t get there in time, all of you will be part of the largest airborne rescue effort in Air Force history!”
Rescue efforts for downed aircrews had not gone well in the last two days. The F-14 SLATE 46 got shot down the previous night, and its two-man crew were still missing. Dan asked the question all of us were thinking: “Define ‘as far north as we dare,’ sir?”
D-Right looked at all of us. “Yes—we know you will probably have to pick them up about forty to fifty miles north of the border. Staff Sergeant Smith from intelligence will brief you on threats in the area. I have to run and make phone calls so the Black Hole can pass your information to AWACS.”
I thought, AWACS is going to give a four-ship of fat tankers clearance across the border? Who is watching over us? The Vipers can’t do it—they don’t have the gas!
Sergeant Smith briefed us that Iraqi aircraft had been very active on the first night of the war. Mudaysis would be close on our left side. She continued, “We assess that there are no mobile surface-to-air missiles under your flight path at this time. There will be two undercast decks below you, so the gunners probably will not see you.”
What is the definition of “probably” in the go-to-war dictionary?
It boiled down to this: our job was to fly into Iraqi airspace sitting atop 145,000 pounds of jet fuel and in range of just about every antiaircraft gun and mobile SAM Saddam possessed. If we got hit, the Iraqis on the ground would have about two minutes to watch the fireballs drop. Pilots from the twenty-four F-16 Vipers would join us on the ground when they ran out of gas. Sergeant Smith had the audacity to ask us if there were any questions. What could we ask?
Dan told her, “No problem,” and all of us just laughed.
Reviewing a map of Iraq with all the refueling tracks marked on it, Dan ran a quick cell formation briefing.
“TUNA 45 flight will fly to LIME PRE as a four-ship in standard cell formation. At the end of LIME PRE track, if we have not heard from or seen the F-16s, expect to turn north into Iraqi airspace to meet them. Weasels supporting their mission will need gas too. No idea what our receivers’ call signs are. I expect each eight-ship of Vipers to be way low on gas.” Dan paused to reorient the map. He continued, “Be ready to off-load as soon as we hear them on the radio. The AWACS CHOCTAW controls our mission on Cherry 4, UHF 360.7. Listen up for air threats, as Iraqi MiG bases are north, east, and west of us—and close. MiG threat calls will be from bull’s-eye Jack, Jalibah Southeast Airfield. If you see any SAMs or guns shooting up, call it out and react accordingly. All other cell formation procedures are Jeddah standard.” Jeddah planners had created cell formation standards that all of us were tested on. These standards were understood by everyone, the contract binding us together as a team while we flew combat missions. “Any questions?”
We all laughed again. I thought, Semper Gumby—always flexible.
The mission became a time-management problem as we left the building. Four tankers can carry plenty of gas for twenty-four F-16s. If we were not airborne in forty minutes, a bunch of pilots might be spending the night in the Iraqi desert—or, worse, the rest of the war in Baghdad. A normal preflight, engine start, and taxi for takeoff take about forty-five minutes. Arriving at our jet, I told Kenny, Kevin, and Rick to go upstairs and start the preflight. Our crew was lucky that the jet had already been cocked on by another crew, all the switches ready for engine start; it saved us a lot of time. Glancing through the jet maintenance forms handed to me by the crew chief, I started a very fast walkaround inspection of the jet. I was just looking for any leaks, drips, or open panels at this point. Three crew chiefs sensed I was in a real hurry and asked what was going on.
Pointing across the ramp behind our jet, I told them, “We are number three in formation with them, them, and a Kansas Guard jet on the Haj ramp. Twenty-four F-16s did not get prestrike refueling, and they will be really low on gas when we get to them. Planners told us to go as far north as we dare, so we expect to cross into Iraqi airspace. All of us must be airborne in thirty-two minutes to meet them. That is what we know right now. Engine start and taxiing will happen really fast, so keep up. We don’t have time to jump to another jet if this one breaks.” Their faces were priceless—big eyes and mouths hanging open.
They thought their jet might not come back that night.
At a large international airport, getting four aircraft airborne and formed up can be an exercise in patience or frustration. Dan, Heidi, and my crew were on the same ramp, within eyesight of each other. Walrus’s fanjet E model was parked a mile and a half away to the north. Walrus’s high-performance engines could outrun any Water Wagon KC-135. All E models took off on the west runway for this reason. The issue was that Walrus had to watch our Water Wagons take off from a mile away on the west runway and time his takeoff based on seeing Heidi in the number two jet get airborne, at which point he would know I was rolling down the runway and he should start his takeoff roll. Climbing away from the airfield, Walrus’s crew would see all of us for the first time in front and to the right and visually rejoin our slower jets.
Strapping into the seat, I told the crew to start engines. We didn’t have time to catch any mistakes made by the preflight crew. The engines started without issue. As we taxied out of our parking spot, the crew chief gave us a big salute. I knew what he was thinking: Hope to see you guys again later tonight.
As we waited at the end of our parking row for Dan and Heidi to roll by, Kevin told me we were running four minutes late. Dan and Heidi passed in front of us, and we fell in behind them. Three fat tankers were now nose to tail and heading for the runway fast. Dan knew we were late; I looked down at the INS and saw that he was taxiing at twenty-two knots. Normal speed is five to eight knots. As he approached the end of the runway, Dan sent us all to tower frequency. “TUNA 45 flight go Tower . . . Two! Three! Four!”
Then, after a ten-second pause: “TUNA 45 flight check . . . Two! Three! Four!”
“Jeddah Tower, TUNA 45 flight of four on the center and west runways, ready for immediate takeoff. We all need to go right now, Tower!”
The tower’s supervisor of flying had gotten the word. Jeddah Tower cleared us for immediate takeoff.
“TUNA 45 flight is cleared for immediate departure on center and west runways. Contact departure on one twenty-three point eight.”
“TUNA 45 flight, go departure comm two . . . Two! Three! Four!”
Another ten-second pause, and then: “TUNA 45 flight check . . . Two! Three! Four!”
Dan taxied into position, stopping over the painted-on 36R and the white runway stripes. Blasts of steam coming from five-inch holes on the left side of each engine indicated Dan’s engine water injection was working. Dan released his brakes, and TUNA 45 started moving forward, while Heidi in TUNA 46 moved onto the runway. Her aircraft emitted the same puffs of steam, and she began rolling down the runway just as Dan got airborne at the other end. I taxied TUNA 47 up and stopped over the numbers, calling for the takeoff checklist. Kenny and I pushed the throttles up and saw four needles swing to 2.8 on the EPR gauges, indicating wet thrust, just as Heidi’s plane lifted off the runway. TUNA 47 lifted off 1,500 feet from the runway’s end and began a tail chase for Heidi and Dan.
Looking back, Kenny could see Walrus taking off behind us. “Four is airborne in a climbing turn, trying to catch up,” he said.
Walrus would be behind us before we could catch up to Heidi and Dan.
Kevin then said, “Pilot, right now we are about three minutes late to meet the receivers.”
Not a good omen.
Passing under the NIGHTHAWK corridor safely separating us from the F-117 refueling track overhead, Dan sent us all to CHOCTAW on Cherry 4 and told them the TUNA 45 flight was airborne. CHOCTAW told us what we already knew: “TUNA 45, go to the end of LIME PRE and call us before heading north into Iraq. Go as far north as you dare. The Vipers are striking their target in a few minutes. We will tell them you are airborne and coming to them.”
The “as far north” phrase sticks in my head again. What does everyone think that means? I kept asking myself.
Tankers had flown near Iraqi airspace since the first night of the war. Seven Riyadh KC-135s had refueled twenty-two F-15E Strike Eagles right up to the border on night one. Those Strike Eagles were chased out of Iraq by MiGs and Mirage F1s. Since then, several tankers had ventured inside Iraq, picking up low-fuel fighters, but only for short periods of time close to the border. To go across was like earning a secret badge of honor in the tanker community: you had to go into Bad Guy Territory to be part of the Cross-Border Operations club. My crew got really close to joining the club on night one. That afternoon, our four tankers might be far inside Iraq for thirty minutes or more. The Vipers could not engage MiGs when low on gas, so the Weasels might have to be our primary defenders. If the Weasels had the gas.
Reaching the end of LIME PRE, Dan made a slight left turn to parallel the border, heading northwest. He asked CHOCTAW a question all of us understood.
“CHOCTAW, TUNA 45. Where’s the beer?”
He wanted to be sure before crossing the border that Weasels were close by to escort us through Iraq. CHOCTAW answered, “TUNA 45, head north now. FALSTAFF 55 flight will be refueling with COLLIE, SPANIEL, and PUG.”
We kept getting little bits of very important information. Now we knew all the call signs. AWACS sent us across the border, but there was not a sense of security in my cockpit. All four of us were a little edgy.
I saw Dan’s left wing rise for the turn into Iraq. Heading north, we were literally pointed straight at downtown Baghdad. Below us were two flat overcast cloud decks. Would Linus’s cotton blanket hide us from people with SAMs or guns on the ground? None of us knew. The odd thought in my mind was I still do not want to put on those big heavy parachutes in the back of the jet. I wore a chute for two days and realized how stupid it was, sitting on all this gas. If we got hit by flak, they would see the fireball in Baghdad for sure. Kevin said over the interphone, “Gentlemen, we have entered the Klingon Neutral Zone!” He took a picture of the INS coordinates as we passed over the border.
As we continued straight north, CHOCTAW told us, “Get ready, TUNA—receivers are on your nose for ninety miles heading south at forty-seven thousand feet.”
Twenty-four Vipers hung on the blades, conserving gas. Our formation was between twenty-one thousand and twenty-three thousand feet. Right after CHOCTAW told us that, COLLIE lead checked in his fighters on Amber 3, UHF 240.4, the boom radio frequency. You could hear the anxiety in their voices.
“COLLIE flight check! Two! Three! Four! Five! Six! Seven! Eight!”
SPANIEL and PUG flights checked in the same way. The last voices we heard said, “FALSTAFF 55 check . . . Two! Three! Four!”
All twenty-eight aircraft were on the same radio frequency. Dan asked the Weasel leader, “FALSTAFF, TUNA. Is there any activity around us?”
FALSTAFF 55 came back with, “TUNA, picture clear right now. Nothing on our scopes. We will let you know if something pops up.”
We were standing in Saddam’s desert parking lot, totally naked and not able to do anything about it. Hopefully, our first indication of trouble would not be FALSTAFF launching a HARM missile next to us. I momentarily looked down to my right at my camera on the floor next to me. The battery charge showed 85 percent, and twenty frames remained.
COLLIE lead, twenty-one miles in front of us, very excitedly said, “TUNA! COLLIE! Turn south now!” Dan sped up to refueling airspeed and started a wide left turn toward Saudi Arabia.
And it rained F-16s!
There were Vipers everywhere, falling into position on the tankers’ wings and booms. The radio was garbage as all the flights were talking at once. PUG flight joined us, asking his eight chicks for their fuel states. PUG’s Vipers were from the 17th TFS at Shaw Air Force Base in South Carolina; “Hooters” was written in blue across white bands at the tops of their tails. The low ball pilot of the PUG flight was PUG 6, a first lieutenant with eight hundred pounds of fuel left in his tanks. PUG 6 had about five minutes before his engine quit from fuel starvation forty-two miles north of the Saudi border.
COLLIE lead instructed, “TUNAs, give everyone one thousand pounds and then we’ll cycle back through.”
Mister Eight Hundred Pounds came in first. PUG 6 matter-of-factly told Rick, “Boom, we have one chance to do this, or I’m going to have to jump over the side.” He meant eject, which you never say over the radio.
Rick told him, “Come straight to the boom; TUNA 47 is ready.” We heard the boom pipe extending from the cockpit.
Rick asked, “You guys ready up front?”
“Prep-for-contact check is complete up front.”
“Good, because I’m going to stick him when I see him. . . . Where are they?” We had seen only COLLIE and SPANIEL go by us to their tankers.
“Oh Jesus!” Rick said from the boom pod as PUG 6 descended into his view from above and parked twenty feet from our nozzle. Three PUGs joined outside my window, and three others on Kenny’s side. Two PUGs were on the boom in fingertip formation so they could cycle through faster. The fingertip method is called hitchhiking and is forbidden in the States, commanders feeling it was a dangerous way to refuel. But it wasn’t forbidden in Europe or the Pacific—and certainly not here in Desert Storm, because it saved time. Kenny held his video camera in his right hand, recording in case something happened. All the Viper pilots were looking at PUG 6, with an occasional glance at our wingtips for clearance. All PUGs waited to see whether PUG 6 stayed on the boom or backed out and ejected.
Kenny and I looked at each other cross-cockpit, thinking how PUG 6 must feel. Rick said he had contact, and I started pumping gas into him. The off-load totalizer gauge hesitated and then counted up, showing gas flowing into PUG 6. Rick told us he could see the pilot’s blue first lieutenant bars as he looked down from the boom pod. PUG 6 was a young guy. I pointed my camera out the window toward the left wing as Kevin hopped into the jump seat between us. He was taking pictures of the two tankers in front of us flying over two partially overcast decks. Twenty-eight airplanes inside a four-mile-wide, two-thousand-foot-tall box. In front of us, COLLIE and SPANIEL were going through the same cyclic motions we were: Vipers moved from the wings to the boom; one got on the boom, then came off the boom; the next Viper repeated. FALSTAFF 57 and 58 just hung off our wing, watching helplessly. There was nothing they could do right now . . . unless somebody shot at us.
Once all the PUGs cycled through, they began coming back for more gas. It was kind of surreal, because the radios were dead silent. All the Vipers finished refueling at about the same time and started climbing above us. COLLIE lead thanked us profusely for coming north as FALSTAFF 57 started down for our boom. The sun was setting behind the clouds below the horizon out west. As the first Weasel made contact, CHOCTAW told us, “TUNAs, turn west now.”
We figured the Weasels would tell us first if something started shooting at us.
“CHOCTAW, say again for TUNA 45 flight?”
“TUNA, we need you to head west now, heading two seven zero. There’s a RESCAP west of your position for the Tomcat crew. SANDYs need the gas.”
Sergeant Smith had told us that an F-14 off the USS Saratoga, call sign SLATE 46, had been shot down in western Iraq the night before. CHOCTAW was thinking, Hey, since you folks are in Bad Guy Territory already, we need you to go over here now. Rescue combat air patrol, or RESCAP, is painful. Rescuing downed aircrews is the most complex mission we do in the air. Everything stops to determine a downed crew’s location and any threats near them, which takes time. Coordinating all the players and events is extremely time-consuming. Waiting for the lumbering MH-53 Pave Lows causes events to slow even further. Time and endurance become critical. Time and endurance also eat fuel, and fuel equals lots of tankers. The KC-10 is ideal for rescue missions, with both a boom and drogue, and are themselves air refuelable. But there were no KC-10s anywhere in Iraqi airspace. CHOCTAW stated two A-10s were currently covering MOCCASIN 05, a Special Forces MH-53 Pave Low helicopter picking up a downed crewmember. Good news—sort of. Tomcats have two people in them. One of the crew was being picked up, but where was the second guy?
“SANDY flight check . . . Two!”
“TUNA 45, SANDY 57 and 58 are looking to get six thousand pounds each if possible.”
Those Hawgs were empty. A request for six thousand pounds up this high meant all their weapons were gone. The gun was probably empty too. Six thousand pounds is a lot of gas for an A-10, which holds only nine thousand pounds. The real issue for refueling the Hawgs was that FALSTAFF was still on the boom.
Weasels are refueled at 315 knots and twenty-eight thousand feet. A-10s refuel at 220 knots, sometimes slower, and at nine thousand to twelve thousand feet in altitude. A combat-armed Hawg will go only 210 knots even at lower altitudes. The boom gets a little mushy in its movements below 210 knots, and is uncontrollable below 190 knots. Below 190 knots, there is not enough airflow over the boom ruddervators for control, so it just dangles behind us. The only way for us to do this was for Walrus as Tail-end Charlie to slow down to 210 knots. Dan turned into a right 360-degree wagon wheel, and our formation of four spread out over a couple of miles. Now all of us were really naked, as if saying to Saddam, “Here we are! Come shoot at us.” Walrus was trying to cut inside the wider circle of the faster tankers. As FALSTAFF 58 continued refueling in the turn, the SANDY A-10s passed under us off our right toward Walrus’s ship. FALSTAFF cannot help the situation because they need the gas to get back to Baghdad. I could see out Kenny’s cockpit window that Walrus was across from us, pumping the Hawgs. The SANDYs finally got all their gas and slowly climbed above us. FALSTAFF finished at the same time and headed north, off to our left. Kenny got it all on video.
SANDY 57 said, “Thanks for coming north for us.”
Yeah—go home so we can.
CHOCTAW had no more receivers and released us for home. We couldn’t leave until they told us we could. TUNA 45 flight landed in the evening, five hours and twenty minutes after takeoff.
All of us were exhausted walking back into the tanker ops building. Job satisfaction and the adrenaline rush are very high after missions like this. Four tankers flew naked into Iraqi airspace without seeing a shot fired. Strange. TUNA 45 flight saved twenty-four F-16s from fuel starvation. After all the Vipers landed safely back at Al Minhad Air Base, the commander of Shaw’s 363rd Fighter Wing talked to our wing commander call sign Hammer on the phone, thanking him for sending tankers so far north. The SANDYs successfully covered MOCCASIN 05 as it picked up the Tomcat pilot, keeping him from becoming a POW. The lead Hawg pilot was later awarded the Air Force Cross for valor during the rescue mission, the second-highest service award behind the Congressional Medal of Honor. Unfortunately, the Tomcat RIO was picked up by the Iraqis and spent the rest of the war in Baghdad. He came home after being released with the other POWs at the end of the war.
This story came full circle in later years, when I was teaching at the Joint Forces Staff College in Norfolk, Virginia. JFSC was one of the best assignments of my career because of what I learned at the strategic and operational levels of war and the people I met in each class. One day I described this mission as part of an airpower discussion. Tazz, a good friend of mine from the F-15 community at Kadena, was in my class as a student. His four-ship of Eagles had been twelve thousand feet above us watching the RESCAP and saw us come from the east to refuel the two Hawgs. I did not even know the Eagles were there. AWACS never told us that four F-15s had orbited above us. We never heard the Light Grays on the radios, nor did CHOCTAW tell us Tazz and his Eagles had to chase away Iraqi MiGs sent to interrupt the RESCAP operation. Tazz perfectly described what we had done, the Hawgs going to the back tanker and our wagon wheel formation to let Walrus keep his position.
JFSC has a social hour for new students coming in or when a promotion list comes out. In military terms, it’s called a “blender.” A lot of drinks and hors d’oeuvres are consumed at a blender. It gives everyone some time to talk. One of the Navy captains going through the school was Captain Devon “Boots” Jones, the pilot of SLATE 46, the downed F-14 Tomcat. I walked up to Boots and introduced myself, telling him I was in the tanker formation refueling the Weasels and Hawgs covering his pickup. He smiled, stuck his right hand out for a shake, and told me something the tanker community hears all the time: “Drinks are on me, Sluggo!”
Strategic Air Command created formation standards every tanker unit was supposed to follow. The problem was that each SAC base interpreted the regulations differently, adopting their own unique standards for flying together as a team. Jeddah’s air refueling wing was a “Rainbow Wing,” meaning it was a combination of active-duty, Guard, and Reserve tanker units. Many Guard and Reserve pilots came from the fighter community and understood formation contracts and standards. These former fighter pilots created Jeddah’s cell formation standards, which became our team contract agreement when flying in formation. All cell lead–qualified pilots had passed a test on these procedures, and the minimum passing score was 100 percent. When Dan stated, “All cell formation procedures are Jeddah standard,” everyone knew what he meant, and we followed the contract.
I learned from flying at Jeddah how formation agreements increase teamwork and effectiveness. They are also a method of reducing risk. Everyone works together as a team, using conventional procedures to achieve goals. When D-Right threw us together as an ad hoc formation, he knew we would all work together as a team because of formation contracts all of us understood. TUNA 45 flight’s teamwork efforts saved twenty-four F-16s from fuel starvation and helped two SANDY Hawgs get home after saving a downed pilot. FALSTAFF’s Wild Weasels executed their contractual agreement to protect the force from any ground threats. The business world understands teamwork and contracts as a means to achieve financial goals. Corporations develop policies just like formation procedures to facilitate cooperation between business units and partners. Contracts signed as agreements between partners form stronger teams when pursuing lucrative business ventures. As a leader, create and develop formation procedures to be used as contractual agreements with which your teams can increase their effectiveness and productivity.