more tales from a sled driver

SR_71

I was flying the SR-71 out of RAF Mildenhall, England , with my back-seater, Walt Watson; we were returning from a mission over Europe and the Iron Curtain when we received a radio transmission from home base. As we scooted across Denmark in three minutes, we learned that a small RAF base in the English countryside had requested an SR-71 fly-past. The air cadet commander there was a former Blackbird pilot, and thought it would be a motivating moment for the young lads to see the mighty SR-71 perform a low approach. No problem, we were happy to do it. After a quick aerial refueling over the North Sea , we proceeded to find the small airfield.

Walter had a myriad of sophisticated navigation equipment in the back seat, and began to vector me toward the field. Descending to subsonic speeds, we found ourselves over a densely wooded area in a slight haze. Like most former WWII British airfields, the one we were looking for had a small tower and little surrounding infrastructure. Walter told me we were close and that I should be able to see the field, but I saw nothing.

Nothing but trees as far as I could see in the haze. We got a little lower, and I pulled the throttles back from 325 knots we were at. With the gear up, anything under 275 was just uncomfortable. Walt said we were practically over the field—yet; there was nothing in my windscreen. I banked the jet and started a gentle circling maneuver in hopes of picking up anything that looked like a field. Meanwhile, below, the cadet commander had taken the cadets up on the catwalk of the tower in order to get a prime view of the fly-past. It was a quiet, still day with no wind and partial gray overcast.

Walter continued to give me indications that the field should be below us but in the overcast and haze, I couldn't see it.. The longer we continued to peer out the window and circle, the slower we got. With our power back, the awaiting cadets heard nothing. I must have had good instructors in my flying career, as something told me I better cross-check the gauges. As I noticed the airspeed indicator slide below 160 knots, my heart stopped and my adrenalin-filled left hand pushed two throttles full forward. At this point we weren't really flying, but were falling in a slight bank. Just at the moment that both afterburners lit with a thunderous roar of flame (and what a joyous feeling that was) the aircraft fell into full view of the shocked observers on the tower

Shattering the still quiet of that morning, they now had 107 feet of fire-breathing titanium in their face as the plane leveled and accelerated, in full burner, on the tower side of the infield, closer than expected, maintaining what could only be described as some sort of ultimate knife-edge pass. Quickly reaching the field boundary, we proceeded back to Mildenhall without incident. We didn't say a word for those next 14 minutes.

After landing, our commander greeted us, and we were both certain he was reaching for our wings. Instead, he heartily shook our hands and said the commander had told him it was the greatest SR-71 fly-past he had ever seen, especially how we had surprised them with such a precise maneuver that could only be described as breathtaking. He said that some of the cadet’s hats were blown off and the sight of the plan form of the plane in full afterburner dropping right in front of them was unbelievable. Walt and I both understood the concept of “breathtaking” very well that morning, and sheepishly replied that they were just excited to see our low approach.

As we retired to the equipment room to change from space suits to flight suits, we just sat there-we hadn't spoken a word since “the pass.” Finally, Walter looked at me and said, “One hundred fifty-six knots.
What did you see?” Trying to find my voice, I stammered, “One hundred fifty-two.” We sat in silence for a moment. Then Walt said, “Don’t ever do that to me again!” And I never did.

A year later, Walter and I were having lunch in the Mildenhall Officer’s club, and overheard an officer talking to some cadets about an SR-71 fly-past that he had seen one day. Of course, by now the story included kids falling off the tower and screaming as the heat of the jet singed their eyebrows. Noticing our HABU patches, as we stood there with lunch trays in our hands, he asked us to verify to the cadets that such a thing had occurred. Walt just shook his head and said, “It was probably just a routine low approach; they're pretty impressive in that plane.” Impressive indeed.

In April 1986, following an attack on American soldiers in a Berlin disco, President Reagan ordered the bombing of Muammar Qaddafi's terrorist camps in Libya. My duty was to fly over Libya and take photos recording the damage our F-111's had inflicted. Qaddafi had established a 'line of death,' a territorial marking across the Gulf of Sidra , swearing to shoot down any intruder that crossed the boundary. On the morning of April 15, I rocketed past the line at 2,125 mph.

I was piloting the SR-71 spy plane, the world's fastest jet, accompanied by Maj Walter Watson, the aircraft's reconnaissance systems officer (RSO). We had crossed into Libya and were approaching our final turn over the bleak desert landscape when Walter informed me that he was receiving missile launch signals. I quickly increased our speed, calculating the time it would take for the weapons-most likely SA-2 and SA-4 surface-to-air missiles capable of Mach 5 - to reach our altitude. I estimated that we could beat the rocket-powered missiles to the turn and stayed our course, betting our lives on the plane's performance.

After several agonizingly long seconds, we made the turn and blasted toward the Mediterranean 'You might want to pull it back,' Walter suggested. It was then that I noticed I still had the throttles full forward. The plane was flying a mile every 1.6 seconds, well above our Mach 3.2 limit. It was the fastest we would ever fly. I pulled the throttles to idle just south of Sicily , but we still overran the refueling tanker awaiting us over Gibraltar

Normally, we would land the SR-71 at the same field from which we took off. We landed away only when the plan had a serious problem or if the weather at homebase was so bad it forced us to divert. If the Sled got sick in flight, our task was to get the plane down safely as soon as possible. Landing away was a big deal for everyone, from the people who wanted to download the film and sensor data, to the people who maintained the plane.

Landing away could be a real adventure, even a nightmare at times. We really depended on our support people to help us in every phase of our ground ops, from following the mobile car to PSD assisting us in and out of the cockpit. Just getting out of the space suit without PSD to help could be an ordeal, not to mention that all our regular clothes and flight suits were in our locker back at our takeoff location. Land-aways were not all that frequent, but nearly every crew had at least one story in that regard. Walt and I only had to land away only one time and that was quite enough.

We had been up since 0100 preparing for a big mission around the island of Cuba. The weather looked good and the first refueling went well. We were just approaching Utah when I noticed that we were losing oil pressure on the right engine. We were still climbing at 1500 knots and had not reached our cruising altitude or speed. Walter quickly figured which fields would be suitable along our route to land. These fields, of course, were not below us, but several hundred miles in front of us, due to our speed. He gave me a couple of options and I settled on Peterson Field in Colorado as the easiest for us to make. This was a joint use field, as in addition to being an Air Force runway it also served as a municipal airport for Colorado Springs.

We got the plane down fine and were flying, this time for real, with one engine in idle. We were able to dump fuel in the descent so we were light enough to have no problems with thrust. As we started talking to the air traffic controllers and approach people, we realized that this was quite something exciting for them as they had never handled an SR-71 before. The controlling agencies around the Sacramento area of California were quite used to us and we had never thought much about it. Now we felt as if we were more of an air show for these folks than an aircraft having an emergency. We pretty much had all the priority we needed or could ever want. In all my military flying, I had always been forced to give way to civilian carriers. Now for the first time I heard tower tell a United Airlines flight to clear the runway immediately as his takeoff clearance was cancelled. A Continental flight was then told to hold position also. This was most amazing to hear, and though I mentioned it to Walt, he was not interested as he was knee deep in handling all those high priority radio messages to all the required agencies, far from the airfield in front of us. The Sled, though sick, performed smoothly through landing and with both the military and civilian sides of the field completely at a standstill, we taxied off the runway and were asked where we would like to go.

I could already see people gathering on the edges of the field to get a glimpse of a plane that most of them had only heard about. I decided to taxi past the military ramp and find a hangar where we might bed down our plane. A flurry of excitement greeted us on the ground. Every agency with a radio wanted to issue instructions or request our intentions. For a moment I felt like I was in complete control of the airport. If I had asked to taxi to the United terminal and have the Marine band there to greet us, I am sure someone would have made it happen. We were getting more “help” than we could use. I finally told everyone to clear the frequency and we were going to the end of the West ramp. That seemed to silence everyone. There were no hangars and we ended up parking on the transient ramp just like every other regular jet would, except that we were the only black jet there, and there was a crowd gathering quickly by the fence. Quite an exciting morning for these folks.

During our training, we had been thoroughly briefed on what actions to take if we had to shut down the engines without the assistance of ground personnel. Now that time was here, and we felt a little naked without the normal gathering of PSD and maintenance specialists around us. The procedure called for the RSO to unstrap himself, and with the engines still running, climb out of the aircraft, slide down the chine of the aircraft in full space suit, and drop to the ground. While hydraulic pressure was still on the landing gear, he would then find the gear pin compartment, open it, and insert the landing gear safety pins into each landing gear strut, preventing inadvertent retraction of the wheels on the ground. After this, the RSO would signal the pilot to shut down the engines and monitor that fuel was venting as the engines spooled down. While the RSO was running this gauntlet of events, the pilot sat in the cockpit with his feet firmly on the brakes. I was glad I was the pilot.

Walt did a masterful job of locating and disconnecting all his straps and hoses that held him in his cockpit. Although we had been briefed on this contingency, this was the first and only time we ever really had to perform it. While Walt carefully stowed secret materials in the backseat, I noticed the crowd that had now formed just a few hundred feet away was quite large. The same look of wonder that I had seen at air shows I now saw on the faces of these people who had stopped their normal morning routine to watch the “show”. Walt told me he was ready to climb out of the plane and I just kept thinking what an unsafe maneuver this is for him, but we had no choice. When the crowd saw a spaceman pop out of the backseat, they must have collectively gasped, as I could see the look of shock on their faces. When Walt slithered down the side of the fuselage, awkwardly at best, the crowd stood mesmerized and couldn’t be sure what might happen next. As Walt walked around beneath the aircraft the people had that look of a group that was witnessing an alien landing.

Once I had shut down the plane and extracted myself, I noticed a blue staff car approaching. The colonel inside was able to secure our classified materials and asked us what we needed. We told him we wanted armed guards immediately around the plane until it could be towed into a hangar. He saw to it immediately. He also sent someone to pick up some regular flight suits for us to wear. With specific instructions from us, the base operations folks were able to help get us out of our space suits. Before we were even dressed, a sergeant wanted to know when he could take his people in the weather facility out to the jet for a tour. The requests continued for two days like that.

The next day, an entire maintenance team arrived from Beale to repair our plane. We were glad to see them arrive and give us a break from walking base officials around the jet. We did enjoy giving tours though, and were only sorry we had to show them a broken plane. They didn’t mind at all.

Once the plane had been fixed, Walt and I didn’t know our takeoff time until maintenance gave us the word, but somehow the entire base already knew. People were there along the road, on the grass, against the fence, and on the tops of all the buildings in the vicinity, including the United terminal. The people at Peterson Field and Colorado Springs had treated us royally, and I knew they would enjoy seeing a flyby, but out departure procedure called for a normal takeoff and quick climb out to head home. We sure hated to disappoint all those people hoping to see more than the jet disappear quickly into a speck in the blue Colorado sky.

Walt and I talked it over prior to suiting up. We thought it might be a good idea to make sure that darn oil pressure was holding by doing a couple of high powered passes across the field…just to make sure. Heck, just to be positive, we thought we’d better light the afterburners a couple of times too, prior to beginning our final climb out. We felt this was a good plan.

On a beautiful Colorado afternoon, we were able to thrill an unbelievable amount of spectators with a simple oil system checkout pass. On the third pass, the mighty Sled brought the rooftop viewers to their knees, then departed west, leaving people who still talk about it to this day.