15 Minutes to KillBy JJ Sinclair Click here to jump to the bottom of this page - to see links to other pages |
The accident would never have happened if we weren't fifteen minutes early. I knew it from mission planning, but I figured the NAVY would probably let us in early. I checked in with Range Control and they said "no way Jose, someone else is on the range." So now we have fifteen minutes to kill. We killed it all right and damned near killed ourselves in the process! We were flying a *Two Ship* formation out of Mountain Home AFB and I was the guy in the right seat. The Air Force called us Weapons System Officers, the pilots called us WSO's or GIB's but I always liked to think of myself as the Bomb-Aimer. The plan for the day was to take two student WSO's down to Fallon NAS and show them the ECM range (Electronic Counter Measures). The Navy had a bunch of equipment that would simulate the electronic threat and we would do our best to fly across the range and not get shot down (simulated shoot down of course). What we did was always the same, we flew lower and faster. In the F-111 F that meant light the burner and select 200 foot Hard Ride. We had three options for the *Ride*, Soft, Medium and Hard. Soft was fun, Medium was worrisome and Hard was down right terrifying. I would swear the rocks were going to come in the cockpit before the computer *pulled* and we cleared the obstacle by the selected 200 feet. "Accelerate away and I'll drop back," I heard my pilot say to the leader of our two ship formation. The plan was for me to *lock him up* on radar and shoot him down with a missile (simulated of course). So that was the configuration of the two ships, Lead was in minimum burner, pulling away. We were in idle and dropping back. Now I don't know much about this *air to air* business, I'm a Bomb-Aimer, so I got in the scope and *locked him up* before he got away. I'm flying with an instructor pilot. My regular pilot and I are *students* going through the F-111 training course located at Mountain Home AFB, Idaho. In my twenty years in the Air Force, I had *transitioned* to new equipment many times; B-29, 
(click on image to enlarge) KC-97F, B-52H, 
(click on image to enlarge) RF-4C 
(click on image to enlarge) and now the F-111 F. I loved the airplane. The radar was on a par with the B-52H equipment, not that Mickey Mouse radar somebody stuck in the RF-4C. It had offset aiming, tracking cross hairs and a 10 inch radar scope. The resolution was phenomenal, I could count the fence posts on the perimeter fence around our local bombing range. The transition program was well thought out and the best I'd seen. First of all we were allowed to picked our own crew. I chose a gnarly looking Major who just finished a tour in Vietnam flying F-100's out of Phu Cat. I was a Major also coming off a tour flying GIB (guy in back) of an RF-4C out of Ton San Nute. The Air Force knew that the 111 crews must have confidence in each other and confidence in the equipment if they were ever going to take this thing down in the weeds at night on Terrain Following Radar (TFR). The program called for the instructor and student pilot to fly a day TFR mission followed by instructor and student navigator flying the same route. Then the two students flew the route together. Next the instructor and student pilot flew a night TFR mission, followed by instructor and student navigator flying the same thing. Finally the two students flew together on a low attitude route at night, on terrain following radar. I remember on one flight, I came out from under the radar hood and saw that we were inverted. Didn't think anything about it as that kind of thing happens all the time. I didn't particularly appreciate it because I was trying to do some serious work with the radar, but after logging 1000 hours in fighters, I had come to expect it. They really can’t help it. It's in the fighter pilot genes. My regular pilot would roll the ship on low level missions. It would happen like this. At the start of a terrain following mission we would deliberately fail one of the radar altimeters to check for the three *G* climb that should be automatically commanded if a radar altimeter failed. The nose would come up thirty degrees, Dirty Jack would disengage the TFR, roll the ship inverted, pull the nose back to the horizon and then roll upright again. He would say something like "this way we don't have to pull negative G's to get the nose back down." That was so much fun he would do it again to check the other radar altimeter. I almost got to the point where I was comfortable seeing the rocks up there where the sky was supposed to be. OK, lets see if we can stay on the subject for a while. On this flight, I'm flying with an instructor pilot and we are east bound on the edge of the Great Carson Sink, 16,000 feet at about 250 knots and slowing down. Navy Fallon won’t let us onto the ECM range early so we are screwing around for 15 minutes. The ship is inverted and continues rolling to the right and the nose starts to drop. I looked at my instructor, his lips were tight and his eyes were wide. I knew then that we were not performing an intentional maneuver. The Air Force calls this a *post stall gyration*, but it looked like a full blown *spin* to me. The problem is the 111 doesn't always want to stop *gyrating*, when asked to do so. Stick full forward and centered, rudder neutral and roll augmentation off. That's what the check list said and that's what we were doing. The altimeter was spinning like a top. Nothing was changing, I was looking at a clump of sage brush and it was spinning around. I hollered HAVE YOU GOT IT? My instructor replied YES, STAY WITH ME! I was get'n *nervous* in the service*! The book said to eject at 16,000 feet when under spin or dive conditions. All this started at 16 and we were now rapidly approaching 12. 1 decided to pull the handle at 12. 1 reached for my ejection handle and said again, DO YOU HAVE IT? My instructor replied, NO - GET OUT. Now "get out" is not grammatically correct, we are in a capsule and when one "gets out," we both "gets out." I squeezed and pulled my handle. I had been through this drill before and I knew what was going to happen. I was stiff as a board, back straight. helmet back in the head rest, legs back and head and eyes straight forward. NOTHING HAPPENED My instructor bent over and looked at my raised handle and at the same time he pulled his handle. Just then it fired I remembered later, the book said it would take a second or so to fire the squib all the way around the capsule before the rocket would fire. My instructor got a back injury because he was bent over when the rocket fired. I felt the chute deploy and then we were hanging in our straps looking straight down. I saw the ship disappear directly below us, trailing red flame from the center of the fuselage. A few seconds later the system sequenced and we found ourselves straight and level hanging under the chute. It was kind'a erie, there we were in a two place cockpit (the capsule) with stick, rudder, throttles and a whole bunch of instruments and nothing worked but the altimeter. I had seen the ship disappear directly below us and wondered how close it might be to our touch down point. When I ejected from the F-4 I had to climb the rear risers to pull the chute away from the fireball. The impact was close, but the fire had subsided by the time we landed. We hit on the side of a gully and the capsule rolled upside down. The ground impact was gentle because the air bag cushion had deployed under the capsule. We were now hanging upside down, so I released my harness and slid to the top of the capsule. My pilot was moaning from his back injury and without thinking, I released his harness and he crashed to the ceiling. There was a solid wall of dirt on his side, but I was able to open my hatch and climb out. Just then our flight leader came by at a thousand feet. He had been unable to contact us on the radio, saw the smoke and feared the worse. I waved, he rocked his wings. I got the emergency radio out and gave him a call. While waiting for the chopper from Fallon, I walked over and looked at the wreckage. Another big *smoking hole in the ground* with two engines in it. I started thinking "maybe this is not the best occupation for you JJ." JJ Sinclair Black Ace, Victory #2 
(click on image to enlarge) ------------------------------------ About the Author: 
JJ Sinclair retired from the Air Force in 1974 after 22 years of service.
He flew as crew member on:
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