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POP UP - POP DOWN
By JJ Sinclair
We were sitting in the briefing room, eight navigators, all captains. Replacement
Training Unit Class 67B was about to start teaching eight new crews how to
fly the RF-4C. In walked our pilots, four grisly looking Colonels and four
Lieutenants. The Colonels were straight out of the Pentagon, the Lieutenants
just climbed out of the back seat of the RF-4C. I leaned over to my buddy
and said, "I don't know about you, but I’m getting me one of those Lieutenants.
Those Colonels will kill you, for sure." I couldn't have been more wrong.
The Colonels all came through the festivities in Vietnam, unscathed. One of
them even got the Silver Star for some foolishness up north of the DMZ.
The Lieutenants, well, read on.
The F-4 was the aeronautical equivalent of a double barreled shot gun. It
would do damned near anything. For a lad who had just spent seven years in
the belly of the BUF, it was a wondrous new world. I now had a window -- didn't
have that in the BUF. They didn't want us getting blinded by the cargo we
were delivering. Oh by the way the BUF is an acronym for Big Ugly Feller,
otherwise known as the B-52. In this new airplane, I also got issued a stick,
rudder and a set of throttles. Never could fly it very well, but it was fun
trying. The real problem was in seeing the runway. I had to look over the
pilot’s shoulder and if I could see the runway, I wasn't lined up. If I couldn't
see the runway, I was lined up. The back seat of the K-21, G-103 and ASH-25,
reminds me a lot of the rear seat of the F-4.
We all joined the Mach 2 club, drank a lot of beer and generally tried to
pretend we weren't just a little nervous about the “Senior Trip” we were all
going on right after graduation. My lieutenant was all right, but he didn't
have any experience- He had flown the bird for 500 hours, but that was all
in my seat and now he was the man in the front seat. One day I overheard another
Lieutenant ask my Lieutenant, "What does the rudder do?" I got
a little nervous when he didn't have a ready answer.
Shortly after Francis Gary Powers got shot down in his U-2, deep inside
Russia, the Air Force went to a maneuver known as the Pop-Up. The idea was
to come in low and just before getting to the target, Pop-Up to the desired
altitude and do your business (drop a bomb or take a picture) and then dive
back down to the deck. We practiced this maneuver along with “area covers”
and pin-point photo targets.
We were about halfway through the program when the powers that be, decided
to give all the Lieutenants some extra missions. My guy had just flown his
first Defensive Combat Maneuver (DCM) mission. It was flown in a “clean” bird
(no external tanks) so that they could pull a lot of G’s. Being Reconnaissance,
we were unarmed and the training was basically to show what to do when the
little white golf balls suddenly started coming by your cockpit. The conventional
thinking was to jump in a cloud, if available, or to roll it over into a “slice”.
A slice being 130 degree roll, and then pull hard.
So this day (12 June '67) 'we were flying an extra mission in a clean bird.
We got several low altitude photo targets and then approached Anderson Ranch
Dam at 500 feet and 420 knots. When I said pull, my lieutenant lit both burners
and pulled up hard. We were going damned near straight up. The ”photo altitude”
was supposed to be 16,000 fleet. I saw that go by and he finally pulled the
throttles to idle and rolled inverted at 20,000 feet. He pulled the nose down
to the horizon, rolled wings level and said "cameras on." We got the target
and then started back down. Clean bird, altitude to burn, let's show old
JJ some of the neat new tricks we just learned in DCM class. He rolled it
over into a slice to the right, pulled hard enough to give me tunnel "vision,
which happens at about six G's and then followed that with a slice to the
left. Some more tunnel vision and now the mountains are starting to appear
around us. I heard him say "Son of a Bitch," didn't think anything of it,
he said that sort of thing all the time. I felt the wings rock back and forth
and my Lieutenant said "Son of a Bitch" again. He then said "Get out
John, Get out." I saw the front canopy go by followed by an ejection seat
with my Lieutenant in it.
I'm tempted to say something humorous here like, l think he knows something
I don't know," but the truth is humor was the last thing on my mind. I sat
erect and pulled the handle between my legs. I heard the cartridge fire and
then I blacked out. In '67 we were still using the charge that was designed
to get you over the tail going Mach 2. After our ejection, they lowered the
charge as nobody was attempting to get out at Mach 2, but everybody was getting
a compressed spine from the excessive charge. Our ejection also lead directly
to the “duel ejection system “ where either seat can eject the other crew
member.
I awoke from my *G* induced nap to the SNAP of the chute opening and the
hissing sound of the emergency oxygen blowing in my face. Then, right in front
of me, the airplane exploded. I could feel the heat and feared I would drift
into the fire ball. Instinctively, I climbed the risers away from the fire
and succeeded in moving the chute back. I landed right beside my pilot on
the side of a hill. Both of our backs hurt and he had a broken foot. The ship
impacted on the side of the next hill and the engines had rolled down and
started a fire at the base of the hill that we were on. We left all our gear
on the hill and I supported my pilots left side as we limped off the hill.
What caused the accident? Hard maneuvering with the power in idle. We were
in the hospital for about a month. We both had smashed discs and compression
fractures to our lower vertebra and one broken ankle. We were still in the
hospital when Atabary and Perret were shot down over Hanoi. Atabary was killed
in the shoot down and Perret was eventually tortured to death by the North
Vietnamese after his second escape attempt torn the Hanoi Hilton. They were
in the class right in front of us. Boy, lets hurry up and get well, so we
can get in on some of this!
The Air Force issued us another airplane and we finished our training. We
went to Sea Survival School, Jungle Survival School and then on 8 January
'68 we reported to the 16th Tactical Reconnaissance Squadron, Ton San Nut
Air Base, Republic of Vietnam. My Lieutenant was Nervous as a whore in church,
but I didn't feel right about ditching him, something to do with loyalty I
guess. We flew several combat missions together and each got a check out with
an experienced crew member on an “out country” mission. In country was anything
in south Vietnam. Out country was Laos, and North Vietnam.
We landed from a night mission about 10 in the evening. Intelligence told
us that something was up, so we asked if we could carry our side arms to our
living quarters that were located in Cholon (suburb of Saigon). Nope, only
while flying was our answer. It was the night before Tet '68. We awoke
to the sound of gunfire in the street, Charlie was shoot'in the place up.
There was no way to get back to the base, so we just hid out for two days.
No food, no weapons, no communications. That was when I said to myself "I
don't give a damn about the AF rules, I'm using my head from here on out."
I figured if Charlie came over the fence, I was going to hide in the water
tower, just like in Stalog 17. I learned later that water tower would have
been quite crowded because at least five other guys had the same idea. An
Army jeep was hit and abandoned right in front of our compound. At night
several of our guys crept out and shoved it into the compound. Cranked up
the Army radio and told whoever answered, “This is the 16th TRS, please come
and get us”. The Army NOT the Air Force came and got us out. We left in an
Armored Personnel Carrier taking our one KIA with us. The fuze from a mortar
round went right through his chest, he never knew what hit him.
Back on base, the Army needed recon information on the local area right
away. We were ordered to fly a local recon mission that night. My Lieutenant
refused to fly, saying he was "too shook up." That was enough for me, I told
our Ops Officer not to schedule me to fly with him again. Hell, I felt much
safer in the air than on the ground.
The rest of “my war” was pretty much uneventful. I ended up flying 200 combat
missions with 47 of them up north. I got me another Lieutenant and this guy
was “Cool Hand Luke”. We took a hit or two and even got the Distinguished
Flying Cross for “pressing on” after taking a hit in the DMZ (Demilitarized
Zone, that separated north & south Vietnam). Our target that day was a
suspected SAM (Surface to Air Missile) Site. Our orders told us to get a
picture from 500 feet. The cardinal rule over there was to stay above 4500
feet, so I called up Seventh Air Force and said "you guys left a ‘4’ off our
orders”. Nope, the 'big guy' wants a picture of that SAM taken from
500 fleet on his desk, in the morning. I swallowed hard, and said OK.
We started our run from 4500 Feet and pushed the nose over. We were going
west, figuring that if we did take a hit, we would be “feet wet” shortly after
passing over the missiles. About that time we started taking ground fire.
Lit the burners and the whole ship started shaking, I saw 800 on my ground
speed indicator. We still had our external tanks and the ship doesn't like
to go real fast with externals on. It was too late to jettison them (must
be dumped below 350 knots). We went screaming and shaking right over the
target at 500 Feet and right on out to sea. Somewhere during the run we took
a hit, but the truth is we were shaking so much that neither one of us knew
it. My pilot, my Good Lieutenant, my 'Cool hand Luke”, was later killed while
taking off in the fog in England. Writing this all up has been very depressing,
but I figured I should do it, so the Grand Kids can read it someday.
JJ Sinclair
Black Ace
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About the Author:
JJ Sinclair retired from the Air Force in 1974 after 22 years of service.
He flew as crew member on:
- B-29 (left gunner)
- KC-97 (boom operator)
- B-52 (navigator & radar navigator)
- RF-4C (navigator)
- F-111F (navigator).
After retiring, JJ established an FAA Certified Glider Repair Station in
Placerville, California, and operated that facility for over 20 years. He
has flown 1000K zig-zag in his LS-7 as well as a 1000K triangle in his Nimbus-3,
but takes more pride in having flown Silver, Gold and Diamond Badge Flights
in the wooden Duster that he constructed in 1973.
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