I had four radios to listen and talk on:
- FM - The ground troops
- VHF - My controller
- UHF - The Fighters
- Emergency UHF - 243.0 international emergency frequency. VHF 121.5 is also the international emergency frequency, but we didn't listen to that one.
In Vietnam you had to have permission to do an air strike. I would find a target on the ground or our troops on the ground would tell me they needed help. I believe our troops were often severely outnumbered were I worked. But we had air superiority... there were no Migs trying to shoot us down. When the troops told me they needed help they would give me their coordinates (Latitude and Longitude) and the coordinates of the purposed air strike. I would in turn call my controller and request air support. My controller would call me back with an ETA for the fighters.
I had a huge bag of very detailed topographic maps of the general area. I was very good at reading them and finding the area of the coordinates that I was given. While I was waiting for the fighters I would visit more with the ground troops and be ready to go when the fighters got there. When the fighters reached a certain geographic point they would call me on my fighter radio... my call sign was "Covey 62". They would tell me which direction they were coming from, their altitude, their aircraft type and numbers and their load (bomb type and count). They would also tell me their "Play Time"... or how much time I had to talk them into the target and to drop their bombs. The Air Force fighters (F-4's and A-7's) always came from Thailand and they usually had just 5 minutes of play time... they used a lot of their gas just coming and going. The Navy and Marines (F-4's, A-6's, A-4's) came off of aircraft carriers in the Gulf of Tonkin... right offshore... They had loads of play time.
The best aircraft for the job was the A-6 Intruder (the same airplane in the movie "Flight of the Intruder"). The usually carried 500 pound bombs... 48 of them.
When the fighters arrived I would tell them where to orbit, what altitude I wanted them at and where I was. It was important that they called me "in sight" so we didn't have a mid air collision.
I would coordinate with the troops on the ground the direction of the air strike. Bombs weren't always accurate and were normally long or short and not left or right of target. So think of your house and the street out front... you would want the fighter to attack on the other side of the street from you and fly parallel to your street... so a bomb long or short of target would not fall on you. Normal we wouldn't plan to drop bombs very close to friendly troops... unless it was an emergency... then they would be really ready for it. Soon it was time to shoot my smoke rocket. I had no sight to aim with, I only had a grease pencil mark I put on the windshield that looked just about right to me. So I would throttle back to idle, pull my nose up, to lose airspeed, and roll over on a wing and into a dive... aim... hold it steady... and push the button... whoosh... the rocket was off. Every FAC would brag in the bar, all I had to say is "Hit my Smoke"... a famous phrase for us. I would pull off of the target, push my throttle to max and head straight up to get my altitude back that I lost in the dive. I would be kicking my rudder left and right and roll in an uncoordinated way to not make myself a steady target and to watch what was happening with my smoke... looking over my shoulder and back at the target I would start directing the air strike.
When the rocket hit you would see a plume of white smoke in the dark green jungle. I would then ask the ground troops how is my mark in relation to the target... and they would give me the feedback. I would be easy to say to the fighters "Hit My Smoke" but often it would be off a little and I might use something like "see how long my smoke is (or wide), hit the length of my smoke to the north". The lead fighter would drop and I would ask for corrections from the ground troops and the next fighter would adjust and so on. The fighters out of Thailand would drop all of their bombs in one pass, so a flight of 4 fighters would take a minimum of 5 minutes on target. The fighters off of the carriers could usually make multiple passes.
A little about flying. Flying is about energy. Lets pretend you are on the highway in your car... the cruise control is on 70 MPH. You come up to a steep hill and as you are going up your car responds by revving up the engine and you make it to the top of the hill doing about 70 MPH. Your car used a lot of energy to get up the hill. Now you are going back down the hill and the engine is idling and soon you are going 85. You got that energy back that you spent going up the hill. At 85 you may get part way up the next hill before the engine cuts back in.
Just a thought... we need a little music... turn your volume on... The song will open in another window but just click back to this tab (up towards the top of the screen you will see the Blogger Daddyoleo tab) and read on... So lets add a little music for the background to this post...Lets listen to Free Bird... it starts out slow and just goes on and on... like my 4 and a half hour flight... The music will take you back to the erratic 1970's. Play it not for the lyrics but for the mood.
My airplane's maximum speed was 183 knots or about 200 mph. When I did a rocket pass (dive) I would be like your car going downhill, but I had a speed I shouldn't exceed. I would want to be at idle power and flying really slow as I rolled into my dive. Speed would build up quickly. If you didn't roll onto the target headed in the exact direction of the target you had to adjust your heading... that meant more time in the dive... and higher speeds. You could be diving right at a anti-aircraft gun and you are basically an non-moving target and easy to hit. A long dive was not good. When you were working close to troops you had to be accurate... so it was a trade off. I had to be accurate... I believe I frequently and wildly exceeded the design limits of my airplane.
The max g-force for the O-2 was 3.7 g's... so a 100 pound person sitting next to me would weigh 370 pounds on a scale at that point. Thankfully my wings never came off but I am sure my airplane and every other airplane "In Country" was bent and abused.
The troops on the ground depended on us... they need us. Some times it was a panic and other times it was not. There were times when we needed fighters and we didn't get them. This is how my roommate Steve was killed. There were no fighters available and he flew a different airplane than me... and OV-10... it had a small ineffective machine gun in it's belly. The guys on the ground were about to be overrun and he was making strafing passes trying to stop the enemy... on the fifth pass he was out of ammo and he got hit.
When the fighters came out of Thailand we had to work them in quick or risk losing them.
So... one day... The troops on the ground needed help. They were already telling me "Covey... they are shooting at you". It was so loud in the airplane I could never hear the anti-aircraft guns. Since I couldn't hear the shooting ... it didn't exist in my mind... but I would still try to avoid being in their range... I was always climbing and trying to get higher... at a speed of about 80 knots... altitude was really my only defense. I had no defense for big anti-aircraft guns or the bigger missiles... almost sure death to me... I reasoned they wouldn't spend the big bucks to shoot that stuff at me... I would later be proven wrong on that idea.
I asked for fighters and I got four F-4's out of Thailand and they were definite that they could not hang around more than 5 minutes. I rolled in to mark the target and missed pretty bad... I didn't think I could talk the fighters into to the target area with that shot. So I pushed the nose over some more, aimed and shot again. I was getting pretty low to the ground when I finally pulled off. Quickly, I was headed almost straight up to get some altitude and get away from ground fire and I noticed it was pretty noisy in the cockpit I was still doing 215 knots and going straight up (I must have been at 250-270 knots in my dive), I looked at my g-meter and I had pulled 5.7 g's. I was still in range of the SA-7 shoulder launched missile. I was clawing for altitude. The first fighter rolled in hot (armed and ready to drop bombs) and I was asking the ground troop if we needed corrections after the bombs impacted ... think loud boom and a following shockwave shaking you...and about then the Emergency radio started screaming "Arc Light Arc Light Arc Light". Then it gave coordinates and said 60 seconds... it was a loud and annoying announcement... it happened often... it was welcome. It was our warning to get out of the way.
I punched off the emergency radio so I could talk and listen to the ground troops and the fighters... while looking up. The number two fighter had just pulled off the target and number three was in hot. I was looking up and at 35,000 feet was the con-trails of 5 B-52's. Soon the whole world started shaking and the earth about 10 miles away was erupting from hundreds of bombs from those B-52's. I moved my fighters further away from that strike as number four called "Four in Hot"... soon we were done. All quiet... more or less... the B-52 strike was over and the mission continued... I was soon asking for more fighters. Then I realized I had turned off the Emergency radio and I turned it back on... I had to listen for Jimmy... my most important mission.
And the F-4 crews were heading back to the bar in Thailand... and the B-52 crews were heading back to the bar in Guam.
Watch the video of an Arc Light... strike.
All that happened in less than 5 minutes after the fighters arrived.
Many of my missions were much like this. Sometimes as many as 4 air strikes.
When we were in pilot training our instructors joked that they were training us to be "Steely Eyed Killers", and we all laughed... now I was one... I rationalized I was protecting my brothers on the ground. Some politician in DC rationalized it was better to fight little wars than big ones and we had no choice... it was our turn.
I was flying in the same area as the movie "Bat 21"... that incident happened 45 days before I got there. My area was also the same area where my roommate Steve had been declared KIA about two weeks prior to this day. I was only 37 miles away from Jimmy... but I didn't know that. I only had to survive a little over 11 more months... but I was stupid and bulletproof...
God was watching over me.
