Dan Hampton: Viper Pilot

“C’mon… c’mon…” I muttered, straining to see.

Suddenly a boxy shape appeared at the edge of my vision… and another. Trucks! Big military trucks. About twenty of them, lined up on the road and heading south toward the Marines as I dropped out of the dust like an avenging angel.

My left hand touched the MASTER ARM switch as I stared through the HUD. Long-ingrained habits took over, and I lined up on the far end of the string of vehicles. I was less than a mile and a half from the closest truck.

Bunting the nose down, I let the little aiming circle with the dot in it wriggle around at the bottom of my HUD. The idea was to drop toward the earth while the circle, the gun pipper, rose up toward the target. You made surgical adjustments to your airspeed and your aim to put the pipper on the target close enough to kill it. It was good not to kill yourself, either, by hitting the ground at 800 feet per second.

Passing a hundred feet, the pipper was still well short of the truck, so I eased back slightly and physically pulled the nose of the jet—and, hence, the gun—up to point at the truck. The moment the little green pipper touched the big tailgate, I squeezed the trigger with my right forefinger.

“BUURRRPPP…”

The jet rocked sideways as the Gatling gun spat out a few hundred 20-mm shells. I instantly pulled up again and then bunted forward, aiming at the middle of the convoy.

“BUURRRPPP.”

Rolling and pulling off to the right, I cranked up on one wing and flew sideways down the column. Dark little figures were scattering both ways off the road and jumping behind bushes or into ditches. I was so low I could see small Iraqi flags painted on the doors of the vehicles.

Several things happened next.

Groups of soldiers turned, and I clearly saw them bring weapons to their shoulders. Seconds later, they began shooting at me—I was well within their range.

“BINGO… BINGO… BINGO…” The audible warning system, called Bitching Betty, also started screaming at me over my low-fuel state.

Then two of the trucks at the back of the convoy blew up. Zipping down the road at a bare hundred feet, I booted the rudder, rolled again, and zoomed up to about 300 feet.

“CHIEFTAIN… ROMAN 75 is off to the south and west… vehicles burning. The column has stopped in place.”

“ROMAN… hit ’em again… hit… Rags are…” And he faded away again into crackling noise.

I knew I didn’t have enough fuel left to go all the way back out and re-attack as I’d just done. So, when the front of the convoy passed off the left wing, I turned and locked my eyes to it, staring so hard that my eyes watered. As it began to disappear in the dark, blowing sand, I slammed the throttle forward, popped straight up, and rolled nearly inverted to the right. Using the 200 feet of altitude I’d gained, I sliced down toward the ground and the leading Iraqi vehicle. It was a Russian-made armored personnel carrier (APC).

And it saw me, too.

Pulling the throttle back, I skidded sideways to line up, and the thing opened fire at me. A double line of green tracers arced off to my left and began correcting as the gunner got a better look at me.

I ignored it and rolled my wings level, letting the pipper come up to the target. I was close enough to see that the gunner wasn’t wearing a helmet and he had a mustache. As the pipper reached the front bumper of the APC, I squeezed the trigger again.

“BUURRRPPP.” The vehicle disappeared in a sudden fog of chewed-up dirt and sparks. As I pulled up and bunted over again, my eyes flicked to the ROUNDS REMAINING counter and then to the radar altimeter. Fewer than a hundred rounds left, and I was less than 140 feet above the ground.

There wasn’t time for finesse, so I just manhandled the pipper to the leading truck and opened fire for the last time.

“BUURRP.” And the gun shuddered to a stop as I passed through 50 feet.

Cranking up hard off to the west, I kicked the rudder to spoil anyone’s aim, pulled on the stick, and looked over my right shoulder. Just then the truck exploded, shooting off thousands of rounds of ammunition, and I flinched reactively. One cannon shell must’ve hit the next truck in line, because it blew up, too. As the ground vanished into the brown haze, I saw the remaining trucks and BTRs sliding off the road into the ditch.

Swallowing several times to get some spit back in my throat, I selected the point for the TWITCH refueling track and began a steady climb.

“CHIEFTAIN… ROMAN 75 is off to the west… Bingo… Winchester and RTB.”

That was the short way of saying I was leaving the target area, out of gas and weapons, and returning to base. But it didn’t matter, because he didn’t answer and I had other things to worry about now.

Seventeen hundred pounds of fuel.

I was so far below Bingo that I wasn’t sure I could reach the border, much less a forward-divert base in Kuwait. I felt the cold sweat drying on my skin as I safed up my weapons and eyeballed the engine gauges to make sure I hadn’t picked up a stray round or two.

Passing through 8,000 feet heading southwest toward the border, I broke into the clear. Not much in my life has looked better to me than that weak blue sky. Dropping my mask again, I wiped my stubbled chin and rubbed my eyes.

“ROMAN Two… One on Victor.” I keyed the mike and waited.

No answer. I changed frequencies and tried the AWACS. “LUGER… this is ROMAN 75.”

Again, no answer.

And now I had a decision to make. Maybe my last one. The tanker track was roughly 120 miles off my nose, but there was no guarantee I’d find a tanker there. Or, if I did, he might not have any gas to spare. In which case, I was screwed.

About the same distance off my left wing was Kuwait. There were several bases I could probably coast into and manage to land. But without talking to AWACS, I had no way of knowing which ones were open or in good enough shape for me to land. And then I was still screwed.

What a shitty day.

I’d now been strapped in a fighter cockpit for more than eight hours, and I’d refueled five times. I’d planned on a normal six-hour mission and hadn’t brought food or water. My butt hurt and my eyes ached. I turned the heat up because my sweat-soaked flight suit was making me shiver.

I’d flown more than one hundred combat missions by the time this war began and was no novice in combat. I had a hatful of campaign ribbons and medals, including a Purple Heart, from earlier conflicts, and by the time I retired, I had been awarded four Distinguished Flying Crosses with Valor—one for the First Gulf War, and three for my service in the second war in Iraq. But that was all either in the past or the future. For right now, not far to the west, one of nature’s true nightmares was fast approaching. The khamsin, the sandstorm, was an ominous wave of dirt stretching north and south along the horizon as far as I could see. The sky above the storm was gone.

It was appalling.

The momentary relief I’d been feeling leaked out of me. A storm like that could ground every aircraft on the continent, and I realized maybe that was why I hadn’t heard from anyone. That was a nasty thought. Swallowing again, I passed 15,000 feet and stared out at the brown carpet stretching out before me. If I managed to get to 25,000 or 30,000 feet, I could glide to the border and at least eject over friendly territory.

Like I said, it had been a shitty day.

And it wasn’t over yet.

“YOU’VE GOTTA BE SHITTIN’ ME”: THAT’S THE BATTLE CRY OF the Wild Weasels. Surface-to-Air-Missile (SAM) killers. The first pilots sent into a warzone. Men who purposefully provoke fire from enemy missiles and anti-aircraft guns on the ground—then hunt and kill the SAM nests, making the sky safe for all other aircraft and helicopters to follow. I was proud to be one. True, like every F-16 fighter pilot, I’d fly many other types of missions in my career, but I always came back to being a Weasel. Why? It’s where the action is. SAM hunting is the most dangerous mission faced by today’s fighter pilots, a job more hazardous and difficult than shooting down enemy jets. With 151 combat missions, twenty-one hard kills on SAM sites, eleven aircraft destroyed (on the ground, unfortunately), plus many tanks, trucks, artillery, strikes on high-value targets, and other assorted operations, I’ve been called the most lethal F-16CJ Wild Weasel in the U.S. Air Force.