Dan Hampton - Viper Pilot

Shoving the throttle forward, I pulled the nose up and closed the speed brakes. Leveling off a hundred feet above the concrete, I left the gear down and keyed the mike.

“ROMAN One had the runway at one mile and 300 feet. One is missed approach. All ROMANS wait in EOR.”

“Three copies.”

“Five copies.”

“Seven copies.”

“Nine copies.”

As I darted past the end of the runway (EOR), I saw a small white truck with flashing yellow lights, waiting. Flipping the gear handle up, I added more power and began to climb. As the ground disappeared beneath me, I turned northwest into a thick black wall of sand. The turbulence had increased to the point where it could buffet my jet, and I glanced at my fuel. Forty-five hundred pounds. Still plenty.

Number Three had just called his gear down so Number Four was behind him on final. I’d just heard Number Seven call “pushing,” so that put Number Five and Six somewhere in between. Turning left, I was now paralleling the runway and heading southeast. At 5,000 feet, I cracked the throttle back to hold 250 knots and stared at the air-to-air radar. Two aircraft were off my left side, heading northwest—that would be Number Five and Six on final. So the flight that was perpendicular to me and ten miles off my nose had to be Seven and Eight on their way to final.

“ROMAN Nine… pushing.”

Cranking back right about thirty degrees, I ran the radar out to pick up the last two fighters but I couldn’t find them. Too much altitude difference, or a bad angle, or gremlins. It didn’t matter. I simply pulled away, stayed at 5,000 feet, and continued toward Customs House for another minute. This would build in enough spacing between me and Number Ten and, sure enough, it did. He was sixteen miles in front of me when I turned back to the east.

One by one, I heard the tower clear the others to land and no one called missed approach. This’ll work, I thought as I lowered the nose and descended back to 3,000 feet. Dropping the oxygen mask, I rubbed the stubble on my cheeks and the aching bridge of my nose. The cockpit was toasty, and I’d finally quit shivering, so the heat came down a notch. Shaking my head back and forth, I fought back another yawn. God, I was tired . Every time I blinked, it felt like two pieces of sandpaper rubbing together.

At eleven miles, I began the easy turn to final, and Number Ten was cleared to land. The gear handle came down as I called up the ILS steering one more time. But as I stared at two green landing gear lights instead of three, the tower controller said, “ROMAN One… current visibility is now a quarter-mile. Say intentions.”

I blinked, still staring at the unsafe gear indication. Intentions? Let’s see, how about ejecting over Bahrain, checking into a five-star hotel, and drinking all night in a casino?

“You’ve gotta be shitting me…” I muttered again. This was like an emergency simulator scenario that had gone ape-shit.

“Confirm all other ROMANS are on deck.”

“Affirmative. State intentions.”

That word again. I really hated that word.

“ROMAN One is six miles, gear down full stop, three-zero left.”

I opened the speed brakes and dropped the nose to catch the glide slope. Normally, with a gear problem, you’d just orbit around in clear airspace and work through the checklist. But with a deteriorating quarter-mile visibility and no place else to go, that wasn’t happening. I pushed the little round green gear light in to check the electrical circuit. Maybe the bulb had just burned out. No such luck.

Five miles. Twenty-two hundred feet and 160 knots. Sometimes cycling the gear solved minor problems, so I cycled the handle up and watched the red “in transit” light illuminate. The two green lights went out. Fighting the aircraft’s upward surge and 30-knot crosswind while flying the ILS, I added power again and lowered the handle. The fighter yawed a bit as the gear came down, and this time I actually heard three thumps. But still only two gear lights.

Fuck it.

“ROMAN… Ali Tower reporting gusts to forty knots.”

Terrific.

Still, you have to sound good no matter what. “ROMAN One copies,” I replied calmly. “Short final with the gear, full stop.” I think.

“Cleared to land.”

I was crabbing almost thirty degrees into the wind, and the jet was bouncing in the unstable air like popcorn in a popper. Again, there was nothing in front of me but blowing sand and blackness. At one mile, I was dead on the approach centerline at 300 feet. A normal ILS approach has a minimum altitude of 200 feet, so I continued down and leveled off at 100 feet. Ignoring the gear issue, my burning eyes, and sweaty hands, I concentrated every ounce of consciousness on the ground before me. Risking quick glances left and right, I could see nothing but billowing gray clouds of dust.

The distance counter in the HUD said 0.1, so I had to be directly over the threshold.

“Shit.” I shoved the throttle forward to go around. I had no real hope of flying another instrument approach and finding the runway, but if you can’t see you can’t land.

A light!

Just disappearing beneath my left wingtip.

There! White painted runway markings and an enormous 30L. I’d been blown slightly right by the wind, but there it was. Cobbing the power back, I opened the speed brakes and dumped the nose. Dropping through the dust, I kept my eyes glued to the pale ribbon of concrete. As it rose up, I pulled the stick back and angled left as much as I could to favor the unsafe left gear. With about ten feet to go, the runway seemed to just reach up and grab me, as if to say, “Enough… just fucking land.”

The fighter slammed down and I winced.

But nothing collapsed, and I didn’t flip off the runway in a cloud of sparks and flame. With the throttle in IDLE, I lowered the nose immediately, thumbed the speed brakes to full open, and concentrated on staying in the middle of the concrete. Fortunately, this runway was 9,000 feet long. As I slowed to taxi speed, I realized I’d made it.

“ROMAN One… taxi to the end. Turn right to join your flight. The FOLLOW ME will take you to parking.”

I swallowed and took a deep breath. Then I saw them. A row of flashing strobe lights and the red-and-green wingtip lights of the other F-16s. They were beautiful.

“ROMAN One copies. Thanks for the help.”

“Ali Tower… no problem. And welcome down.”

Relief washed through me. Slowly approaching the turnoff, I closed the speed brakes, checked my lights on, and lifted the ejection seat lever to SAFE. Turning off carefully, I flashed my landing light at the follow-me truck, and he pulled away. The visibility was horrible now, and we literally crawled along the taxiway amid the blowing tumbleweeds and trash. Imagine driving through a dark car-wash and being sprayed with sticky brown foam while garbage hits your windshield, and you might get the picture.

We taxied around a maze of ruined aircraft shelters and several other twists and turns before eventually arriving at a narrow strip of concrete just east of the other runway. Easing through the dust, I saw half a dozen little glowing wands and managed a smile. These were crew chiefs waiting to “catch” the jets and get us all shut down. Someone was on the ball out there. Following the first set of wands, I stopped at the crew chief’s signal, set the parking brake, and looked back at the rest of my strays. As the last one rolled to a stop, I keyed the mike.

“All ROMANs… check switches safe, tapes off, and secure all your classified.” Squinting down the row of dirty-gray fighters, I added, “We’re all tired so let’s not goon up anything simple.”

Our tapes and mission-planning materials were all classified, so we all checked each other after each flight to keep screw-ups from happening. It was even more important in a situation like this, on an unfamiliar base, at the end of a very long day.