Tanker Trilogy I
1982
It may be no coincidence that three of my most memorable experiences as a KC-135 copilot happened with the same aircraft commander, so I have dubbed him, “Captain Trilogy.” About the best thing I can say about Captain Trilogy is that I liked him, but hardly anybody else did mainly because he was pushy with his religious and moral beliefs. He was as American as the rest of us, but some time after graduating from the Air Force Academy, he converted to a religion called Baha’i, in a born-again way, and he could no longer contain his impulse to intervene when others behaved less than honorably. He was not a bad pilot, and I was certainly capable of making his kind of mistakes, but his self-righteousness made him less accessible to input from his crew, if that makes any sense. I have a couple of stories about trying to warn him of looming trouble. He would sometimes consider such input with a blank stare and then politely discard it. This is one of those stories. The three dimensional aspects, plus the additional dimension of time, might be a little complicated to explain, and maybe that is why Captain Trilogy never seemed to get it, even after it was over.
On this day, we were to be part of a six-ship MITO formation of B-52 bombers and KC-135 tankers, which was no small event. MITO stands for “Minimum Interval Takeoff,” and we did not attempt them more than about once a year. They were accomplished by hacking the clock when the preceding aircraft started its takeoff roll, eight seconds between aircraft, until all six airplanes were airborne. This was a Cold War maneuver that we stood alert to perform at a moment’s notice if the emergency war order was issued, except with lighter peacetime weights. In some ways, the maneuver was simple, but it was heavily briefed because the situation could deteriorate quickly unless everybody stuck to the script. In the unlikely event that one of the aircraft had to abort, it was very very important to announce it with the airspeed once the abort was initiated. For example, “100 knots – Abort! 100 knots – Abort!” In that case, any MITO airplane with an airspeed lower than 100 knots had to urgently start the abort maneuver, or else hit the aborting airplane ahead.
Aside from the usual minor critiques to save for the formation debrief, we all got safely airborne that day. The bombers generally had better performance, with their eight engines, so they always went first. Captain Trilogy and I were in the third tanker, number five in the formation. We stretched for miles and occupied several altitudes. Either collective experience or common sense ruled out attempting to surprise air traffic controllers with this, so it all had to be coordinated in advance with an “altitude reservation.” As we climbed we were always lower than the airplane ahead of us, but for some reason the procedure for cruise was to reverse that. In other words, after level-off, the last airplane would be at the highest altitude and at some point we each had to cross through the altitude of the previous aircraft. Separation was measured using the aircraft’s radar. During this particular event, we could not have achieved proper spacing visually, even with a calibrated eyeball, because we were in and out of cloud layers during the climb (pilot slang for that is “Popeye”). The navigator had the job of reading the radar and communicating the spacing of the blip ahead to the pilots. This radar technology was old and unreliable. MITO events were so risky and required so much coordination that we hardly ever did them to the detriment of other skills, and practice using the radar for aircraft separation was a rare event.
Multi-jet formation after MITO takeoff at Fairchild AFB (credit internet)
The route of flight contained a large bend to the left about 100 miles after takeoff. I don’t know if that was a matter of coincidence or by design because, as all formation pilots know, it is easier to close the gap behind an airplane in a turn. This is because the closure can be accomplished without much speed differential. This concept becomes important to the story. Turning a smaller circle than the airplane you are trying to catch is called using “cutoff.” This was our chance to tighten up the formation and we could close the gap by starting our turn at an earlier point than the preceding tanker and “flying a smaller circle.” As it happened, we were in the clouds as we approached the turn point and we could hear each airplane ahead of us reporting as they reached their assigned altitude in sequence, stacking at 1,000-foot intervals with lead ship at the lowest. This meant that passing through the previous airplane’s altitude was immanent, and it looked to me like it would happen during the turn. For the first and only time during the flight, we would be at the same altitude as the airplane we were following, if only for an instant.
As we approached the turn, Captain Trilogy asked, “What’s our distance, Nav?” She replied, “I think two miles, but I am not sure this radar is working right.”
Captain Trilogy only saw an opportunity. He clearly didn’t see the threat, saying, “ I’m gonna use cutoff to catch him.”
We were uncertain about our distance and soon would pass through the altitude of an aircraft that we could not see. Does anything strike you as questionable about increasing our closure rate with the advantage of cutoff in that situation? It was a formula for occupying the same coordinate in the space-time continuum. It was a concept that Marty McFly had fun with in Back To The Future, premiering a couple years later, but I was rather certain our script would be more like The End of Any Future. We had no way of assuring separation, and I spoke up.
“Boss, she says she is not sure how close we are. This is not the time to use cutoff.”
He said, “Why not? This is the perfect chance to catch up!”
I answered him with all the reasons. He responded with a blank stare and then politely reiterated his intentions. We went back and forth twice and it was clear that he just didn’t get it. The preceding airplane had indeed reported his level off at 28,000 feet, and as we were approaching that altitude in a turn, in the weather, I decided with resignation that it was more important to look out the window than to argue with him. I grabbed the yoke to be ready and watched where I thought the threat would appear. About 30 seconds later, there it was. I could see the top of the fuselage and both wings because of the steep turn it was in. I didn’t have to wait to see the closure; the split-second snapshot I had already seen suggested a sharp angle rejoin line which, in turn, suggested fast closure. I remember the lighting of the cloud made it look darker than usual. It was certainly closer than a mile, and we were closing fast. In keeping with what I had already resolved to do, I grabbed the yoke and turned us right toward the outside of the turn and unloaded the elevator to decrease the turn rate and spit us outside of his turn. A textbook overshoot maneuver. My adrenaline might have ripped the wings off, except I forgot to disconnect the autopilot. I overpowered the servos to do it, but I managed to slide the airplane out of harm’s way.
I remember every syllable of what Captain Trilogy had the audacity to say.
“Why, you’re white as a ghost!”
I responded with something like, “Of course I am! Do you have any idea what just happened?” Whatever he grunted or shrugged in response only reinforced what I have already said; he simply didn’t get it. We don’t point airplanes at each other in the clouds and hope for the best without some means of assuring separation, like altitude or radar. In the year or so that followed, I brought it up a couple of times, with no change. He just never got it.
Captain’s Log 