Viper Pilot: A Memoir of Air Combat (12 page)

Switching off the EPU, I raised the canopy, pulled my helmet from my head, and put it on the HUD as a wave of warm Egyptian air hit me. Rich earth, dust, and a faint whiff of burning trash. I smiled a bit as I wiped my face.

It doesn’t get any weirder than this.

A
GAIN
, I
SHOULD’VE KNOWN BETTER THAN TO HAVE THIS THOUGHT
. I glanced up over the canopy rail to the right and saw an ancient-looking peasant not thirty yards away. He was standing in the dirt beside the runway and had obviously walked through the holes in the perimeter fence. If we were on a U.S. air base, he’d never get through the fence. Or, if he did, he’d be dead right now. The man had a face like a raisin and dark, deep-set eyes. He was wearing ragged sandals and a dirty white
gallibiyah,
an ankle-length robe. Beside him was a donkey even skinnier than he was, and they were both looking at me.

Later I’d come to think that this scene summed up Egypt. They could build 12,000-foot runways but couldn’t keep old farmers from wandering onto them. They could buy $40M jet fighters but couldn’t keep them working. However, right then I was literally dazed. I’d just landed an F-16 without power, saved it and myself, and was staring at a donkey’s face.

So, as I sat there, my sweat cooling and the emergency sirens growing louder, the peasant calmly shuffled in front of my jet, leading the mangy animal. As they passed before me, the donkey raised his tail and shat on the runway. The old man looked back at me and very deliberately shook his head.

I think the donkey did, too.

T
HE CAREER OF A TACTICAL OFFICER IS NOMADIC
. T
RUE MILITARY
logic assumes that picking someone up every two to three years and having him start over somewhere else is a smart thing. It
does
offer a great deal of experience in widely varied environments, which, I suppose, is the point. You also get very good at moving and selling houses.

My operational career had been overseas, and I wanted to stay there. No other commitments—why not see the world? Germany had been terrific, but it was time to go. The Air Force figured that a young, combat-experienced, frontline instructor pilot would be ideal for . . . flying training jets in Texas.

I disagreed.

With feeling.

Scrambling around for any alternative, I discovered there were some wild and exotic exchange tours available to fighter pilots. These programs provided American instructors to assist allied air forces that had purchased F-16s. I had friends who went to Greece, Portugal, and Turkey. One lucky bastard ended up on the island of Bali with the Indonesian Air Force and women in grass skirts. He used to send me postcards just to rub it in.

I got Egypt.

Still, I was excited. Land of the pharaohs and the Valley of the Kings. I’d studied it all as an architectural student in college, and now I got to see it firsthand. Pyramids and scuba diving. And it wasn’t teaching student-pilot aerobatics for the anal-retentive Training Command in Texas.

Egypt in 1992 had none of the turmoil it is working its way through today. Hosni Mubarak was very definitely in power and the military controlled everything. There were about half a million soldiers on active duty and half a million more in reserve. The Egyptian Air Force was the fourth-largest user of F-16s in the world. Military officers, especially fighter pilots, were treated like royalty. The United States was giving Egypt more than a billion dollars per year in aid, which made American officers doubly welcome.

The Egyptian leadership had watched the Gulf War especially closely. They’d had a long debate over which superpower had superior arms, training, and personnel. The Iraqi military had been largely trained and equipped by the Soviets, yet the Americans had crushed it in less than ninety days. Saddam’s armed forces had been widely feared in the Middle East, at least by the Arabs, and, as our allies, the Egyptians were thrilled to get young combat veterans like me to train their pilots.

I was part of a PEACE VECTOR (PV) program, through which American tactical personnel were “loaned” to friendly foreign governments to provide technical assistance and training. As the United States was, and is, the world’s largest arms exporter, this is big business, to the tune of $18–20B annually. I was essentially a government-sponsored mercenary.

A
FTER SEVERAL COUNTERTERRORISM COURSES AND LANGUAGE TRAINING
, I was attached to the Office of Military Cooperation in Egypt. The U.S. embassy maintained a beautiful apartment for us in the upscale Mahdi section of Cairo. Marble and earth tones, of course, but very nice and available anytime we wanted to come into the city.

I was sent down to PEACE VECTOR Three at Beni Suef. This former MiG and bomber base was about a hundred kilometers south of Cairo, in the Faiyum Oasis. In the days of ancient Egypt, it had been known as Crocodilopolis, but unfortunately, by the time I got there, all the crocs were long gone. Cairo, Alexandria, and Jiyanklis (on the Suez Canal) also had PV detachments. These usually consisted of two pilots, a maintenance officer, and a handful of senior sergeants who were specialists in their respective fields. Each location hosted an Egyptian fighter wing that was composed of at least two full squadrons. We would be embedded with the resident Egyptian Air Force units and assist them with all aspects of military training.

Beni Suef appalled me at first, but that was only because I was used to Germany. With the notable exception of the Gulf War, I hadn’t seen the shitty parts of the Middle East yet. In retrospect, it was a great place. General Dynamics had built a compound within the confines of the air base for its original support folks. It was like a little village. There were nearly a hundred houses, euphemistically called “villas” while in reality they were 1960s-style ranch homes. Other good things included a baseball diamond, volleyball and tennis courts, a splendid pool, and, of course, a bar with hot tub.

Much like McCarthy-era America, which feared the Soviet Union, Egypt suffered from acute national paranoia toward Israel. This meant each fighter wing maintained a different six-day schedule to prevent the Israelis from sneak-attacking. Theoretically. The Israeli Air Force couldn’t have cared less about Egypt’s alert status. In fact, I met a veteran Israeli pilot who told me that before attacking Beni Suef in 1973, he flew down the runway, in fingertip formation, to give the Egyptians a chance to make it to their bomb shelters. In any event, Egypt had fighters actively flying, seven days a week, all year long. (Apparently, the fact that Egypt and Israel were both American allies didn’t bother anyone in the PV program.)

The Egyptian pilots were all brought in from their homes in Cairo or Alexandria via C-130 transport on day one. Days two through five were workdays. This usually meant four scheduled flights, called lines, in the late morning, followed by four more late in the afternoon. So, eight lines a day for four days. By comparison, a typical American fighter squadron would fly ten to twelve lines in the morning, followed by eight to ten lines in the afternoon or night. American pilots also plan meticulously and debrief each mission exhaustingly, sometimes for five or six hours. Egyptian flight briefings were more of a Zen thing. It was hardly a taxing schedule. On day six, they were on a C-130 back home for a four-day weekend. Then the whole ten-day rotation would begin again.

Between the military detachment and the civilian contractors, there were maybe thirty people living on a compound built for a hundred and fifty. There were no children and only two wives. We played lots of volleyball, swam, and cooked out a great deal. Almost every late afternoon we’d sit up on the roofs and watch the sun go down. Sunsets were truly spectacular. Bands of yellow, orange, and gold lay like glowing sword blades along the horizon. It would become thinner and thinner until, at the very end, the orange fire slid abruptly into the darkness. The final desperate rays would shoot upward, splattering the pink bellies of clouds until they, too, were extinguished. This ritual was usually enhanced by drinking Fuzzy Navels and playing very loud classical music. The Egyptians working on the compound thought we were crazy. They’d stand in small groups, talking softly, pointing at us, and shaking their heads. I thought it was great.

Anyway, about six months into this, I was dozing by the pool early one afternoon when my handheld radio started squawking in highly excited pigeon English.

“Captain Dan! Captain Dan . . . many planes come!”

Many planes?

I opened an eye and squinted at the radio, debating whether or not to answer it. It was the second day of the typical four-day weekend and absolutely nothing was happening. Normally we’d drive out to the Red Sea coast and dive, or we’d go up to Cairo, stay in the U.S. embassy apartment and get a real meal. But the other pilot was on vacation in Greece, and the maintenance officer was in the States, so I was just hanging around working on a really fine tan.

Deciding to ignore the noise, I then heard an unmistakable dull roar in the distance. That unique manly whine that only comes from high-performance fighter engines. I opened both eyes and stared straight up. The runway was about a mile east of where I lay, and, as the noise got loud enough to drown out the panicked tower controller, I saw them.

Four F-16s in fingertip formation, each about three feet apart and holding position perfectly. I know my mouth dropped open, but I didn’t care. They flew down the runway and pitched out in the classic “break” turn. Only fighters do this, because you pull about six Gs and roll out heading back the way you came. The leader got abeam the approach end of the runway and I saw his landing gear come down. One by one, the other three followed as he dropped and turned to line up on the runway. Egyptians didn’t fly that way.

“Captain Dan! Many plane . . . you come . . .
please
. . .” The poor guy was practically in tears. Like he was going to be personally blamed for the unannounced arrivals. Actually, he probably was, given the Egyptian military mentality.

“Easy,
habibi,
” I answered. “I’ll come now.”

I sighed once at the quiet pool. As I jogged to the villa, two other flights of four came screaming overhead and pitched out. Throwing on my flight suit and boots, I paused long enough to grab two six-packs of beer from the fridge. I was excited now. Lots of countries flew F-16s, and the new arrivals were not Egyptians. Now that the Gulf War was over and the danger was past, many of our NATO allies were finally sending contingents of fighters to the “war” zone. These, I thought, were likely Dutch or Belgians on their way into Saudi Arabia.

In any event, this was something different—and novelty was good.

I careened past the startled gate guards and hightailed it up the perimeter road to the entrance to the Egyptian side of the base. Several more guards, in khaki pants and ragged tennis shoes, stood in the road. Recognizing me and my truck, they waved and opened the gate. That is, they lifted the wooden pole from two badly dented oil drums and stood aside so I could pass.

With the truck’s windows down, hot air mixed with the flies and dust as I sped down the road. On the right, toward the runway, the very last jet was coming around on final, gear extended and landing light glowing. With a tiny thrill, I realized they were American F-16s. All fighters carry identifying markings that are plain to pilots but look like ancient Hittite to anyone else. I was still too far away to read them but the placement of these markings on the tail told me they were U.S. fighters.

Excited now, I mashed the pedal down and drove faster. For some strange reason, the roadside curbs were painted with alternating two-foot sections of black and white. This made driving after a few Fuzzy Navels a surreal experience. I often wondered how many conscripts it took, and for how long, to paint miles and miles of concrete with these stripes.

Coming to a big, L-shaped main intersection, I turned right and headed toward the runway. There were several big dormitories, now empty, for the pilots to stay when they were here. Behind them were a collection of hovels for the enlisted men and conscripts. Incidentally, conscripts weren’t allowed to leave the base on weekends, and about fifty of them were huddled by the road, looking toward the runway with empty faces.

I raced past the headquarters complex, recognizable because of the date palms planted in the forecourt and the monthly fresh coat of brownish-pink paint on the walls. Think of vomit sprayed on cinder blocks and you’ve got the picture.

The road led directly onto the flight line. Western military complexes, and particularly American air bases, are harder to get into than a nun’s panties. Just to pass onto the main base you need a piece of plastic containing a computer chip with your life history, medical history, and security clearance. Flight line access means going through layers of fences, camera surveillance, more guys with guns, and additional identification. Without the right ID, you’ll end up facedown on the ground with a pistol in your ear.

But here I just drove on.

The runway and taxiways opened up before me like the parking lot at Wally World. Or the state of Oklahoma. The Soviet-built TU-16 bombers that had originally inhabited this place needed lots of space. Called Badgers, they were three stories tall and had a wingspan of 108 feet. They’d needed
acreage
just to turn around. In fact, there was a wrecked one that had been pushed off the taxiway and lay rusting in the sun. Next to it was a MiG-21 fighter that was missing a wing. Just beyond these modern heaps, outside the perimeter fence, was the small but authentic Lahun pyramid. Built 3,800 years ago, it was in marginally better shape than the two Russian jets.

As I turned onto the taxiway, I saw them. Twelve F-16s huddled together just off the north end of the runway. They were beautiful—decked out in fresh dark-gray combat paint with a lighter sea-gray splash around the cockpit. The distinctive gold canopy glinted in the sun and brilliant white strobe lights flashed from their tails. Heat-seeking Sidewinder air-to-air missiles jutted from each wingtip, and the white tips of deadly long-range AMRAAM missiles were visible beneath the wings. Each fighter had a pair of 370-gallon wing tanks and a rectangular electronic countermeasure pod slung beneath the belly. They were clean, with new, black tires and the exposed metal parts gleamed like they’d all been polished. This was typical of American fighter jets, but I hadn’t seen one in six months and the Egyptian Air Force didn’t spend much time on such things.