Viper Pilot: A Memoir of Air Combat (19 page)

Air refueling is absolutely essential for fighter combat operations, as we burn up fuel very quickly.

With my favorite SAM-killing weapon—the cluster bomb. This one is personalized for my wife and daughter; it killed an anti-aircraft artillery nest.

Baghdad reeling from Shock and Awe, 2003.

A map of the known SAM sites around Baghdad in the early days of the second Iraq War. There were at least as many “unlocated” sites. In any event, it was our job to kill them all.

In Kuwait following the Nasiriyah mission. I tried to save some surrounded Marines by strafing an Iraqi armored column that had cut them off. The haze is left over from a gigantic sandstorm. (See the prologue and chapter 8.)

Me and LTC Scott “Zing” Manning—call sign ELI 33—after we destroyed Saddam Hussein’s escape helicopters in Baghdad, April 7, 2003. (See chapter 11.)

77th Fighter Squadron “Gamblers” at Prince Sultan Air Base, Saudi Arabia, 2003. We were going home the next day! That’s the Gamblers’ patch in the upper left: “All Aces, No Jokers.” Along with the 23rd Fighting Hawks, with whom I served in the first Gulf War, these were the finest fighter squadrons in the USAF.

After the SAMbush mission in Baghdad. Note the dark stains around the 20-mm cannon port over my head from repeated strafing. (See chapter 10.)

Like father, like son . . . Me and my dad, Colonel Dan Hampton, USMC (Ret.), A-4 Skyhawk attack pilot.

It’s impossible not to look good next to a hot fighter jet and a hot woman—my beautiful wife, Beth.

7

Shock and Awe

March 19, 2003

0530 local time, south of Baghdad

“STOIC 67, SAM
IN THE AIR
. . . SAM
IN THE AIR SOUTHWEST-BOUND OVER
B
AGHDAD
!”

I rolled hard to the right and smoothly pulled back on the stick. The SAM was a flaming dot rising out of the predawn city lights, gathering speed and climbing. I wasn’t certain it was locked on me, because my threat-warning display was already alphabet soup. This was hardly surprising: I was just south of Baghdad, and the Iraqis were royally pissed off. We were leading the invasion of Iraq—“the tip of the spear.”

“BEEP . . . BEEP . . . BEEP . . .”

The warning receiver woke up, and I glanced at the small screen. It was covered with overlapping signals from SA-3s, SA-2s, Triple-A, and friendly airborne radars from our own fighters. Basically, the entire electronic spectrum was up and running. There were also lots of
UNKNOWN
symbols, meaning my system couldn’t decide whether the incoming signal was hostile or friendly. Based on their northerly direction, I assumed they were all hostile, since there were no friendly aircraft between me and Baghdad.

Terrific.

I immediately pulled the F-16 around to the east and streamed out a decoy just in case. The missile plume stayed visible; it was flying a fairly flat, very fast trajectory. Snapping upright, I pushed the throttle forward to mil power and stared at the SAM. Suddenly, from the corner of my right eye, I saw two more disembodied flames clear the dark horizon.

“STOIC One has two SA-3s . . . westbound out of Baghdad.”

If they were SA-2s, they’d have gone much higher, like a shuttle launch, and disappeared. Once the sustainer burned out, the missile dove down from 80,000 feet or so and was completely invisible—until it smashed you to pieces. Very nasty bastards. SA-3s were easier to detect, but they were also much quicker and harder to shake.

“STOIC One, multiple SAM launches, Baghdad . . . heads-up MOXIE!”

Somewhere behind me in the western darkness, I heard the other flight lead zipper his mike. Unlike during peacetime operations, we flew almost exclusively “comm out.” That is, without the usual chatter on the radios. Some of this was professionalism but most of it was efficiency. With three hundred airplanes using the same few frequencies, you had to limit conversations to the bare minimum. This meant combat. Missile launches, target locations, or, God forbid, search and rescue.

Modern fighters all had a second, and sometimes a third, radio that was used for inter-flight chitchat. Not that there was much of it. All fighter squadrons had “standards.” A hopefully short list of mundane items that we would all do the same way. The Gamblers were very good about this. We’d refined all the extraneous stuff to the point where you only really spoke as an exception. Everything else was just done by the Big Boy Book of Rules.

Then the first SAM stopped streaking west. It hung in space between the city and the stars, and I caught myself holding my breath for a moment. SAM launched. But who was the target? The flames were enormous. I was ten miles away but could plainly see the long, fiery tails; white-hot and fuzzy near the end, the plume became darker and almost red where it touched the missile. The missiles were invisible, of course, but you knew where they were, because that’s where the fire stopped. Nothing moved faster across the sky than a surface-to-air missile.

Even after the rocket boosters burned out, the eerie disembodied red flames raced across the black sky looking for targets. You didn’t start worrying until you saw the flaming doughnut—a red-orange ring of fire with a dark hole in the middle. This was the SAM and it was pointed right at you.

“Shit . . .” I muttered and thumbed on my Electronic Countermeasures pod. Pushing the nose over, I kept my eyes padlocked on the SA-3 as it turned and pointed at me.

“Heads-up STOIC Two . . . SAM at ten o’clock high . . . stand by . . .”

I thumbed the data-link switch over, heard the “tickle” in my helmet, and saw that my wingman was about two miles behind and to the right of me. Twisting in the seat, I looked back over the tail but saw nothing. It didn’t matter. Unlike previous rigid, communications-intensive tactics, we’d evolved into a much simpler mind-set. Modern technology helped—instead of asking where my wingman was, I could send a data-link position request. I also always hated the inflexible, line-abreast formations that we’d been trained with. They didn’t work in combat, because if you flew in straight lines you were just asking for a missile up your butt.

In combat, I used a “loose deuce” formation almost exclusively. This puts a wingman on a two-mile string, allowing him to maneuver at will as long as he didn’t lose sight of the flight lead and could maintain all of his other responsibilities. These included working his air-to-air radar, visually scanning for MiGs and SAMs and keeping an eye on his aircraft systems. He only spoke when he had something tactical to say. I, as the leader, just flew where I had to and didn’t have to think about his position much. In the event we had to react tactically to a threat, we were already spread out nicely. It worked well.

Just then the rocket’s flaming trail burned out, so I immediately pushed the nose farther down and began counting, my eyes locked to the HUD. Night-threat reactions while wearing NVGs aren’t generally the high-G, aerobatic maneuvers they are during the day. That’s because there’s a very real possibility of becoming disoriented without your normal flying references. Ten miles south of Baghdad, at night, with a half-dozen SAMs in the air, is no place to lose control of a fighter.

Six . . . seven. . .

Pulling hard back to the right, I pumped out several chaff bundles.

“STOIC One and Two, heading zero-eight-zero . . . defending SA-3 . . .”

The response from the other two-ship was immediate. “MOXIE One . . . Magnum, SA-3, Baghdad.”

“STOIC Two is blind at eighteen K!”

Ten . . . eleven . . .

“STOIC Two come south and stay above eighteen.”

Twelve . . .

Up on my left wingtip now, I yanked the fighter back toward the city in a constant, five-G barrel roll and punched out a few more chaff bundles. Rolling wings level, I was pointed straight at the city and dropping through 15,000 feet. In the subdued green glow of the cockpit, my eyes flickered to the master-arm switch then to the HUD. A big cross was squarely in the middle, and I used it to point the jet and the HARM at the glowing spot on the ground where the SAM had launched. Shutting my left eye, I mashed down on the pickle button and the jet shook as the 800-pound missile shot off the rail. Instantly cranking up on one wing, I sliced back south in a six-G descending turn.

“STOIC One . . . Magnum, SA-3, Baghdad.”

There was so much shit down there that calling out an exact position would be a waste of time. We’d been ordered to stay ten miles outside the city, so I came around heading west to put more distance between us and the threats. If the first SAM had been able to guide, it would’ve hit me by now.

“STOIC Two is visual.” How could he not see me after that HARM launch?

“Fighting wing . . . stay locked.” Meaning he’d use his air-to-air radar to stay tied to me. I doubted there’d be MiGs tonight, but the sky was full of F-16s and F-15s if any Iraqi down there had a bravery attack. My four-ship was split into pairs, each operating independently. If you drew a north-south line through Baghdad, my Number Three man and his wingman had everything west of the line, and I had the east. MOXIE was also starting in a higher-altitude block, 25,000–29,000 feet, while I took 15,000–19,000. When the shit hit the fan, all of this would generally go out the window, but you had to start somewhere.

A
T FIFTEEN MILES OUT, WE TURNED AND BEGAN ARCING
northwest around the city. As we did, like thousands of flashbulbs going off in a dark room, the Baghdad air defenses came violently to life. Angry streams of tracers spurted up against the black sky. Rising from all directions, they flattened out against the stars before curving downward and disappearing. Bigger anti-aircraft fire, 100-mm and above, shot straight up in orange and red clusters before exploding. Yellows, greens, and even a few red tracers spat out from ten thousand guns and covered the city in a pulsating, multicolored net.

Neighborhood by neighborhood, from the outer suburbs in, went black as the power grids shut down. Searchlights waved across the sky, adding white to the Technicolor display, like something from a World War II movie. I could tell where the outskirts of Baghdad were by the SAM launches. Massive white flames briefly illuminated roads and buildings as more missiles ignited.

“Son of a bitch . . .” I whispered.

Yellow flashes began popping all over the city. American bombs. Ugly, mustard-colored detonations immediately changed to red and then faded—or mushroomed into bigger explosions if something flammable was hit.

Keying the Victor radio, I said, “Now we know why we had to stay ten miles outside the city.”

“STOIC One . . . this is Two. What the hell is that?” He sounded excited and I smiled. I’d seen this before.

“Cruise missile strike. Tomahawks.”

It was over in a few minutes and fires burned bright in dozens of places. Other missile impacts looked like dull red pimples on a black face as they slowly fizzled out. Then the Triple-A and SAMS started up again.

“STOIC One . . . tally missile launch . . . southeast Baghdad,” I added.

“MOXIE is tally.”

Even as I watched, the fiery plume got stubbier and I realized the missile was turning in our direction. Frowning, I pushed the throttle up and felt the jet accelerate.

“MOXIE One is tally one . . . no, two . . . spiked from the west.”

I looked and saw at least two more SAMs lift off from the center of the city.

“STOIC One . . . attacking SA-3 from the south.”

I went to full mil power and pointed directly at the launch site. Hesitating a half-second, I saw my camera was on, looked at the switch again, and checked the selected weapon. I closed my right eye this time and pickled.

A brilliant flash lit up the cockpit and left an orange smudge under my right eyelid. The jet kicked a little as the missile accelerated, and I fought the urge to stare. As the anti-radiation missile pitched up, I stared down at Baghdad, opened my eye, and pulled hard away to the right.

Even as I moved, the closest anti-aircraft fire shifted and began shooting in my general direction. They were aiming at the flash, which was precisely why you changed directions as soon as you fired. Another reason not to carry a HARM. But tonight it was all we had.

“MOXIE One . . . defending . . . uh . . . west. SA-3,” he added.

MOXIE One had never seen combat but was an experienced F-16 flight lead. In fact, none of the other members of this flight were combat veterans. Surprisingly, there were very few of us remaining who’d fought in either Desert Storm or Kosovo, though half our pilots had been into Iraq before, between the wars. So each four-ship was at least led by a combat veteran.

“STOIC One . . . Magnum SA-3 . . . Baghdad south.”

I dumped the nose and picked up speed. Northeast-bound now, I was slowly arcing around the city. The 100-knot wind from the west actually helped, because it was trying to push me away from Baghdad, not into it. Up off the nose, there were lights on the ground from little towns, so I knew I was approaching the Tigris River.

“MOXIE One . . . updating three-zero-zero . . .”

“MOXIE Two is blind . . .”

I pictured it in my head. MOXIE was continuing to defend himself and was passing through northwest, or 300 degrees. His wingman had just lost sight of him—not uncommon at night, when you’re getting shot at—and was “blind.” I zippered the mike, then spoke, twisting around in the seat as I did.

“STOIC Two . . . Slapshot SA-3 bearing two-nine-zero . . .”

In the greenish-white circles of my night-vision goggles, I saw a gray shape glide across my tail and point northwest. Looking forward again quickly, I came around to the same heading, so we were running parallel to each other about three miles apart. From the corner of my eye, I saw the flash as my wingman fired another HARM at the site that was shooting at MOXIE.

“STOIC Two . . . Magnum SA-3!”

“Come off south,” I commanded immediately and watched him reverse his turn away from me. We ended up in trail, me behind him, heading away from the city. I crossed his tail, sent a data-link, and weaved back to the west.

“STOIC Two . . . come back right . . . one’s at right, two o’clock . . . three miles, low.”

I heard the tickle from his radar a few seconds later and saw the familiar Viper spike behind me. With radars, data-links, and night vision, I wasn’t too concerned about my guys getting lost. Looking back between Baghdad and the western blackness, where MOXIE was, I couldn’t see the missiles. I wasn’t optimistic that the HARMs had actually hit anything, but they might’ve forced the SAM targeting radars off the air.

“STOIC and MOXIE, push back to Alex.”

“Alex” was a pre-briefed rejoin point beyond the reach of most of Baghdad’s air defenses. I always briefed such a point in case we needed a safe place to get together. It was also used as a fallback position in the event of an aircraft emergency or radio failure. Floating comfortably between the unfriendly earth below and the stars above, I stared up through the canopy at the sky. The stars were brilliant, like millions of wet diamonds on a black quilt. Beyond number.

0535
IN THE MORNING OF
M
ARCH
19, 2003. W
E HAD JUST STARTED THE
S
ECOND
G
ULF
W
AR
.

STOIC 67 and MOXIE 71 were four F-16CJs originally tasked to be on station in Killbox 87 Alpha Sierra south of Baghdad. The old demarcation was called the Line, the 32nd Parallel, and this had just been rescinded so we could roam all the way up to Saddam’s front door. The main idea of this was to divert the Iraqi air defenses, including any MiGs, onto us, because we knew something the Iraqis had just figured out. The war was officially beginning tonight. In fact, it just had. Operation Iraqi Freedom. I realized I was breathing a little hard, and chuckled.