just gotta share this- An Aardvark is an F-111.
At work and bored - so time for another war story. Again - 100% true so may not qualify though am old enough that the memories may not be perfect.
1982 - arrive at the Heath and go through training in the 495th. By December I was a fully checked out pilot as a 2nd Lt. As I was a bachelor I volunteered to sit alert over Christmas. This was back when alert was twice a week with a changeout on the weekend and in the middle of the week. Some idiot later made the suggestion that it would save a ton of work days by making it week long alert - every week have all the aircrews available one extra day as they didn't have to swap out. Great - why not make it year long alert? Of course somebody did put a picture of a submarine with the cartoon bubble asking "And you think week long alert is bad???"
Because I had volunteered to sit alert when a pilot fell out of a 4 ship cross country to Munich over New Years I got to fill the seat. Realize I had never flown outside of England at this point - may have done one low level in France when in the 495th but that was it. We got together and dragged in our B-4 bags - that was one great thing about the Vark - if you didn't have a Pave Tack Pod loaded you had tons of room for bags, crates of wine and beer, golf clubs, etc. We briefed up - I was flying with Andy Weaver - a crusty 1st Lt who had "Been There, Done That".
There were 8 of us - all Lts.
Let me say that again - 8 Lts taking 4 front line nuclear fighters to Munich for New Years. I have no idea what our Wing King Col Bracken was thinking. Remember him? You didn't mess with the King.
Oh yeah - and nobody was a flight lead so I had to fly it single ship.
The guy that planned it out gave me a card with all his notes. I do remember he had a chart - we flew 2 hops to Munich turning at Ramstein - did a low level into Ramstein then took off did a Low Level touring along towards the border with East Germany and then down to Munich. The card showed who to call if I had problems. I do remember that if all else failed I was to turn to 260 degrees and head away from the border with East Germany as they shot down anyone who violated the border. And they were 10 feet tall and there were a lot of them just waiting to fight WWIII against us - at least that is what we thought at the time.
I don't remember anything going into Ramstein. Loved flying over Germany. We gassed up - was it 34,000 lbs of fuel??? it would hold, the Vark had an incredible range and was a cadillac when cruising along at .95 Mach a few hundred feet above the countryside. As we took off out of Ramstein it was a crystal clear day with just a few white puffy clouds against a bright blue background. For those of you who have been to Europe you know that is a one in a million day there.
As we were approaching the border - maybe 30 or 40 miles away from it and about to turn South on our Low Level our INS dumped and every heading system on my side spun to a wrong heading. We were flying at around 500' at the time. I must admit that wasn't something I had experienced before - the INS dumped all the time but usually the heading system was rock solid and you would just switch to the way the cowboys and Indians used to do low levels - fly a given heading for a given time then turn.
I saw Andy trying to beat on the computer and he was muttering curses at the time - I turned to the only heading system I had - the magnetic compass - and rolled out on 260 degrees, right next to the big W - I knew that England was out that way maybe an hour away worst case.
I looked down at my handy dandy cheat card and dialed the UHF radio on the center console to the appropriate frequency and called Krupa radar - "Krupa Radar, Krupa Radar this is Vark 29 - usually remember the actual call sign but drawing a blank - old age sucks doesn't it? - I am on the Tango Alpha Oscar 012 radial at 12 DME". They replied right away - that was good. What they said wasn't. "Vark 29, I don't know where the Tango Alpha Oscar TACAN is, where are you in relationship to Frankfurt???"
Frankfurt! Oh Yeah - that place we bombed the crap out of in WWII!!! Discretion being the better part of valor I didn't say that over the radio. I looked to my handy dandy 1st Lt been there done that studly WSO as he had the maps. He pulled 3 of them out and that is the last I heard from him until after we landed.
Though to be fair I probably quit listening anyway. This should be part of the "How not to do Crew Coordination Lesson" for all of you who fly as a crew.
I said, to my chagrin, "Sir, I don't know where Frankfurt is." He said - "Okay - where are you going?" Simple question. Every pilot knows where he is going, right? I then tried to remember the name of the base (Furstenfeldbruck - site of the massacre of the Israeli athletes in the 1972 Olympics - again did not say that over the radio either). "Furtenberg" came out of my mouth. He said "Say Again???" (His English was clear as a bell by the way - better than mine even). "Furtenberg!" I said proudly. I think Andy in the right seat was dying of embarrassment at being in the same cockpit by now.
He came back and said "Sir, I don't know where that is!" Well, that made two of us! I finally did what I should have done at the first, dug down through the 5,000,000 pieces of paper and found it - "Furstenfeldbruck" I transmitted.
"Oh, you want to go to Fursty!!!!" Contact the next controller on..... And we were handed off and made our way there - the last of the 4 jets to land.
That night as we all sat around drinking beer the main guy who had set it all up told me that if he hadn't been on auto TFR at the time that they would be dead as he was crying he was laughing so hard as he listened in to this on the radio.
And that, boys and girls, is how I came to have the call sign of Furtenberger.
Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good ...
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