....a blizzard.
So, one cold winter night at Minot my alert bud and I are midway through our 24hr Air Defense Alert cycle at the squadron alert facility, commonly referred to as the “barn”. It’s a typical North Dakota winter night, bitterly cold, wind chill somewhere below minus 40, and a weekly blizzard is ramping up to hurricane strength as we watch from the greenhouse (the upstairs mini tower with UHF radios and a great place to watch the comings and goings on the airfield).
The barn had four pods (hangar spaces), two on each side of the center section. The pods were set up with fore and aft quick opening doors. These doors had huge concrete counter balance weights that allowed the crew chiefs to simply tug on a large handle and quickly swing the doors open.
The view from in the greenhouse looking out the hot chute to the approach end of runway 30 at Minot.
The view from out on the hot chute back at the barn.
The center section downstairs had a crew kitchen, bedroom for the two on duty crew chiefs, and various work spaces. Upstairs had a bedroom for the two on duty pilots, restroom, the “greenhouse”, and movie room. Also upstairs was a fire pole complete with a hole in the floor to be used by the two pilots to expedite descent to the ground floor.
This night the free air temps were steadily falling, the wind speed was constantly increasing and the snow fall was getting thicker by the minute. We had gone through the normal routine of dinner downstairs, a movie or two or three, sat around BSing, and got ready to turn in because nothing was going to happen tonight with this blizzard lapping at the door.
Our upstairs bedroom was without windows and completely pitch dark with the lights out. It impossible to see the end of my nose with the lights out. So, one can imagine the chaos of two pilots scrambling out of bed to turn on the lights. One of the pre alert briefing items was to agree on how we would get the lights turned on without knocking each other out in the event of an alert klaxon in the middle of the night. The most often agreed upon technique was that we would stay in bed and verbally agree who would get up and go for the light switch. The other guy would stay in his bed until the lights came on. Then, it was utter chaos trying to get a flight suit on, boots on and laced up (most had zippers or quick done gadgets), and out the bedroom door (again without knocking each other out) with an unbelievable amount of adrenaline pumping a couple of minutes after being startled out of a deep sleep by the alert klaxon.
Once out of the bedroom, it was an individual judgement call, fire pole or the stairs, depending on how coordinated and lucky one felt. We were required to be airborne within five minutes of the alert klaxon sounding. At night, there were only four of us in the alert facility. So, the crew chiefs were typically out the front door and to their jets with the dash 60s spinning up by the time we got to our jet boarding ladders. During the day, the rule was that anyone else other than the two alert crew chiefs and two pilots was to stay where they were and absolutely stay off the stairs and the base of the fire pole (a story here about a nearly broken ankle for another time).
So, back to this night of the blizzard. Everyone was done for the day, turned in, and lights out.
Sometime later in the middle of the night, the alert klaxon stared blaring. We went through the briefed wake up drill, lights on, dressed, and scrambled down to our alert cocked jets. At the beginning of an alert tour, we preflighted the jets along with the crew chiefs and set up the cockpit for an expedited start and taxi.
I humped up the boarding ladder a couple of steps at time and hopped into the seat, pulled my parachute harness on, buckled it up, pulled the shoulder harness straps over my shoulders with the now on the boarding ladder crew chief’s help and buckled them into my lap belt. Helmet on, oxygen mask secure, and visor as desired (at night the clear visor). Then I gave the now on the ground crew chief (with the boarding ladder) the spin up hand signal, he sent starting air to the jet, and I initiated the start sequence. By now the adrenaline rush is almost uncontrollable. It’s been about three minutes since we were dead asleep in the pitch dark, warm bedroom upstairs. The J75 has quickly come to life and is at idle. A very quick glance at the engine instruments reveals everything normal and I give the crew chief the “pull chocks” signal. He does so, holds them up for me to see, and I gently push the throttle forward. With the adrenaline rush that was now in full effect, it was not uncommon for guys to push the throttle up quickly and blow missile caskets, stored along the side walls of the pod, out the back and up against the rear alert fence. One guy managed to blow a casket clear over the fence.
Every pilot in the squadron was a qualified flight lead. So during an alert scramble, the first pitot tube out of the pod was flight lead. I was ever so far out front of my bud. So, I was lead for this scramble. I push the throttle up and am now at a fast taxi speed out the hot chute from the alert facility to the approach end of the runway. I check my wingman in on the radio, he replies, and make a radio call to tower “tower, Yankee Kilo 14, active air scramble”. Tower replies “cleared for takeoff runway 30”. More of a formality at this point. Like, we’re going to slow down or stop at this point? Everything else on the airfield and surrounding airspace is cleared for an active air scramble.
I line up on the middle of downwind side of the runway, start my pre takeoff check as my wingman joins me on his side of the runway. Throttle up, checks are good, light the afterburner and push it the the “MAX” position. The Six accelerates incredibly fast in the far below zero temperature and liftoff is equally quick with the 50 knot blizzard blowing down the runway. I quickly rotate the nose up and retract the landing gear so the air load doesn’t trap the inner gear doors in the down position. It is now approximately 4 minutes since the alert klaxon first sounded.
Gear are up normally, accelerating to climb speed of 400 knots, and continue to pull the nose up to maintain speed. My pitch attitude is somewhere around 50 degrees nose up and snow flakes are zipping by the canopy at an enormous rate. The altimeter is spinning a full thousand foot cycle in seconds. I switch us over to GCI frequency, check #2 in, and take up the assigned heading for an intercept. GCI has assigned us full AB climb to 39,000 feet. This ain’t gonna take along. #2 is in a three mile radar trail following me up hill.
As we climb through 10,000 feetish, I get this feeling that something is wrong. A scan of the instruments, fuel, etc reveals nothing out of the ordinary. A few thousand feet higher and I’ve still got feeling that something isn’t right. The feeling persists as I climb through the mid twenties. I still can’t figure out what this uneasy feeling is about. Approaching the high twenties I look everything over again and notice the cabin altimeter. It’s showing the same altitude as the altimeter. That’s not right. Why is it doing that? That isn’t right but, why is it like that? I have this short mental discussion with myself and then look at the pressurization control knob. It’s in the “O F F” position. That was supposed to be turned on back on the ground in step 6 of the BEFORE TAKEOFF (SCRAMBLE) checklist. Another short question and answer discussion with myself and I turn it to the “P R E S S” position. Instantly everything got very bright with brilliant colors as the cockpit pressurized. The uneasy feeling has gone away.
We continue our burner climb to altitude, race out to the target, and are told it’s a radar anomaly. Things were much brighter the rest of the flight back to Minot. Of course, the blizzard weather required a precision ILS (Instrument Landing System) approach and landing. After landing, we taxied back in the still raging blizzard to the barn, shutdown, refuel the jets, recock them, report on alert status, and head up to bed.
Rushing with an adrenaline boost and lack of checklist discipline can have consequences.
A typical fighter pilot phrase: “I’d rather be lucky than good any day”.
