Aces High Bulletin Board
General Forums => The O' Club => Topic started by: Puma44 on April 11, 2020, 03:25:35 PM
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Best Two Outta Four!
During my three year mud beating tour at Moody AFB, Ga we had an ORI (Operational Readiness Inspection). An ORI is a test of a unit’s ability to mobilize, move to an austere location, and wage war. In the end, it’s the Wing Commander’s end of semester report card. Pretty much a pass/fail event for the Wing King’s career.
As a flight commander, I had the responsibility for a fourth of our squadrons’s Pilots and WSOs (commonly referred to as Wizzos) under the Squadron Operations Officer who was directly responsible to the Squadron Commander. One of the members of my flight was the Squadron Weapons Officer, a graduate of the USAF Fighter Weapons School. He was a very sharp, capable Wizzo, and great fun to fly with. In our Squadron Weapons shop, he had a representative out of each of our Squadron Flights. This gang was referred to as “TC and the Dancing Bears”, a whole other story in itself.
Our wing of “mud beaters” (primary air to ground bombing mission) spent the months preceding the ORI practicing ad nauseam. We continuously modified normal training events on how to “pass the ORI”, instead of how to employ ordinance accurately and consistently. This “gaming the game” BS was incredibly frustrating to us in the trenches and sometimes felt someone was trying to intentionally tube the ORI. I was of the opinion these things should be a no notice type event to evaluate how a wing would perform under realistic conditions.
In addition to dropping “dumb bombs”, we had specialty air to ground missions which included the Maverick missile and Pave Spike laser guided GBU-10 (2,000 lb) and GBU-12 (500 lb) bombs. The Maverick missile employment was pretty much the Wizzo’s game. He aimed and guided the missile from the trunk of the Phantom. All the pilot had to do was point the jet in the general direction of the target.
On the other hand, the laser guided bombs required closely timed and executed teamwork between the Pilot and WSO. This took practice to make it work perfectly and the Pave Spike laser pod had to be perfectly synced with the jet. To do this, a newly mounted pod needed to be flown and tuned after flight per the crew’s writeup in the jet’s 781(flight/maintenance logbook). Sometimes it took multiple sorties to be tuned perfectly. If the pod was demated from one jet and mounted on another, the sync process started all over. It was very rare for a newly mated pod and jet to work perfectly together.
During our months prior work up to the ORI, maintenance was routinely taking Pave Spike pods off one jet and mounting them to others to meet routine maintenance and flying schedule “requirements”. In the midst of this, TC was keeping records of pod/jet performance from the user viewpoint and determined that the “best practice procedure” should be to leave perfectly synced Spike pods mounted on the jets on to ensure accurate and precise employment of the GBU-10 and 12 bombs, ESPECIALLY with an ORI looming in the near future. Do you see where this is going? So, being a good soldier, TC wrote up his findings and recommendations, went up the chain of command (me, squadron ops officer, squadron commander, wing director of operations) with approval to present his written recommendation to the Wing DCM (Deputy Commander of Maintenance), a full bird colonel, to keep proven, well synced pods and jets mated to ensure adequate precision weapons guidance for the impending ORI and beyond. The DCM, on the other hand, insisted the pods were designed to mate and operated effectively with any Rhino. Furthermore, his maintenance troops would move pods from jet to jet as required by schedule requirements.
Flash forward a couple of months. The ORI has arrived. The in-briefings happen and the mobility phase begins. Any of you vets know this is like chewing broken glass. It’s miserable and feels like it’ll never end. Of course, there’s the chem warfare facet, more intense chewing of glass while wearing chem gear. Well, we get through that phase without any major buffoonery and it’s on to the weapons employment phase, our real bread and butter.
With the employment phase, comes a daily frag order from higher headquarters (the IG team conducting the ORI). The frag order dictates each day’s flying schedule, what ranges/airspace, and what weapons are to be deployed on what targets. It’s a bee hive of furious activity with 12 hour duty days for everyone on the base.
Of course, because of the threat of simulated chemical/biological warfare, everyone is toting the appropriate garb everywhere we go. This includes when we step to the jets. In addition to our normal flight gear, we we are wearing a large, full length, head to toe, plastic bag......commonly referred to as the “body condom”. Additionally, everyone is required to have a clear plastic envelope on a lanyard around our neck with our military ID and some other ORI required crap arranged in the same exact same order and clearly visible at all time. One day, my Wizzo and I step to the jet in our stylish, form fitting body condoms. We approach the flight line entry point and the young security cop dressed in his stylish garb and weapons. He checks my ID and waves me through. Clearing the entry point, I hear the cop start screaming at my Wizzo to “GET ON THE GROUND, NOW!” I turn around to see my 6 foot plus, stocky, Wizzo trying to comply but, the body condom won’t allow him to bend enough to get down without falling to the concrete ramp. The cop continues to scream at him and all he can do is bend slightly and not come close to getting on the ground. I inquire of the cop why he’s screaming at my partner to get on the ground. The cop screams, “His ID isn’t visible!” When donning his condom, the clear plastic envelope had inadvertently rotated, revealing the rear of all the cards to be displayed. The young cop saw this and lit my buddy up, assuming it was an ORI test. Trying valiantly not to laugh at the cop for doing his job perfectly, I convinced him to let my partner turn his envelope around for proper display. Watching him trying to do that in the confines of his body condom was also quite hilarious. That accomplished, he cleared my bud to proceed, with an “atta boy” from both of us. We laughed all the way to our jet. A little levity in the midst of glass chewing.
Now, for the big picture. The ORI was going quite well, except for Pave Spike employment. The DCM’s insistence on moving pods from one jet to another was taking its toll. The numbers were not good at all. So bad, that at the end of the last day, the numbers where embarrassingly unsatisfactory. We busted the ORI because of it. We readily passed all the other inspection phases. They would be back in six months to re-evaluate our Pave Spike employment.
A couple weeks later, TC got a call to meet with the DCM and discuss his previous proposal. They met, the pods were mated to jets, tuned up, and left that way. Our numbers in the work up to the make up ORI were vastly improved. Six months later the ORI team arrived and we got to it. We hit it hard for several days and were doing better but, not as good as anticipated. We were still at a 50/50 hit/miss ratio and things were getting very tense with everyone from the Wing King to us trench dwellers.
TO BE CONTINUED
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.....Flash forward a couple of months. The ORI has arrived. The in-briefings happen and the mobility phase begins. Any of you vets know this is like chewing broken glass. It’s miserable and feels like it’ll never end. Of course, there’s the chem warfare facet, more intense chewing of glass while wearing chem gear. Well, we get through that phase without any major buffoonery and it’s on to the weapons employment phase, our real bread and butter.
With the employment phase, comes a daily frag order from higher headquarters (the IG team conducting the ORI). The frag order dictates each day’s flying schedule, what ranges/airspace, and what weapons are to be deployed on what targets. It’s a bee hive of furious activity with 12 hour duty days for everyone on the base.
Of course, because of the threat of simulated chemical/biological warfare, everyone is toting the appropriate garb everywhere we go. This includes when we step to the jets. In addition to our normal flight gear, we we are wearing a large, full length, head to toe, plastic bag......commonly referred to as the “body condom”. Additionally, everyone is required to have a clear plastic envelope on a lanyard around our neck with our military ID and some other ORI required crap arranged in the same exact same order and clearly visible at all time. One day, my Wizzo and I step to the jet in our stylish, form fitting body condoms. We approach the flight line entry point and the young security cop dressed in his stylish garb and weapons....
Hey Puma,
Here's an excerpt from our aircrews' glass chewing checklist during an ORI including chem warfare conditions in 1984.
In the checklist the “body condom” was identified as a "plastic overcape". :D
Most of the time the expediter trucks brought our guys out to avoid the long walk from the ECP to the acft spot while wearing the plastic. But they would emerge from the step-van wearing it so we could practice the full procedure to maintain a "clean" uncontaminated cockpit.
Regards,
Sun
(https://thumbs2.imgbox.com/55/93/GxopQgfU_t.jpg) (http://imgbox.com/GxopQgfU)
(https://thumbs2.imgbox.com/93/88/EJVNZwU4_t.jpg) (http://imgbox.com/EJVNZwU4)
(https://thumbs2.imgbox.com/8b/85/tdJ1g3ab_t.jpg) (http://imgbox.com/tdJ1g3ab)
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Hey Puma,
Here's an excerpt from our aircrews' glass chewing checklist during an ORI including chem warfare conditions in 1984.
In the checklist the “body condom” was identified as a "plastic overcape". :D
Most of the time the expediter trucks brought our guys out to avoid the long walk from the ECP to the acft spot while wearing the plastic. But they would emerge from the step-van wearing it so we could practice the full procedure to maintain a "clean" uncontaminated cockpit.
Regards,
Sun
(https://thumbs2.imgbox.com/55/93/GxopQgfU_t.jpg) (http://imgbox.com/GxopQgfU)
(https://thumbs2.imgbox.com/93/88/EJVNZwU4_t.jpg) (http://imgbox.com/EJVNZwU4)
(https://thumbs2.imgbox.com/8b/85/tdJ1g3ab_t.jpg) (http://imgbox.com/tdJ1g3ab)
Oh, thanks a lot! I had all those memories buried so deep and dark. Now, you’ve gone and thrown them out in the sunlight. :rofl Just kidding, and glad to not ever wear that garb again. :D
:salute
Check six!
Puma
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ORI, Chem Suit, and Decontamination, three of my least fondest memories of being a Crew Chief in the USAF. :old:
Cmon Puma, your stories used to be so fun! :D
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ORI, Chem Suit, and Decontamination, three of my least fondest memories of being a Crew Chief in the USAF. :old:
Cmon Puma, your stories used to be so fun! :D
So, you know the taste of chewed glass, eh? :D
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So, you know the taste of chewed glass, eh? :D
During one of our ORIs a certain "Airman Einstein" in our AMU decided he would try to add some comedy flavor to his daily glass chewing diet.
An ORI inspector handed him a card that said "A bomb has been detected in bld 65xx. What procedures should you take?"
He tore up the note and replied "Disarm the bomb."
The ORI inspector was not amused.
The situation quickly escalated from "glass chewing" to "*ss chewing" and in the end a letter of reprimand and nearly cost him a stripe. :ahand
Regards,
Sun
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That’s hilarious! I’ll bet the IG guys were also laughing about it, behind the scenes.