It was a rare crystal clear, blue sky day in South Georgia after a seriously bad cold front and associated weather had blown through the previous day. Our wing took full advantage of the great weather and had Phantoms out working all the normal bombing ranges and MOAs. I had returned from one of the closer ranges, leading a flight of Phantoms. We entered the radar pattern to fly instrument approaches for training, and fill required “to do” squares. The pattern was plum full of F-4Es flying various approaches. Moody AFB was also a training facility for USAF Air Traffic Controllers. We had two runways (one 9,000 and one 8,000 feet long), oriented north/south, runways 36R/18L and 36L/18R. Normally, practice instrument approaches are flown to the East runway. Today, we are flying them to 36R. The west runway is used for visual approaches to the overhead break.
As we approached the field, the approach controller split the flight to maintain three mile spacing in the radar pattern. They vectored me to the downwind leg, heading south. At ten miles, the controller gives me a right turn to 270 degrees for the base leg, followed by a dog leg heading to intercept the ILS final. She then clears me to “intercept the localizer, cleared the ILS 36R. So, I proceed to intercept and fly the full approach to a missed approach. As we go missed, she clears us to to 1700’ and a right turn to east. Leveling off, the controller turns us south on the downwind leg for another approach. The pattern is full of radio chatter with pilots acknowledging controller instructions. Everyone is getting the same ten mile turn to the west for the base leg. It’s working like clockwork. This pattern work is boring for the backseater because this is “Pilot Stuff” and all they have to do is monitor and help clear for traffic. The controller, I learned later, is a trainee. She is doing a great job handling all the Phantom traffic in the pattern.
So, we continue south and come to the usual ten mile turn point. No turn instruction from the controller. Sometimes they will stretch the downwind leg to accommodate something else going on in the pattern. I wait a couple of miles, and then hear her turn my wingman behind us to the west. Hmmm, what’s going on? I key the radio and say “Approach, Steel 11”. No response. She turns my wingman on the dogleg to final. “OK, WTFO”. Again, “Approach, Steel 11”. Nothing. About that time, the next guy on the downwind, approaching ten miles, says “Steel 11, I hear you calling approach and her not responding to you. Do you want me to tell her you’re trying to make contact?” Thinking our conversation would be a clue that she lost track of one of her “chicks” and we would get a query, I said “No, let’s see what happens. We’re good on fuel.” We are tuned and identified to the ILS and the TACAN, both providing mileage distance to the field.
We are at 1500’ AGL on our last assigned heading of 180 degrees, headed south, listening to the radio chatter. Approach is talking with all the jets in the pattern behind us. Over the crew intercom, my backseater asks what should we do? My reply, “We’re fat on fuel, it’s severe clear out. Let’s see how far south we go before she realizes we aren’t in her radar pattern.” We are still squawking our last assigned code on the transponder. Every two miles farther south, I transmit, “Approach, Steel 11.” No response. As we continue south, I pointed out to my backseater that the downtown Valdosta airport is going by on the right. Every two miles father south, the same thing. Occasionally, one of my wingmen back in the pattern queries us. “We’re still southbound, fuel is good”.
36 miles south, I’d had enough. We did a 180 back to the north and lined up visually on 36L, the west runway. We dialed up the Moody tower frequency and I said “Tower, Steel 11, 20 mile initial, 36L, full stop.” The tower controller replies, “Steel 11, contact approach channel 4 for sequence to the overhead. Channel 4 would be the same controller that had just lost us. I replied, “Negative, she already had her chance.” The reply, “Report a three mile initial, left break, 36L.” I acknowledged while pushing the throttles up, accelerating to 450 knots. The tower was slightly to the northwest along side 36L. The windowless RAPCON, with our approach controller inside, was just west of the tower.
I called, “Steel 11, three mile initial, left break, full stop.” “Steel 11, cleared left break, cleared to land, 36L”. Instead of breaking at the normal point over the numbers, I delayed until the tower/RAPCON were about to pass on the left, snapped left, idle, boards, and cranked the Rhino around to the left downwind, creating an enhanced, characteristic Phantom rumble over top of our controller.
We landed normally, contacted Ground Control, taxied to our parking spot, and shut down. After dismounting the beast, we made the normal stop in maintenance debrief, hiked over to the squadron, and hung up our flight gear. After the flight debrief, which included a lot of WTFO discussion about the controller by the other guys in our flight, I called the CMSgt in charge of the RAPCON, with whom I was acquainted. After exchanging pleasantries, the Chief asked what was up. I asked him to listen to the tapes between this time and that. He asked, “What happened?” I asked him to just listen to the tapes, see what he thought, and give me a call.
A couple hours later, I was paged over the squadron PA to the ops desk for a phone call. It was the RAPCON Chief. He was profoundly apologetic while telling me that he could hear all of my calls to the controller, my flight mates communicating with me, and her not responding to me. He said the controller was a trainee and his very best trainer was plugged into the radio with her. He had no idea why they didn’t hear my calls and that he was going to make sure that never happened again. I described the calls every two miles until we couldn’t stand it anymore and the turn around. Asking how far south we were before turning around, I explained that the TACAN had broken lock, and we went well south of the Valdosta airport to about 36 miles. Startled, he noted that no one would know where we were if an ejection had happened. I agreed.
There were many odd occurrences with the controllers at Moody. It was important to keep our heads on a swivel and always have hip pocket options available, especially in low weather conditions.
There’s an idea for another story later.
