Misconceptions about our pilots

By Robert K. Wilcox

With war looming, possibly on two fronts, the following questions become pertinent: What precisely is it going to be like for US pilots and combat crews when the bombing starts? How exactly do they fly their complicated jets and deliver their sophisticated smart bombs? And who really, beyond the flightsuited, sunglass-wearing aviators smilingly flashing victory "V"s for the cameras, are these warriors? Because of security, we seldom are told.

But I can shed some light, at least on carrier fighter pilots. I spent time with an F-14 squadron on the USS Roosevelt during the Kosovo War to write a book about these modern aviators and what they do. I interviewed them extensively and I can tell you there are a lot of misconceptions about them and their jobs. They are not warmongers. They do not indiscriminately bomb civilians. Most of them are married with children; prefer a BMW to a motorcycle although some do own "bikes". They even play the stock market on the computers in their spare time on the carrier.

They are very smart, obviously, and competitive. To fly fighters or bombers, which are pretty much the same things today, they have made at least five competitive cuts putting them at an elite level in their aviation and military community - and that’s before they are chosen to go to their service’s Topgun school. Topgun is such a misused word today. The media uses it for every pilot they see, which demeans the accomplishment. Los Angeles, where I live, even has a "Top Gun" attorney. Myles Berman is his name. He fights for drunk drivers. In fact, you can’t go to the navy or air force Topgun school, with rare exception, until you’ve distinguished yourself as a fighter pilot or fighter crew member.

They care deeply about their job and that they do it well - and especially without hitting civilians. I listened to yet another actor-activist recently on PBS’s Charlie Rose Show spouting on a subject about which he knew practically nothing. He was against the war, which is fine and his right. (I don’t know any one in his right mind who likes war.) On his shirt he’d painted, "No more blood for oil." Again, he told Charlie, America soon would be bombing from "30,000 feet" hitting civilians "indiscriminately." The implication was that our pilots and crewmembers stayed safe while murdering innocents. I can tell you that our aviators, while in their planes, are never safe and never bomb indiscriminately. My book, "Black Aces High: The Story of a Modern Fighter Squadron at War" (Thomas Dunne/St. Martins Press), details how, in order to accomplish their mission, the VF-41 Black Aces, a storied navy fighter squadron, had to disregard combat altitude floors set for their safety and take their F-14s down dangerously low, sometimes to 5,000 feet, well within enemy anti-aircraft (AAA) fire and surface-to-air-missile (SAM) envelopes, to find and kill Serbian tanks and guns. They did so without a single loss - a testament to their prowess. But there were some unbelievably scary moments for them dueling with 2000-mile-per-hour SAMs and vicious radar-controlled anti-aircraft guns.

They also willingly risked their lives to save civilians. This too is detailed in the book: The carrier got intelligence that a village was about to be annihilated by a sizable Serbian force moving quickly through a mountain tunnel. Time was of the essence. A Tomcat crew, pilot and backseater, took off. But when they got to the tunnel, they found the tunnel’s exit - their target - in a ravine between steep mountains. The only way they could get their laser in there unobstructed was to fly slow into the valley and literally hang there while they guided the bomb - in effect be a sitting duck for any terminator SAMs or AAA. Trying to do it from above the mountain peaks was impossible. Obstructions would break the lase. They didn’t hesitate. They went down into the valley. You can hear the pilot on the video - the squadron’s executive officer, Lieutenant Commander Jim "Dog" Bauser - saying, "Come on! Come on!" as he held the plane dangerously low and slow. It was if that Israeli commercial plane recently shot at by a shoulder-fired terrorist SAM in Kenya had decided to fly back over the shooter. It wouldn’t happen. But the Aces did it.

They got the tunnel and saved the village, although it’s doubtful the village even knows that today. And that story illustrates some of the little-known problems with "smart" bombing, pictures of which on our TVs have become such a staple of Pentagon briefings that most people think it’s simply just a matter of pushing a few buttons and, voila, the target disintegrates. In fact, putting a smart bomb on a target takes a rare convergence of smarts, skill, talent, coordination, luck, nerve and determination on the part of the aviators. There’s a tremendous amount of math and technical know-how just to set up for the shot. Then there is a fleeting window (usually around a minute) in which a multitude of switches and inputs have to be made in order for the bomb to hit its target. The flyers call some of what they do in that short window "playing the piccolo" because so many finger movements and mental decisions have to be made in so short a time. And, of course, the enemy is all the while trying - if I may borrow one of the squadron’s colloquialisms - to no kidding kill you. Advances since Kosovo are going to ease the "piccolo" problem but it’s still a tough shot.

The Black Aces, because of what they did in Kosovo, led the carrier raids in Afghanistan. By that time, they’d worked out the kinks and had become a highly lethal fighter squadron. Afghanistan refined what they did even more. They are now readying to go into Iraq. I think that most of all, the war experience of VF-41 proves that despite all the sophisticated hardware that the press talks about and thinks is so crucial, it is still the good pilot and crew that cause success. The Black Aces were initially charged with finding and killing the Serbian Army. But that army was on the ground, hidden in the mountainous bad weather terrain. And the US didn’t have any spotters on the ground. Most on the ship, even some Black Aces themselves, did not think they could be successful. You can’t see a tank from 20,000 feet, which was where they were supposed to stay, let alone an infantry man. But their leaders were not going to be denied. They innovated, started going lower and figuring out how to do so without becoming easy targets, and eventually found ways to locate their prey and destroy them. By the end of the war, they were the terminators. And they were flying 30 year-old airplanes.

But when they returned home and their little children and wives came running up to greet them, they cried like everyone else. They’re like you and me. Human. The squadron had all types, some regarding the war as a crucible. Others not wanting anything to do with it. A few were very afraid. But squadron leaders showed them the way. "People do not understand our tenacity and resolve," Dog told me. "We do not lose. We are very good...With all the shortcomings talked about in the press, there is still no one to compare with us." I understand we’re going to have special ops people on the ground in the coming war to help with the spotting. We did so in Afghanistan. So that won’t be a problem any more. The bombing of Iraq, I think, - not withstanding the fog of war and usual initial mistakes - will go, in my opinion, very well.