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EXCERPT ONE FROM THE MISTY BOOK VIETNAM F-100 COMBAT Now, not to be denied this stupid truck that seemed to just sit there laughing at us, Chuck was in. We came around the cloud, wings level on final, right next to the karst cliff. I waited, and waited, with anticipation, but there was no open-fire. I checked the ADI...Gulp! 5-8 degrees dive angle. We were flat, and still no open-fire! The karst cliff was now a blur right next to me, and I could even see pebbles on the road. We were now "instamongst 'em!" This was a no shit, low angle Luke Gunnery School, controlled range, peacetime strafe pass. Chuck had it in burner real steady as only Chuck could fly. In the weeds now, he opened-fire and put a long, concentrated burst right on it? I couldn't see the truck from the backseat, but I was certain he plastered it great. We finally got some BDA! Now, the test is successful! Now the champagne sweet! What happened in the next two seconds made everything we had done previously, null and void. Chuck came off the trigger, and just as the "G" came on, there was a loud, "BANG!" right at our feet. It sounded as if Pete Rose had hit the bottom of the fuselage with a baseball bat on a home run swing. There was a, "Whoosh!" and my rearview mirror was filled with fire. I also thought I could see the fire's glow on the cliff wall. As Chuck pulled up, I looked around and there was no good place to go to eject. It's, "Hanoi Hilton, here we come." The drop tanks had just gone dry and one of us called for, "Heads up! We're going to clean the wing!" The other F-100s were on our wing and reported us as, "Just torching." Chuck pulled it out of afterburner, and the angry red fire in the mirror changed to a white vapor. The afterburner flame had ignited the fuel stream, and without the afterburner, the fire choked itself out. The fire was out, but we were dumping fuel like mad. There was talk about turning off generators, transfer pumps, looking for a tanker, etc., but, no practical solution presented itself. Pilots have great judgment, and as we looked at the coast coming up in the distance, and watched the fuel gauge rapidly unwinding, it was painfully obvious the gauge would read empty long before we reached the coast. The only thing left to do was re-light the afterburner and use the fuel for altitude and speed, and maybe we could make the coast. The guys on our wing looked closely to see if fuel was going inside the fuselage where it might blow us out of the sky with the re-lighting of the afterburner. They said it didn't look like it, but there was no real way to know for sure. Fighter pilots like to fly close - feels like the closer you get the more help you can lend a stricken comrade. Chuck calls, "Okay, we are going to re-light the burner." At that moment, you have never seen two wingmen go from close fingertip to high forward spread route formation so quickly. They were not eager to be part of any fireball. Chuck mumbled something about "candy asses" and lit the burner. The white vapor in my mirror again turned red with fire. The wing guys said, "No sweat, it's only torching." Wow, some torch - it was over 700' long! We were now accelerating in a slight climb, light on fuel, clean wings, going like stink - I think we even went supersonic. Chuck's decision to re-light the burner was a good one, and we now had "feet wet" made. Pilots seem to prioritize things. I only remembered this, after we got back to Phu Cat, but I remember hearing a rattlesnake sound in the head set, and noticed something on the glare shield - the RHAW gear was going wild. There was a strong fishhook strobe at 10 o'clock on the RHAW scope and the SAM Launch light was lit up like a Christmas tree. Even though we were four F-100's in a straight and level flight cruising out to the coast, no one in the flight gave it anything more than a passing glance. Normally, we would have called, "SAM! SAM!" and broke for the deck. Afterward, Ringdove 01 Lead told me, "Yes, I do remember that and I just reached up and turned it off." Until I ejected, I only remember a few things, but not in any sequence. I recalled there were a lot of towering cumulus clouds off the coast, and looked for a hole into which I could fly the airplane to eject. I remember us running out of fuel. Chuck had the aircraft in afterburner as the total fuel gauge unwound to zero. I always wondered how accurate the gauges were and wanted to make a special note of the moment. The gauge dropped to zero, and as the needle showed minus 100 pounds, the engine quit - not a sudden flame out - more like a pilot slowly pulling the throttle back to idle, only the RPM didn't stop at idle - it just kept right on unwinding. We broke-out into a nice hole in the weather. The HC-130 Hercules Crown SAR-bird had also just popped-out into our hole. Somewhere around 10-12,000' I told Chuck this was as good a place as any and I was going to get out. I had the cassette recorder going, but forgot to remove the tape and put it in my pocket before I ejected - bummer! As soon as we went "feet wet," I felt real calm, for I knew this was to be my final combat mission. For the first time I thought I might actually make it out of this war alive. I was going home to see my family. All I had to do now was simply eject and get rescued. I had complete faith in my equipment. The weather was good, the Gulf was glass smooth, the Crown Bird in sight - yes, this was going to be a piece of cake. I said something to Chuck about not forgetting the 1/2 second delay on his seat and not to move before it fires. Chuck responded, "No, if you go first, there's no delay." I started to argue, but thought better of it. Visor - down; straps - tight; elbows - in; head - back hard on the headrest. I closed my eyes, lifted the handles and squeezed both triggers. The "E-Ticket" ride up the rails was slow, smooth, and wonderful! I kicked the seat away and my chute opened with a jerk. I looked around and could see the three F-100s, the HC-130 Crown Bird, and a couple of F-4s, who had joined the orbit. I looked around for Chuck, but couldn't spot him, or our crippled F-100F. I got out the survival radio, turned it on, and expected to hear my chute beeper, but heard nothing (I made two ejections, and the chute beepers failed on both). I tried to call, but couldn't work the damn thing with my helmet on; so, I put the radio away. The next item was the four-line parachute cut. Sure enough, with the conical C-9 chute canopy, it would oscillate side to side as air spilled out one side, and then the other. I was kind of a Life Support "freako" anyway, and had made about 50 sport sky dives. I was actually eager to test the four-line cut. I got out my hook blade knife, reached for the two shroud lines on my right rear riser, pulled them down, cut them and released the riser. Next, I grabbed the left rear riser and pulled it down in front of my face, hooked the knife around the two shroud lines and thought, "Why don't I just let go of the riser and let the upward force do the cutting?" So, I held the knife and let go of the riser. It jerked up and back, cutting the two lines clean, but to my horror there was another cut. I had accidentally cut into the left rear riser! I slowly turned to survey the damage and saw the riser was cut 90% through! Had it cut completely, the chute would have collapsed and I would have "streamered" into the Gulf. My heart was in my throat, "My God! I fly 105 Misty missions and die by my own hand?" This scenario was dumb, real dumb. I think Jonsey did the same thing on his last mission bailout. Someone in PE (Life Support - Personal Equipment) finally got smart and took the knife away from flailing fighter pilots and replaced it with a "4-line release" system. I got the seat kit raft deployed, but I was so badly shaken from my knife skills, I almost forgot to deploy my LPUs until just before I hit the water. With all the extra survival gear - big knife, survival vest, pistol, ammo, extra batteries, etc. - without an LPU, I would have sunk straight to the bottom of the Gulf like a brick. I had just gotten one side of the LPU inflated, when my feet hit the warm, clear waters of the Gulf of Tonkin. With no wind, the chute settled right on top of me. What a mess! I got untangled, pulled the raft over to me and got in. I looked up, and there was the HC-130 Crown Bird, 500' up, more or less coming right at me. I got out the radio and called him. He said he had followed me down in the chute, but lost sight of me after I hit the water. "My God!" I thought, "How could this be? He was right there! How could he not see me?" I gave him a couple of quick vectors. "Turn left 20-degrees, half mile out.... Just going under your nose.... Now! Do you have me?" There was relief in hearing him finally report, "Oh, yes, we've got you now." Was the survival radio worth its weight in gold? You bet it was! The HC-130 dropped a smoke marker nearby and left to look for Chuck. I was suddenly very alone for what seemed like a long, long time (three hours perhaps). I could see the coast in the distance and wondered if the Cong would try to come out and get me. The Jolly's were scrambled out of Danang, but were told it was an F-100, so they turned back south thinking it was going to be an in-country ejection rescue. They flew a long way south before getting the word it was a Misty off Route Pack One and turned back north. Finally, I saw two HH-3 Jolly Green helos break the horizon. I popped a smoke, and one broke left towards me and the other continued-on, disappearing from sight. I gathered all of the stuff - helmet, gloves, mask, survival goodies, etc. that I had been playing with and tossed it all overboard. Remembering from survival school how this was supposed to work - I was to get out of the raft, and the helo would hover, drop the sling, and then, hoist me up. I rolled out of the raft, swam away, so as not get it tangled up with the hoist, and - Surprise! Surprise! The Jolly did not hover. It landed and water-taxied right up to me. Boy, did I feel like a jerk! I could have stayed in the raft and not even gotten wet again. They pulled me on board, and then the PJ jumped into the water, swimming around and policing-up my raft, helmet and litter. I sat down, wrapped up in a warm blanket, and in a few minutes we joined up with Chuck in the other Jolly. He and I exchanged a thumbs-up and tried to relax for the long trip back to Danang. Then, I had a horrible thought! I remembered awhile back that I had bad-mouthed the Jollys for not coming to get an F-105 pilot who was down with a broken back in North Vietnam just north of the DMZ. I found out later that it had nothing to do with the Jolly Greens' courage, but everything to do with White House approval. It was the middle of the night back in the States, and no one wanted to wake up the "powers that be" to approve a border crossing for the Jollys (there was a bombing moratorium of the North). Great way to run a war, huh? Real frustrated with this Thud pilot's plight, I had said something to the effect of, "Why don't you guys (the Jolly's) get up here and earn all these medals you get!" Now I'm wallowing at the thought of my harsh words coming back haunt me. "Not too swift a comment, Rutan," I tell myself. I decided I should go up to the cockpit and thank the pilots for coming to get me. How could they possibly know who had bad-mouthed them? So, I stuck my head in the cockpit and was shocked to see how close we had joined in formation with Chuck's Jolly. There was major rotor overlap. The pilot, a real hard-core, cruel-looking guy, looked at my nametag, and said with a half grin of satisfaction, "Rutan, you sonofabitch! They finally got you." I left the cockpit and silently hoped he would not decide to throw me back into the water. When we got back to Danang, one of the helos could not get his gear down. I think it was mine, but after some effort, they blew it down with a loud bang (the last loud bang I wanted to hear for the day) and landed. Looking out the door, all I could see was a sea of brass waiting for our arrival. Everyone wanted to know where we got hit, what hit us, what our altitude was, etc. We had violated every rule in the book. I eased over to Chuck and he whispered, "Dick, what do we tell them?" I said, "You're the Pilot In Command. Tell them anything you want and I'll agree to it." For a few minutes we were the center of attention and it seemed our every wish was their command. A few minutes later we were in an open jeep being driven to the hospital that was some place in downtown Danang - a long, long way from the familiarity of the flight line. We got a quick doctor checkup, a jigger of the traditional cognac and were pronounced fit. The PJs had collected all of our survival equipment and Chuck and I found ourselves standing alone outside the hospital in a driving rainstorm, lugging all of this gear, trying to hitch a ride back to the flight line. We were no longer the center of anyone's attention, but were now just a couple of soaked, nondescript fighter jocks looking for a ride. After some hours, we were in the back of an Army Caribou on our way south to Phu Cat. They dumped us off completely across the base on the Army cargo ramp. We were still sopping wet, and still being soaked by hard rain that splashed the ground like a cow peeing on a flat rock. It was now well after sundown, and while dragging our rafts full of gear, we searched for a ride back to the fighter area. Finally, we made it to the O-Club. There was a huge banner announcing, "Welcome Home!" and most of our fellow Mistys were already well into the party. Chuck asked, "Why the hell didn't you guys pick us up? We had to drag this crap clear across the base!" They all laughed and one of them said, "Are you crazy? It's dark outside, and it's raining like hell!"-------------------- |