Sample Chapter

THUNDERCHIEF

PROLOGUE

by Don Henry

The best thing about piloting a single seat aircraft is the quality of the social experience. ---Colonel Moody Suter

For sheer beauty, nothing compares to a single-seat, single-engine fighter aircraft. Especially if it is designed to fly faster than the speed of sound using the wasp-waisted, area rule principle known as the “Coke bottle” effect. And even more so if it is the first fighter aircraft one flew. For me, that was the F-105D Thunderchief, a lumbering giant on the ground but noble and swift in the air—length 64 ft. 5 in., wingspan 34 ft. 11 in., maximum weight 52,838 pounds, powered by a turbojet developing 24,500 pounds of thrust in afterburner and speed over 2.2 Mach or 1400 miles an hour. Nothing in the world could outrun her at low altitude.

 It is astonishing how little appreciation existed for what that jet fighter could do, perhaps because of two events which occurred during its acquisition cycle: first, a shift in the Pentagon’s central focus on nuclear weapons to include additional conventional capability; second, the Secretary of Defense discovered cost effectiveness.

The F-105 was initially designed with one purpose in mind—to be the Air Force’s primary nuclear fighter-bomber. However, in early 1961, the Pentagon ordered the F-105 modified to carry more conventional ordnance. The new F-105D configuration included an internal 20 mm Vulcan cannon and capability to carry over 12,000 pounds of conventional weapons—a heavier bomb load than the World War II B-17. A cost effectiveness based acquisition approach encourages criticizing the system you have in favor of the new system you want. To save operations and logistics expense, Defense Secretary Robert McNamara wanted the Air Force and Navy to buy the same aircraft. In late 1961, he canceled the Air Force F-105 production after 833 total aircraft and   substituted the Navy F-4.

F-105s were used extensively during the Vietnam War, flying 75 percent of the air strikes against North Vietnam during the first four years of Operation Rolling Thunder. In 1966 alone, 126 F-105s were lost for the following reasons: anti-aircraft 79, surface-to-air missiles 5, MiGs 4, unknown 21, and operational 17. The chance of completing a combat tour without getting killed or captured was described by some as “There ain’t no way.”  But fighter pilots refused to believe they could become a statistic and grim fact was confronted with an optimistic retort that became a proverb… “There is a way.”

Combat is where the F-105 came into its own. Fighter pilots loved its speed, endurance, weapons capacity, and straightforward handling characteristics. What was obvious to pilots took the Defense Department longer to appreciate. Because of its multi-mission capability, planners thought it would be a challenge to fly and only highly qualified pilots with significant experience in other fighter aircraft were assigned to the initial squadrons. Early combat loss rates revealed the need for a fresh supply of pilots. A great debate ensued in Congress and the Pentagon about whether new lieutenants, fresh out of pilot training, could handle a single seat fighter with the F-105's pedigree. Nevertheless, lieutenants began training at Nellis Air Force Base, Nevada, and a small cadre was sent into combat. Within days two lieutenants were lost to enemy action. Although debate continued, necessity prevailed and the pipeline of young lieutenant replacements resumed after a few weeks.

The result was two very distinct types of pilots flying combat in the F-105D. There were the “older heads” with years, often decades, of experience flying single-seat fighters including many combat veterans of Korea and some of World War II. Then there were the “new kids,” young, inexperienced lieutenant replacements, the clueless few like me with six months training in jet fighters and zero combat time. Only these two greatly disparate groups existed; there was no middle ground of experience. Not that the lieutenants weren’t talented… they were, but they were thrown into a dangerous environment with much to learn just to stay alive.

A word about technology and the times. The year 1966 was before the digital economy, the cruise missile culture, sensitivity training, and female fighter pilots...before personal computers, the Internet, and e-mail. Aviators in combat had very little contact with loved ones and news from the outside world in general. A telephone call from Thailand to the States was time-consuming to initiate and so expensive it could only be justified for emergencies. A stamped letter was the primary communication tool but most pilot activities were classified and what wasn’t often seemed too dull to record. Typically, a box of homemade chocolate chip cookies, lovingly baked and carefully wrapped, arrived crushed so badly we ate them with a spoon. Not much represented home which is probably why pinups were so popular. As Bob Hope reminded us every Christmas, it was nice to see what we were fighting for.

Not only was digital technology lacking in communication it was not yet present in aircraft. The few computers in the F-105 were analog and “smart” weapons were not yet available. All conventional weapon deliveries depended entirely on a pilot’s skill. Mission success was solely a product of how well one could fly and think in the cockpit. Fighter pilots succeeded and stayed alive in combat by relying on themselves. Perhaps this explains the jet fighter pilot’s self-confident bearing and notorious ego, which, in most cases, was roughly the size of Chicago.

When not flying combat tours out of Thailand, F-105 pilots fulfilled nuclear alert commitments in Europe, Okinawa, and South Korea. “Sitting alert” on Cold War targets, each F-105D was armed with several times the nuclear force expended on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. If launched in anger, no individual warrior in history ever wielded a fraction of the destructive power controlled by one pilot flying a nuclear-armed F-105.

A consequence of this combined nuclear/conventional duty was that many F-105 pilots carried current knowledge of nuclear targets, tactics, and capability with them over enemy territory. Pilots flew their share of combat flights regardless of other responsibilities, which could include duty as a nuclear weapons instructor, nuclear war plans officer, or certifier of nuclear crews and targets. This apparent reproach to security was not lost on the enemy who had a wealth of information parachuting out of damaged aircraft and landing on their hillsides.  North Vietnam exploited this opportunity through torture, trade and exchange programs and shared information with the Soviet Union, Communist China, North Korea, Cuba, and other countries.

 Wartime is when fighter pilots come into their own, when their actions become meaningful and explicable (though they seldom bother.) Combat brings focus and singularity of purpose that reveals a truckload of unusual traits that seem to go with the territory. In the throes of combat, a fighter pilot seems not to like outsiders very much and is not easy company. One often has no idea what he is thinking and not the slightest notion of what his inner life might be. He appears uncomplicated, unreadable, punctilious, always in control, knowing his own mind, and unusually adept at solving any problem at hand. Then, having succeeded at his task, he smiles that smile, that cavalier, vainglorious, horse’s ass smile which seems the worst part about him… as if his vocation were some sort of inviolate priesthood… as if only he knew the right mantra, the right face to show the enemy… as if only he could come to terms with the passion of the moment, the wisdom of the longer view, and the truth that we are more humanly connected with bizarre behavior than we realize.

 A fighter pilot is capable of making life or death decisions under the challenge of fear and uncertainty. He wishes he were left to handle any situation on his own, the way it should be handled, and not crippled by an overly-acute sensitivity to the suffering of himself or of others. He uses superior judgment to stay out of situations where he would have to rely on superior skill. He knows that in a time when people are not dying so much he will be more harshly judged because some people who think they understand human nature forget that humans are predators. And he understands that when he tries to explain that concept in peacetime, people will look at him like he is dangerously stupid.

The fighter pilot’s I knew considered the enemy an external problem; the internal dilemmas were peer pressure and fear. Zorba was right: "Dying isn't hard. Living is hard." And in the end, I’m happy to be alive to feel the pain and, when things get tough, to keep perspective by remembering—I once had a job where people shot real bullets at me.