My First F/A-18B Hornet Ride!

Date: Tuesday, 13-Dec-2005

Time: 1600-1745 UTC

Location: Naval Air Station Patuxent River, Maryland

Enroute: Low-level Military training route over Western VA and Eastern WV

Aircraft: Salty Dog 320 (F/A-18B model)




Although this wasn't the first time I was scheduled to fly in a hornet (cancelled in the past due to weather and other issues), it WAS the first time I DID get airborne in a Hornet! Here's the scenario:

On Monday the 12th, I checked to flight schedule and sure enough I was scheduled to be in the back seat of a hornet for a 2-ship low level flight. SWEET! BUT I decided not to get my hopes up because, hey, I've been this far before only to not get in the air.

So, on Tuesday morning, I suited up in my flight suit and headed into work. What a gorgeous day! Bright sun shine, great visibility, and not a peep of any bad weather on the horizon. So far so good.... let's hope the flight doesn't get cancelled for other reasons. I arrived at the Strike Squadron (VX-23) at Pax River, and headed to the pre-flight briefing, which went something like this....

"Today we will be a flight of two on a low level over the #### route [I removed the acutal route name because I don't think I can tell you that]. Plan on being airborne around 1100 local, we will head over to the area at FL180 (that's Flight Level 180, which means 18,000-ft in altitude). Once cleared into the low level entry point we will descend down to the initial run altitude of 1000-ft off the deck. During the descent, we will do a G-warm of 4g to the right, then 6g to the left. Once we enter the run, SD322 will take lead and 320 will take 'slot'. After point Echo, we are cleared down to 500-ft. The first target will be the dam at this point. {Here the pilot points to the graphic layout of the course}. After Echo, proceed on to the next waypoint. The final waypoint will be these fuel depots. {Again, he points to the course graphic and a satellite pic of the fuel tanks}. This is our final point and we will exit out of the course, climb back to FL180 for the transit back to Pax. Enroute airspeed will be around 300 knots, with the course airspeed at 460 knots."

The briefing continued, but I'll skip the rest. Most of it was standard briefing items, like comm frequencies, lead transitions, emergencies, etc. The brief was actually very interesting to partake in. My pilot for today was the new commanding office (CO) for VX-23, LtCol Art "Turbo" Tomassetti. Very cool guy! Marine, but I won't hold it against him. :) Heck, the whole flight was Marines. Our lead aircraft, SD 322 (that's Salty Dog Three Two Two), had LtCol Gray "Haze" as the pilot and Capt Davis "Timmeh" as the RIO. Since they were lead and we were Dash 2 (the second plane), the would take the lower altitude slot of 200-ft above the ground level (AGL) while we would fly the higher post at 500-ft AGL during the run.

After the flight briefing, Turbo gave me his own brief about cockpit procedures, what to expect, what could be bad, and other things necessary for a civilian who is about to get his first back-seat ride. It was very enlightening! After the brief, I headed down to the Paraloft (PR shop) to start donning my flight gear. First, take off the flight suit and boots I was wearing. Next, put on the dry suit liner. Because we were over land the whole flight, I did not have to wear my dry suit (thank God, because it gets uncomfortable and very hot). Then, time to put my flight suit and boots back on. After that, I grabbed my G-suit. Now, keep in mind that this equipment is VERY expensive. I don't have my own gear so it is loaner gear from the squadron. I had to come into the PR shop before Thanksgiving to get fitted and adjusted for this gear.

Ok, back to it....The G-suit...to put this on, I had to swing it around from my front side to my back side. Once done, I had to zip the torso zipper on the right side, and then zip down both legs. Once it's properly on, it feels a little tight on the legs and torso. Good! That means it fits well! The G-suit, once connected to the airplane, will inflate as we pull G's to force the blood from my lower body to my upper body to assist in preventing GLOC, which is G-induced Loss Of Consciousness (a bad thing when you pull too many G's). After the G-suit was on, I donned my jet (torso) harness. This is the harness that straps me to the ejection seat. Should I need to eject, the upper connectors on the torso harness would be connected to the parachute (stored in the ejection seat headrest) while the lower connectors would be connected to the seat pan (which stores my life raft and survival items). After the harness comes the survival vest (SV-2) along with the Life Preserver Unit (LPU). These two items house a lot of survival gear and also contain a flotation vest inflated with CO2. Finally, time to put the helmet and oxygen mask on. There! Now, I'm sweating like crazy and feel very constrained, but it's for a good purpose!

One last check over my equipment by the fine folks at the PR shop and I'm walking out to the jet with Turbo. As we approach the jet, he briefs me on how to enter the jet, and how to strap in. It was a little harder than I expected climbing up the boarding ladder with all that gear, but I did it. Once up on the Hornet, I climbed into the back seat and started connecting myself. First, connect the lower leg restraints. One for each leg and they connect so that the bottom of the strap is just above my boot. Next, connect the upper leg restraints for both legs. They connect just below the quad but above the knee. These leg restraints are very important. During the ejection sequence, they pull your legs towards the seat so that I don't break them (or worse yet, leave them in the jet) when the ejection sequence is initiated. Ok, very important...checked that 4 connectors are connected...rechecked...rechecked.. good to go! Next, connect the lower torso harness connectors to the seat, then reach over my shoulders and connect the upper seat connectors to my upper torso harness. A good tug to make sure they are connected and voila! I'm now strapped in! Simple as that.

After I'm all strapped in, Turbo connected my G-suit, oxygen hose, and communications cord to the aircraft. Not an easy thing for me to do by myself considering I can barely move now. Turbo then headed to the front cockpit as I watched our other cohorts enter the jet next to us. Ahhh..what a GREAT day to go aviating! Turbo brought up the battery power, checked comms with me, and fired up the APU (auxiliary power unit). After the APU was online, we started engine 2 (right side), then engine 1. Good starts, lowered the canopy, and began built-in tests of just about every system on the aircraft. If we cancelled for maintenance, this is probably where it would happen. As God was smiling down on Vanna, the jet was good to go. Our lead also signaled good to go, and then we started taxiing.

During the taxi, I had to complete some checklist items, such as make sure my oxygen was on, put my O2 mask on, don my gloves, verify that ejection mode handle was set to NORM (which means if I eject the pilot stays, but if he ejects we both go), and turn on my displays and radios.

So, there we are...sitting on Runway 6. Lead is on our right side forward of us. He signals GO. He starts rolling down the runway at MIL power. We're doing a 10-count. He hits his afterburners and leaps from the ground. Ok, our turn. "Pat, ready?" "Yes, sir" I call back. "Ok, here we go!"

DAMN!!! What a ride! Full burners going and I have NEVER been held back in my seat that hard! Before I knew it, we were airborne and climbing like crazy! We were over 300 knots before the end of the runway and we joined up on lead in no time. So, I'm AIRBORNE!!!! SWEET! Here's a couple of pics of us joining up on the lead aircraft.

After the join-up, Turbo let me fly the jet. Very EASY to fly actually! Sensitive on the controls including the throttle. At 300 knots, we were slowly falling behind, so I bumped the throttles and could STILL feel the plane put me in my seat as we accelerated. Ok, too much throttle. The stick was very easy to control. The airplane is very responsive to inputs, and the flight control computer automatically trims the aircraft for 1-g flight. Just prior to the descent for the initial waypoint, I pulled the camera back out and took a few more pics...

Next, I had to stow the camera because we were about to start the G-warm maneuver. Here we are, diving out of 18,000-ft down to 1000-ft above the ground. On the way down, we pulled a smidge over 4g's to the right, then came to the left and hit 5.5g's. Not exactly the 6 we were looking for, but good for me! The G-suit definitely was working. It squeezed the crap out of my legs and then started pushing on my abdomen. A very weird feeling, but I didn't even get close to passing out. LOVE THE G-SUIT!

Finally, rolling in on the initial point. This is what they call a low-level. It's designed to train pilots to fly below radar to the strike point, pop up, roll in on the target, release their weapons, and get back below the radar to egress out of the area. Due to the nature of the maneuvers we would be doing, I had to stow the camera for the entire low level. Darn for photos, but DAMN what a ride! Yanking and banking over the Applachian mountains covered with snow and ice. Absolutely beautiful! It wasn't very humid out, so I never saw any vapors coming off the wings. We ran about 1 hour on the low level. Climbs, descents, hugging the mountainous terrain at 500-ft going anywhere between 290 to 460 knots. We even paralleled a highway with vehicles on it. Turbo called "Let's give the taxpayers a demo." With that, we were zigzagging over the highway about 800-ft above the cars at a smokin' fast speed. I wonder how many of them noticed us?

The pop-up to target was cool. Pull some G's, roll 90-deg, roll back, may get inverted, roll out in a dive on the target, fake drop some ordnance, pull more G's, and drop back down close to the ground. That's about all I can say about that maneuver. Let me just say the last maneuver made me a little queasy to my stomach. BUT, I DID NOT PUKE! Yes!!!

After the low level run, we climbed back to FL180 and headed back to Pax River. Again, Turbo was cool enough to let me fly part of the way back. I probably got about 20 minutes total stick time. I of course took the camera back out and took more pictures.

Lead did a cross from right to left, which I captured digitally.

Then he set up on our left side and again, got a pic of that too.

Of course, since I bleed orange, I had to get the obligatory shot... :)

On the approach into Pax River, we did a break. That's where you come screaming overhead at blazing fast airspeed, roll the wings 90-deg, pull the throttles back to idle, and yank back on the stick. Definitely an exciting maneuver! We entered the pattern, put the gear and flaps down, and did a FCLP (field carrier landing practice). Basically, there is a replica of the flight deck drawn on the runway, and the lens (meatball) on the left side of the runway. We slammed down on the deck, he pushed the throttles back up and we were airborne again...just like that...

It was about that time I heard "BINGO" in my headset. Bitchin' Betty (that's what they call the aircraft voice that tells you about bad things) just indicated we are at our min fuel, so Turbo said this next pass would be a full stop. Great landing! Surprising how hard you hit the deck tho. If I did that in the Mooney I'd probably break the gear right off!

We taxiied off the runway back to the hangar. All the while, I am doing my post-flight procedures, like turning things off, removing my harness, taking the ejection seat from ARMED to SAFE, things like that...

Once we parked in the spot, Turbo shut down the engines and opened the canopy. I was already disconnected from everything in the aircraft, so I headed down the boarding ladder. Next stop, get all this 50-lbs or so of gear off of me and get some lunch! Man, I'm hungry! Don't I just look beat down after this flight? I was too excited (but very fatigued) to show it tho...

Too short a flight for me. I will carry my first hornet flight memories for many days to come. Can't wait for the next flight. Thanks Marines (esp Turbo) for the AWESOME first Hornet ride memory!

-Vanna