My First Low Level in the Hornet

It was June 2013. I had been flying the Hornet for just under a year. In fact, I went in July and August 2012 was when I

first

flew the F-18. We were in Fallon doing red air support for what's called an s-farp. and between the red air support, we actually did ct continuation training missions and on this particular one we went out and did a low

level

like a four ship, but we were separating into two individual aircraft and it was actually flying with uh, so once you remember. uh flash uh from the lightning video he was my flight leader and I was second script so this is the

first

time I went out flying at a low

level

uh in the Hornet, which is a little bit different than the F-16 in Air Force.

The rules were that you knew up to 500 feet, but in the navy you did have a special qualification, but if you were with an instructor or flight leader, you could go down to 250 feet as long as you weren't going any lower than him, so this was the first time we flew at 250 feet in a fighter and it was quite an experience so we taxied together this is just doing a flight control check and for the fourth script so we took off on the cross runway so I'm actually holding like number four, uh, the first three lined up on the runway and then once the third dash, who's my flight leader, took off, I took the runway and did a rolling takeoff behind him, we held steady for a second and we let the other two go ahead and then we entered the low level route, in the fall we had the points plotted, I think I had to write them by hand on all the different waypoints for the route, but in my right leg I have I also got the low level map to give us an idea of ​​where we are going but I learned the same thing i.e.

I had no formal training to fly low levels in the navy as this is the first time you can see my flight crossing late. uh through my nose there as we walk in um just got back to my air force training near rocks distant rocks check the lead, check six so you know, look at the rock closest to you to make sure you don't hit it and then look further out on the far rocks and then check your lead, you know, make sure you know where it is because you're flying in formation over them and you're flying like a wedge, it's a 30 to 70 degree cone anywhere between a mile and one mile. and a half and you can see I'm trying to hold position in that wedge formation and we just went down, you know, tactical and went down slowly, I stayed up a little bit, you know, just to get comfortable with that because You know we're going pretty fast. and you know the difference between 500 feet and 250 feet may not seem like much, but it's actually quite significant, because now you're starting to see details in the trees and things like that. speed up and flash he was a very experienced ex marine so he had done a lot of low level things like forward air controller so he was very aggressive going over the ridge and things you just saw you know instead of pennants instead of pushing negative g, you know you turn to get the positive g on the plane, so you're not pushing every time you cross a ridge, see here, it's just a constant cross check, you know, looking forward, okay ?

I'm not going to hit the rock, where's board one? We do not have data link. You know, we don't have media or anything like that on these planes, so everything stays visual. Don't go blind. Use the air-to-air attack. and to make arrangements, but other than that, it's just you know, look ahead, look left, look ahead, look left, don't hit the rocks and as we funnel into some of these valleys, you know it would change the position of my formation, just kind of a base of where we are. You know, I would get a little closer as we would enter these valleys.

A little easier to keep an eye on. A little easier to fly out of them. And then, you know, with more open terrain, I would expand the formation. and obviously vary the direction of the turn based on where the next turn is going to be in the low level because it's not a straight low level, you know it has a defined route that we're flying so you know you can go uh left down uh down one peak and then going down the other peak uh and then as you get to know flat lands you can go down to that, you know, 250 300 feet, but at that altitude now you know you can start to make out the bushes and things that you can make out, you know that you start to make out the leaves on the trees, but you know it helps to have the head-up display, you know, because it has a velocity vector flight path marker that shows you where the plane is going to go and to what extent. keep it up you know the terrain in front of you you know you're going to clear it but we're using the radar altimeter to tell us you know how high we are above ground level unfortunately I didn't have the ability to record communications at this time but there really isn't a lot of calm between my flying and my leading all this time, I mean, he can signal a turn, you can do a fuel check or something, but it's really radio silence, he's just focusing.

You know, fly in a good formation and maintain, you know the right altitude and terrain separation and here, you know a little less terrain, a little time to take a deep breath and you know, catch your breath after you. you know how to maneuver like this because you're pulling you know several g's it's you know it's an exercise uh you know it's a good time to you know study the map a little more how to get ahead of the plane make sure you know what's coming You can see it's also pretty bumpy, you know , the wind that comes from the side of these, you know if you would call them mountains, but off the terrain, you know it creates, you have thermals, mountain waves, turbulence like that, so I. means it's a bumpy ride, the seat belt light would definitely be on on the airliner, the hardest part in daylight today, you know, having that kind of gray cloudy sky and flying, you know, big camouflage planes is just keeping the visual, you know, if you get too far, too stripped of something like that, it's very easy to miss the Leeds planes that you know in that background and that you know you're looking up at, so it's important that you know that a couple of times you know you lose them by a second but generally you know to stay visual all the time and if not you will know it's when you make a blind call let them know your altitude make sure you deconflict from there and know to rejoin accordingly or maybe abort the root if it gets too bad or blows away. you know, individually or something requires some kind of space so you don't run into each other, so I think at this point I really did, we actually went through the exercise blind, I think I lost it in one of these turns and it took a minute to get it back up, so I went up, made sure we had altitude deconfliction until I could get it back up, and I think once he spoke, my eyes went back to me or him, we found it, and then we left.

Back to the low level route, I don't remember what exactly happened here, but I'm pretty sure that was the initial one, so the climb happened back to the low level structure and you know. These are these roads and it would really be cool to be on that road and see a couple of

hornet

s screaming over it, you know, 500 knots and 250 feet. I showed this part of the video to Doug, who you saw in the last video, and he said: I'm usually envious of your flying stuff, but not this one because you know it's intense, it's a roller coaster, you know, I mean that he does road racing and I think it's a lot like being on a track because you know, turn left, turn right.

You know you're trying to look forward. I'll stay on the road and it's bumpy, there's a lot of turbulence just going through the different tanks. The Model A didn't have the electronic engine instruments like the Model C or the DCS version just flipped through the tanks and just did a fuel check to make sure the tanks were being fueled properly, so yeah, we ended up doing a route aboard because, whether it was your plane or mine, one of us had a master warning. a problem some problem that wasn't necessarily enough to declare an emergency or something, but it was fixed, we decided to try again and I think in the end here we will end up, you know, the third time it is enough to just abort the root route completely. but you can see, you know you're going to go up, you're going to deal with the problem, you're going to get out of the low altitude environment and then you're going to come back to it if everything clears up, oh that's what it was, it was uh, it was me, it was a fcs. problem, one trip to blinn had a flight control system failure, that was a trip to mix it up, so I ended up having another problem, um and at this point we decided okay, flight control problems, you know, they are firing up the mixes to try to do a restart of the FCS, why is this the scariest flight?

I was actually checking to see if the camera was still connected, but why is this the scariest flight of my career? It wasn't because you know the problems with FCS or turbulence or 250 feet and 500 knots, whatever. It was just because it was the first time in my career, you know, I had emergency procedures or emergencies where you know, engine problems, you know, I had flight control problems. I've had all kinds of emergencies up to this point. in my career, but it wasn't that I was afraid of dying on the flight, it was just the first time in my short career.

You know, this is 2013, so you know, I've been flying since 2007, 2006. It was The first time I realized my mortality was a time in my life where I was happy. You know, I had a great girlfriend. My father was still alive. You know, this was kind of the calm before the storm in 2013 because my you. I know my dad was passing away in November and you know things went downhill, but I remember flying like that. I don't want to, I don't want to, I don't want to hit a rock, you know, I know, obviously, you never want to. hit a rock, but specifically, you know this was where I was, you know, because I had never thought about death before, you know, I had never been on a plane, even when things were going bad, you know, I had electrical fires that had everything .

I had never worried about other types of problems, but this was the first time I considered my own mortality, so I guess I'm wrong. The FCS rebooted and we tried one more time and I think the turbulence will start an FCS warning here in a second and we'll abort one more time and then go home, but it was the first time in my career that I had this feeling that you know I don't want to. die, you know, this is an adrenaline rush, this is a wild ride, but you know I'm inches away from these rocks and everything's going well for me right now and you know you're just holding on tight, uh. but unlike the cougars, you know you're not losing the edge, it just reminds you of the safety margin, reminds you what you're doing out there, so it keeps you honest and stops you from trying too hard, but it definitely was.

It's revealing. I specifically remember that this flight was a kill and from there the FCS fired another warning. Obviously this time we don't reset it and I'll meet him and do the battle damage check and we'll go home together. So as you remember the video with Carl, this is what he was talking about, you're checking for panels, if there's something open, sometimes you pull a lot of g's, there's a panel on the back that opens just to let them know. Make sure there's nothing, no missing panels, no visible structural damage or anything like that and then once he gets back into position, I'll give him the go-ahead, he'll give me the lead, I'll take it and give him the check. battle damage. signal and then it will do exactly the same thing that I just did while I have the lead and it will take us home so that we point towards Fallon right now, you know, right under the cloudy sky and that's me changing the radio frequencies to uh i I think that we're going to get close to Fallon, so from there it took me home the difference in flight training the air force in the navy the air force tells you what position they want you to be in the navy more or less uh, just They expect you to be in the right place at the right time, so knowing that we were approaching initial uh for the break on the left, I automatically moved and you know, as we get closer to the field, I'm going to get into the point position. of the fingers and you know, the only sign that he What they will give me is basically the uh, they come with me for the fan break, so as I was talking, I went into the position of the fingertips, um fallon has some drops in altitude, so get down in time for the carrier break.

It's a pretty steep approach, so he gives me permission to come with me and I'll take it distance from there, so in the next few episodes next week I'll talk about how I became a deputy sheriff and then we can have a special treat with lspdfr in the coming weeks with a guest appearance from beau, who you may remember from previous episodes and after that, how he became an author and hopefully some good new year stuff, so anyway I hope you've enjoyed this episode there they filed me, you know, really the most flightscary, I mean just because of what it meant, I mean, it was just a good place in my life and you know, I realized I was like wow, you know what I'm like.

I'm not immortal, I'm not invulnerable and you know that once you realize it doesn't mean you've lost your edge, it just means you know this is real and you know things are going well and it's just a happy time. you too