There's a 'mechanical symphony'
behind
Operation Northern Watch's aircraft
By Terry Boyd, Turkey
bureau
Terry Boyd/ Stars and Stripes
Sr. Airman Joe "Red" Sedlacek holds on to the nose of an F-16C while Staff Sgt.
Terry Taylor crouches. Both 77th Fighter Squadron maintainers were making final
inspections before pilot Capt. Tom Seymour was to fly an Operation Northern Watch mission. |
INCIRLIK AB, Turkey — As warplanes have evolved from
piston-powered box kites into technological marvels, the process of getting them into the
air and back down again has changed a great deal, too.
It takes perhaps 50 people to maintain, launch and recover one
Operation Northern Watch plane, says Maj. Kevin Kilpatrick, who commands the 77th Fighter
Squadron maintainers. That means the work of maybe 2,000 people goes into launching the 40
planes that typically make up an ONW “package” of Airborne Warning and Control
Systems (AWACs), F-16s, F-15s, electronic intelligence planes, refuelers and British
Jaguar reconnaissance planes.
That army of Air Force people includes everyone from the omnipotent
conductors of this massive mechanical symphony, the production known as
“pro-supers,” to the guys who load the radar-fooling, missile-eluding chafe and
flares.
If you break it down into a day in the life of an ONW plane, the
plane’s day begins three hours before — and ends long after — the
pilot’s drive home, if it truly ends at all.
During a flying day last month before a mission, 77th Mechanics
arrived at their maintenance hangars in the dark at 6 a.m. They signed out tool kits, and
set to inspect and repair their F-16CJs.
Maintainers Senior Airman Joe “Red” Sedlacek, 21, and Staff
Sgt. Terry Taylor, 28, worked for three hours on multiple inspections, looking for leaks
and setting up the cockpit. As they worked, other airmen paced Incirlik’s tarmacs,
intently staring at the ground, looking for debris. Even a tiny piece of discarded plastic
or metal can wreak havoc on a fighter plane’s engine. It’s easy to see how. With
the right backlight and early-morning humidity, you can see an F-16 sucking a slender
vortex of air directly off the ground into its massive intake cowling.
Capt. Tom Seymour showed up at about 9:30 a.m. He then did his own
pre-flight inspection of the plane and its maintenance records, which lasts another
half-hour.
Terry Boyd/ Stars and Stripes
Senior Airman Chip Davis looks into the underside of an F-15E while doing
"phase," or intensive, maintenance. |
At about 10 a.m., Taylor helped Seymour get belted into the cockpit.
After Seymour lighted his General Electric engine, Sedlacek jumped up to inspect the top
wing surfaces of the jet. He dashed from landing gear to engine, examining the jet. He ran
under the jet’s exhaust.
Meanwhile, Taylor plugged his headset into the plane to check with
Seymour about any last-minute problems.
Once in the cockpit, Seymour sat through what must seem like an
interminable wait. But the interval provided time for redundant checks on the entire
40-plane package. Time to check radios. Time to check weapons systems. Time so that
pro-supers can summon specialists at the last minute.
If a landing gear tire goes flat, for example, maintainers can jack
up a 37,000-pound F-16 and change it in 10 minutes.
“We’ve been known to change a tire faster than
NASCAR,” Sedlacek said.
At about 10:30 a.m., after a series of indecipherable hand signals
from Sedlacek, Seymour coaxed the plane into Turkey’s dazzling sunlight, as did five
other F-16 pilots in surrounding hangars.
Outside, pro-supers in vans circulated among Incirlik’s
reinforced hangars, waiting for something to go wrong with the planes idling inside.
“If they were on foot, they’d be nervously pacing,”
Kilpatrick said.
Pro-supers, who are master sergeants, can summon other vans full of
specialists should any system — hydraulics, electronics, weapons, communications
— act up before planes taxi to the runway.
Finally, at almost 11 a.m., Sedlacek saluted Seymour, the signal to
proceed to the runway. At stations on the way to the runway, a series of electronic boxes
and gadgets checked the plane’s weapons and its detection systems, including the
electronic signals that allow U.S. pilots to tell friend from foe.
Seymour’s F-16CJ merged into a maelstrom of jets creeping into
place, waiting for their turn to fly toward Iraq. While Seymour sat, more airmen —
third, fourth and fifth sets of eyes — inspected every inch of his plane, then armed
his missiles.
Terry Boyd/ Stars and Stripes
Sr. Airman Joe "Red" Sedlacek is silhouetted against the business end of an
F-16C - HARM anti-radar missile. |
Then off he went, rising off the runway, then banking gently until he
was out of sight.
When his flight of six F-16s was gone, a dozen F-15s chased them into
the air, with EA-6B Prowlers replacing the fighters. Then A-10 Thunderbolts replaced them,
and so on, in what might be the most expensive traffic jam on Earth.
If you were crazy enough to take off your headset and pull out your
earplugs, you would feel the noise more than hear it. The energy of full-bore fighter
engines vibrates through you in waves of nearly unbearable intensity.
Seymour would return after 3 p.m., so fresh sets of hands retrieve
the plane, then check it for problems. Minutes after the F-16 lands, Staff Sgt. Scott
McCormack crawled inside its engine cowling to check the still hot jet blades for nicks.
To get the plane back into the hangar, the process requires:
A tow supervisor, who must be a staff sergeant or above, to
actually oversee moving the plane back into place.
A wing walker, who makes certain the wings don’t bump into the
hangar walls.
A tail walker, who makes certain that the rear of the plane gets
safely into the hangar.
A brake rider, who sits in the cockpit with his foot on the brake.
This is usually the pilot, though the pilot can turn the job over to a maintainer.
A tow driver who drives the tow vehicle.
Later, sometime in the middle of the night and at least 12 hours
before the cycle begins again, technicians come in to refuel the plane, and service the
pilot’s oxygen system and the fire suppression system.
Arms folded, Kilpatrick calmly monitors a process he’s seen a
thousand times before and will see a thousand more. But he still seems amazed that kids
who easily could be flipping hamburgers back home have the nerve-fraying responsibility of
$40 million and $50 million planes.
“It’s not as easy as working at McDonald’s,”
Kilpatrick shouts over the noise. “But this is a hell of a lot more exciting than
working at McDonald’s!”
THE OPERATION NORTHERN WATCH SERIES:
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