How Do Fighter Pilots Prepare for Long Sorties / Ocean Crossing?

*The appearance of U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) visual information does not imply or constitute DoD endorsement.*
*Views presented are my own and do not represent the views of DoD or its Components.*

[superkjell]

There is the old joke: A fighter pilot meets up with a tanker, and tells the tanker pilot: "Watch this!" - and does some aerobatics. Then the tanker pilot goes: "oh yeah? Watch this!" The tanker flies straight and level for a few minutes. The tanker pilot comes back on the radio: "Did you see that? I went in the back, had a fresh cup of coffee, a sandwich and went to the bathroom"

[VarkDriver]

I did several pond crossings in the F-111 and F-117, longest was 14.2 hrs. Hit the boom 12 times Kunsan to Hickam in the 117. I would only eat meat and cheese for 3 days prior. The worst was being in a poopie suit, using a piddle pack was almost impossible. I took "Go" pills on one in the F-117, never again, I was tweaking so hard afterwards, couldn't sleep for about a day.

[johndanger]

As a KC10 guy, I almost died over the Pacific dragging 2 F15s to AZ. Same deal, took off at midnight so they'd land during daylight. At some point we must've turned a little bit and one of the eagles was co-altitude and passed in front of us. Maybe 30 feet in front of us. Caught some good wake turbulence. Dude was taking a nap. His wingman chewed him out pretty good. We asked that they hold off our altitude after that scare. Fun times

[samuelwirstrom]

As a boom I did an A-10 fighter drag from Afghanistan to Qatar. Longest 7.5 ever and didn’t realize how slow we were going until I saw a C-130 pass us.

[ap]

Thank you both for the behind the scenes! 🙏 Your service is appreciated!!

[PBAR_BB]

Thank heavens we had a toliet in the B-1. I did a 27.5 hour flight once from Dyess to Diego Garcia and it sucked but at least you can stand up and stretch your legs or lay down in the aisle for a nap. B-2s and B-52s routinely do longer sorties than that. Felt sorry for the fighter guys doing long sorties.

[minthouse]

I always find it incredible during WW2, P-51 pilots flying escort missions to B-17s all the way to Germany and back. Seem to recall that was something like a eight hour round trip.

[TorToroPorco]

It’s so great having Gonky as a regular on the channel, he is a YouTube force multiplier. Such wonderful chemistry between Gonky and Mover.

[lawrencecadena]

I was a Rivet Joint guy, we had an 18.5 hour Sortie iso Noble Anvil, the entire crew was wiped out at the end of the mission. You could not pay me enough to do that again!

[kirkham-]

Hi Mover and Gonky. I am enjoying this format very much. I watch the original podcast on both channels and now seeing out takes by subject is of great value/interest. Thanks lads.

[budaviates]

Hey you guys need to include an female jock in the next on this subject. We never had those long sorties on the 50's but I'm 92 now and car trips need extra stops. I enjoy both of your channels, keep up the great work.

[Bsquared]

As a KC10 boom, hauled fighters over the water many, many times. Common themes were high-protein, low-residue diet a week before the flight (as mentioned by @robertschaab8653) such as steak cubes and cheese. The crews that got to fly onboard with us were quite thankful for an airline lavatory. :) Inflight, we would often play Trivial Pursuit or Battleship, Tanker against the fighters to pass time. You could always tell when one of the fighters was relieving him/herself, as their acft was way out there away from the formation. LOL I can remember one particular sortie during desert shield; we were in Spain, waiting on a KC135/F16 formation coming from CONUS--we would pick them up, drag them through the Med, and get them into Saudi Arabia. We were sitting in the aircraft ready to go when we heard the KC135 calling us--they had a boom malfunction and could not refuel; they needed us to meet them ASAP. We got the acft started and took off, heading directly for them. We did an RZ over Spain, and I went right back to the boom pod and got the boom down. The fighters came in and immediately started a 'Quick Flow' routine. (pioneered by the USAF Thunderbirds) When I plugged the first guy he had about 20 minutes of fuel left (he reported over the interphone), and just wanted about 1000 pounds. He then moved off the second guy came in immediately, and #3 joined right on his wing. We continued this 2 or 3 times until they had enough gas that we could cycle them through normally and top them off. Super stressful, but we got it done. After the sun came up the lead came in for gas and told me it was a rough night, his environmental system went to full cold, and he was freezing. He lifted his throttle hand up and told me his fingers were pretty much stuck in that position. I could see the Eagles on his shoulders, he definitely had some balls of steel, and had bragging rights after landing. I praise you fighter guys for what you do, and it's a scary thing going across the pond, let alone in a single-engine fighter. Thanks CW!

[BMF]

Tell me about sleep. I was a Marine platoon commander in Vietnam for a year. My platoon was in the field in combat for 2-3 months before we were brought back to battalion for 3 days of rest and some hot chow except during those three days my platoon had to stand lines on the battalion perimeter while "resting".

To be honest, I preferred being in the field with my platoon rather than being in battalion for so called rest. There was no rest.

I used to be a private pilot with commercial and instrument ratings. I took advanced aerobatic instructions, in mountain flying in Alaska. While I never had to fly hours and refuel in air, I can relate to their descriptions. I never had a flight that that couldn't refuel on ground, but in my military career I had missions where we needed ambient to sleep.

But I was a Marine platoon commander in Vietnam from Dec 1968 to 1969 and I can tell you that sleep was the biggest problem I had in defensive positions at night--including me.

When you are mentally and physically exhausted day after day in combat, you have no idea how hard it is to stay awake at night in a defensive position. Even if your tour to stay awak is only on hour, many Marines couldn't do it. So I had to walk the defensive perimeter every hour every nigh to ensure one Marine was awake and alert. That meant that the hour I had to sleep was reduced to 30 to 15 minutes before my radio operator took over.

Firefights, friendly fire, diseases, accidents, and other problems were not as challenging as keeping at least one Marine at each position awake during the night. If everyone was asleep, the enemy could have killed us all.

Think what would happen if a pilot fling a very long mission fell asleep. In my opinion, sleep is a bigger enemy in combat than the enemy. Just my opinion.

[andrewkerr]

When I watch Strategic Air Command with Jimmy Stewart, seeing the B-36 and the B-47 doing the distances those guys did and just have my utter admiration and respect just the same I have for you and Gonky

[whaledriver]

As a KC-10 guy, a memorable fighter drag was Aviano to Bradley Connecticut.
Guard A-10’s with high drag travel pods installed. We did toboggan AR for 14.1 hours for the crossing.
We were augmented Crew, had hot meals, bunks and a nice Lav to use.
These guys were crammed in there wearing their poopy suits and no auto pilot; good times!

[ronwalters]

While we were both in the Mighty 34th FS Rude Rams, now MG Scott "Rolls" Pleus told me he crossed the pond with 2 liter bottle of Coke on one side console, a big bag of tortilla chips on the other, and salsa between his legs. Our pilots used to play Battleship over the radio. On one transit, our F-18 exchange pilot didn't respond during a periodic radio check and wasn't in position on the tanker. A somewhat desperate visible search found him above the tanker, inverted, and happy as a lark. He was completely unaware of his attitude...

[crazypetec-fe]

Interesting that Mover's first non-graded ride was in Iraq. I cross-trained from maintenance to flight engineer in '03 and they really wanted me to get over there and do my part in OIF. The last hours I needed for my time requirements were logged eastbound over the North Atlantic, and my first ride without an instructor looking over my shoulder was a mission from Qatar to Somalia (keep your eyes open for pirates with manpads in boats). Two days later I had my first combat mission to Bagdad. That was interesting; the insurgents were trying to jam ATC radios on the way in, and on the way out we got a missile warning on take off, popped flares and evaded with zero altitude and not much airspeed, and had to feather an engine on the way home.

My longest sortie was a shade over 10 hours. But most of them were much shorter; a typical 130 mission generally was about 4 or 5 sorties. My personal record was 10 sorties in one day, just hopping back and forth between Balad and Bagdad. That day sucked. By the time I retired, I had logged 682 combat sorties, I think something over 250 missions.

[dougstitt]

Look at that young Mover in the 16 ! Good to hear from you two .

[jonpattison]

Had a friend who flew A10 in the guard. He flew from Michigan to "Italy then someplace else" the day after Thanksgiving 1991. A short while after he took the "no go" pill Thanksgiving day we carried him to a car then into his bed. Before he passed out he said they were going to play Battleship on the way across the pond. 😂

[mikeguthrie]

Ya know, most folks never know the about the "off the wall" things a fighter driver has to go through on a long mission like that. Ya just cain't pull over to the gas station and take a "piss" or do a "dump". And sittin' in the same chair for hours and hours is no picknic either. I greatly admire all these young folks in our flying services, that have to experience this stuff. "Keep 'em flyin' guys"!