Military Flying The Intense Demanding Life of a Fighter Pilot.
The life of a fighter pilot is exiting and military flying is complex as well as dangerous. Pilots experience exhilarating flights balanced with hours of near boredom injected with moments of shear terror! Fighter pilots are continually being tested, studying manuals about flying, the latest weapons and tactics. The workload is so high that pilots are often tasked with a specific subject like enemy latest weapons and tactics with another focused on emerging threats and tasked with briefing his/her squadron about the emerging threats.
Every flight is not just a pilot checking what aircraft is available and wandering out looking cool in their flight suit and taking off spending over $30,000 per hour in a modern fighter jet like the F-16 or F-35 and F-22. No the truth is far more boring than this actually. A new pilot starts out as a wingman and their soul task is to fly on their leads wingtip and do what they are told. Even after all the flight training to get to a new fighter or bomber squadron they know relatively nothing more than how to fly the jet.
Initial Training for a new Fighter Pilot.
A new fighter pilot will go through several cycles usually on the path to become proficient. This will require many late nights in the books preparing for the next programmed task from basic fighter maneuvers to beyond visual range intercepts and tactics and then the many sub phases of air to ground weapons delivery.
As a Weapons/Egress specialist in the RAAF we were full on building and preparing weapons and the sub systems like launchers, bomb racks and gun systems required for military flying to launch the weapons. This would be weeks of work prior to an Air to Air gunnery phase for example. On an air to air gunnery phase the bullets of the 30mm DEFA cannons in the Mirage IIIO i worked on would all get manually dipped in a special paint that would leave a mark on an aerial banner that was towed either behind another Mirage on a special pod or by a Leah Jet that was specially set up to do the task.
Pilots would be scored on every hit on this flying banner all the time being aware of their approach and the location of the tow aircraft so as not to fire and inadvertently hit the tow aircraft which would be disastrous. I have flown on one of these Leah jets during air to air gunnery and its pretty spectacular how close the fighter jets get to the target an how amazing military flying needs to be.
This often then transits into BFM or basic fighter maneuvers with 1 v 1 then 1 v2 and then 2 v2 and many variations of where the battles start. These are super high intensity fights at maximum G and maximum danger! The air combat training them moves onto BVR or Beyond Visual Range and all the tactics and radar/missile training required to become at least proficient,.
Dogfighting is Terrifying!
Flying BFM or dogfighting is often the first phase a new pilot experiences in their squadron. It has its own dangers with proximity to other jets being quite close and mid air collisions although rare due to training rules they happen. Pilots can even commit to maneuvers that are designed as an escape maneuver that if flown at the wrong altitude can cause them to fly into terrain like desert floors or mountains.
Dog fighting is probably the most extreme situation in military flying when aircraft maneuver reasonably close to each other. To be accurate though would be fighter pilots It’s honestly it’s not like Top Gun. The aircraft are never as close as you see in the movies but they are still close enough to be a danger of collision! Anytime you lose sight in a dogfight in training there is a call of NO JOY, meaning you have lost sight of the opponent. I would guess this would be a loss to that pilot because “Lose Sight & Lose The Fight” is the fighter pilot adage. There is what’s know as a bubble or an invisible ball around each aircraft that other aircraft WILL NOT enter. I believe this bubble extends in all directions from the aircraft 1000ft or so.
Low Level Death in a Second!
Flying strike missions especially at night at extremely Iow altitudes has cost many pilots and crews their lives sadly. In my time in the RAAF we had a very young and talented new pilot to the F-111. He was sadly lost when he flew his F-111 into the ground while doing manual hand flying using the terrain following system at night. It killed him and his WSO in an instant and the crash site was large with the impact point spreading out ahead of the contact point. It only takes a part of a second or less from 100ft to hitting the ground.
Killed when you least Expect it!
While I was at the R&D unit we lost a couple test pilots unfortunately in a Nomad twin engine aircraft. What’s really scary is I saw the aircraft come in and unload with most of our other test pilots & Development Unit) only a few minutes before the crash. There were another several test pilots who had just got out of the aircraft before it took off again. I don’t know what the pilots were doing during the flight but the tail of the aircraft separated and the aircraft crashed. It was determined that critical maintenance while being operated by a civilian company was not done and it cost two very valuable lives. There were cracks in the structure failed and they had no way of recovering. A pilots life is dangerous!
Missile Close Call
Firing weapons can also be unhealthy for pilots. Dropping bombs that don’t operate correctly can prove to be dangerous as well as launching air to air missiles. Firing guns at ground targets is dangerous as the rounds often bounce off the ground and fly back up into the sky. If you fire to close to the target you can then fly through your own rounds and shoot yourself down. This has happened!
Missile Explosion!
When I was in Malaysia working on Mirage IIIO fighters, our C/O (Commanding officer) took an aircraft with newly delivered R550 Magic IR missiles. He took off for a live fire of the missile at flare target which I helped launch from a transport aircraft.
I was in the Caribou aircraft flying well above the fighters altitude when we were directed to drop the flare out of the aircraft as a heat target. The chute deployed and the flare drifted earthward with its flare providing a large heat signature in the clear blue sky. The R550 was to lock onto the target flare as a target and track it the detonate well away from then launch aircraft.
The Mirage approached and launched the missile. We saw a smoke trail leave the fighters wing and fly towards the flare we had dropped. In very quick succession there was the launch then a large detonation of the missile. The missile launching from the fighters wing nearly had nearly exploded instantly upon launch. There was a flash of flame and a black ball in the sky.
As it turned out the missile had a fault and the impact rings in the nose designed to detect a collision with a target. These had collapsed on launch making the missile think it had impacted a target already so as soon as it armed 0.5 seconds from launch it detonated nearly immediately in front of the launch aircraft.
The pilot returned white and shaken. He flew through the explosive ball when the missile detonated. He was way to close. The issue was resolved and not repeated I understand.
Military flying Dangerous? Yes It Is!
So yes being a pilot is a dangerous but rewarding job. Dangers as well as excitement are around the corner in your next flight always!
Author
Brendon McAliece (Aka Gunnie) is a military veteran with 23 years working on Jet Fighters, their weapons systems and ejection seat/module systems as well as munitions and R&D. Involved with flight simulation since the 1980s, he has flown all the major flight simulators over the years.
He is an Australian expat who has lived in Malaysia, UK, Saudi Arabia and more recently Thailand. He is a multilingual blogger who loves to share his life experiences here on LetsFlyVFR.com and DreamingGuitar.com, with his lifestyle and Travel experiences Blog plus his Dreaming Coffee website.
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