Attending USAF Pilot Training was one of the finest years of my life. Besides the camaraderie I shared with my classmates, I had some very memorable times, both in the air and on the ground during those 49 weeks of flight training. Williams AFB, nicknamed Willie, and located in Chandler, AZ (its now closed) was where I spent an exciting year learning to fly the USAF way.
Willie was a great place to both train and live. The days were usually sunny, and with a dry climate and little rain it made for excellent visibility and great flying conditions year round. And when not flying, there was so much to do with regards to the outdoors; the mountains for fishing or camping, tubing on the Salt River, the SCAR (Saguaro, Canyon, Apache, Roosevelt) lakes for boating, and the history of the Wild West alone was fascinating. Being from New Jersey, I felt like it was still the Wild West, I mean people walked around with six shooters in holsters for Pete’s sake. If you saw that in Jersey, where I’m from, you’d assume the guy’s name was either Vito or Vinny and it might be the last thing you saw.
So, I’m digging seeing the mountains as I drive to and from work, or when I flew over them when I was training in either the T-37 or the more high performance T-38. There was not one thing about being in pilot training while at “Willie” that I didn’t like… except RSU duty.
RSU was an acronym for Runway Supervisory Unit. The RSUs at Willie were small, mostly glass, tiny little buildings that were situated on each end of both the T-37 and T-38 runways. The view out the RSU windows was expansive which afforded a person inside of it to see 365 degrees around them, as well as up high in the sky.
The RSUs were used to monitor the local jet traffic flying from two of the three runways at Williams AFB. Willie had three fairly long runways: the western one (they were oriented northwest/southeast) was used exclusively for T-37 training; the middle one was the tower’s and used for straight-in approaches or transient aircraft; leaving the eastern most runway for T-38 operations.
Three people occupied the RSU during normal training days, which were Monday through Friday, or anytime there was a large volume of jet training occurring that day or night. Two Instructors and a student worked a roughly four hour shift, of which there were two to three (shifts) a day, depending on the time of year. I honestly didn’t know if the instructor’s had to be “special” (identified as above average pilots/instructors) to be bestowed with the opportunity to spend time in that Suzie Bake Oven, but I do know from personal experience there was nothing special required of the students. We had no say in whether or not we were going to be shoved in there. It was the typical, age old, military tradition of assigning “extra” duties to all the students as we worked our way through those 49 weeks.
When the students were in the T-37 phase of training they would pull duty in the T-37 RSU, likewise the same thing when they were in T-38 training. It was the student's job, while in the RSU, to record the takeoff and landing times of every T-37/T-38 that took off and landed on their respective operating runways. I can’t say it was tedious, nor even hard, though it could get busy. We were taught a simple, tried and true method for keeping track of the extensive number of jets as they flew. The reason the times were recorded was to keep track of the aircraft. If one went missing, generally the only way to know, in a timely manner, it was missing was to note that an aircraft departed but never came back (Cross country departures were recorded by the tower). Also, there were times when the SOF (Supervisor Of Flying, located in one of the OPS buildings) wanted to know what time a certain aircraft departed, a solo student usually for example, just to keep track of it/them/whomever.
The division of responsibility between the two Instructors in the RSU was distinct. One Instructor, lets all him Controller One, was responsible for monitoring the traffic at the approach end of the respective runway in which he was controlling and the other Instructor, call him Controller Two, was responsible for the landing/departure end of the same runway that Controller One was monitoring. Together, these two communicated about what traffic they had in their areas of responsibility and with that information they managed the flow of traffic in the immediate pattern, or on the outside downwind. Realistically, most times the aircraft themselves managed their own patterns, adjusting to whatever aircraft may be a potential conflict, but Controller One, the approach side of the runway, did check to make sure all the aircraft who were landing had their gear down as they turned final, whether they were doing a touch and go, or full stopping.
There were two training profiles for flights that departed Willy (not including those aircraft that were heading out on cross country flights). A few jets stayed in the pattern, never leaving the local area for the entirety of their mission as they did pattern after pattern, touch and go after touch and go, or practice instrument approaches, finally full stopping once their fuel ran low. Most aircraft however, initially took off and departed to the east and flew into one of the many MOAs (Military Operations Area) which were large volumes of special use airspace where the students practiced whatever maneuvers they were to practice, aerobatics or formation flying for example, during their phase of training. After completing their maneuvers the aircraft returned to the pattern to either land right away, or practice overheads and landings until then too, their fuel ran low and they did a full stop landing.
The normal procedure for arrival and landing on the T-38 runway began with flying up “initial”, meaning to fly directly on the runway’s centerline, but 1500 feet AGL (Above Ground Level) above it. Once you were over the beginning of the runway, the numbers, you would “pitch out”, meaning you’d roll the jet rapidly to the right (at other airports it might be a left turn) to maybe 70 degrees of bank, or slightly more, and then pull back on the stick with the intention of performing a level turn while pulling approximately 4 to 5 Gs. You wanted to this turn, “break turn” as it’s called, to be tight enough so as to stay close to the runway as you turned, but not too tight. You held the turn level until you were now heading in the opposite direction from which you just came, with the runway now on your right side. If you pulled too hard, too tight, it would put you too close to the landing runway while on downwind so, when it came time to turn back towards the runway to land, you could possibly overshoot, go beyond the runway to the west, which could cause a conflict with the center runway. Once you turned 180 degrees you were now on “downwind”. You flew level, 1500 feet, on downwind until the the landing runway was at your 4 o’clock position, or thereabouts, and when it was you began a descending right banked turn, pulling the aircraft to “on speed” AOA (you didn’t really look at the airspeed indicator, since you flew AOA (Angle of Attack) until touchdown. You played the turn from downwind to final so as to arrive a mile out from the runway at 300 above it and pointed directly at it and hopefully on centerline. When I say “played”, you may have to turn tighter than normal, not to exceed on speed AOA. In order to turn tighter you added power, flew a bit faster, and steepened the bank and added more G which causes the turn to be tighter. Consequently if you were really wide on the downwind, you may have to use less than on speed AOA and not turn as tight, not be as steep in your bank turn, as you adjust power to moderate your rate of descent. The objective was to roll out on centerline, facing directly in the direction of the runway while continuing a descent towards landing. You lowered your landing gear and flaps while on downwind. Once on final you tried to fly a three degree glide slope while maintaining an “on speed” AOA indication until touchdown. Your desired touchdown point was about 1000 to 1500 feet beyond the beginning of the landing runway.
Once the T-38 landed it could do one of two things upon touching down. Firstly, and most logical, was that it stay on the ground, with its nose in the air and was aerobraked, decelerating, until the aircraft’s nose wheel dropped to the runway whereupon the brakes were applied and the aircraft turned off the runway at its end. Or, secondly, after touching down the aircraft would lift off, takeoff, again and then “pull” what is known as a “closed” pattern, or the student/Instructor could “re-enter,” meaning turn to a wide downwind, on the outside pattern and come back up initial for another overhead.
One HUGE caution about flying the overhead was the descending turn from downwind to final. You really wanted to make sure your base to final turn wasn’t so tight that you exceeded your approach and landing AOA. If you pulled too hard in that final turn, without regard to maintaining an “on speed” AOA, you could cause the jet to lose too much lift and in doing so it would rapidly descend to the ground and might rock, “roll”, back and forth rapidly while descending, causing an out of control situation to develop. If you got into this “behind the power curve” situation, you needed to immediately roll wings level, add max power (full afterburner), reduce back stick pressure to lower the AOA and as your airspeed increased, try to arrest your rate of descent so as to not hit the ground. Many military, and civilian, accidents have occurred in this final turn, with many deaths.
One a brighter note, though It may seem like it was hard or complicated, to do this arrival and landing procedure, it was easy once you practiced it a few times. It was a very efficient way in which to land many aircraft, in a short period of time, on the same runway. Also, making things even more expeditious, you were allowed to land with another aircraft on the runway if that aircraft was 6,000 feet of more ahead, or, if it was offset from the runway centerline (left/right side) you could shorten that distance to 3,000 feet.
So that’s a description of how T-38s (and T-37s too, but slightly different procedures) operated in the pattern at Willie. And that’s where the students spent quite a bit of time with their instructors, learning how to land via the overhead pattern.
So, during a normal RSU shift the inhabitants of that small little building might get to see hundreds of overheads and touch and goes (where the jet touches down, but then immediately takes off again).
I think for me the best part of being in RSU was when the F-5s, that were associated with the locally based 425th TFTS (Tactical Fighter Training Squadron), came in and landed, or did the occasional low approach to closed pattern and full stop landing. The F-5s usually came up initial as a two ship; very rarely did they arrive from whatever MOA they trained in as single ships (one aircraft), though it did occur.
The F-5 “Tiger” was an outgrowth of the Northrop T-38, a much more formidable outgrowth. It was a lightweight fighter jet, single or two seat, with much bigger engines and much better performance. The 425th TFTS operated the F-5s in order to train foreign pilots, using American Instructors, on how to fly and fight in the F-5; most of the foreign students were from the Middle East.
It was evident from watching their patterns that the F-5 had much better performance than the T-38. Sometimes, when a F-5 pilot was performing a closed, or break turn, they would definitely fly a tighter pattern than the T-38s, but then the F-5 pilots had more experience and many of the students in the T-38 were not exactly aggressive, nor were their instructors. It was cool to watch the kind of performance the F-5s demonstrated on occasion, at least to a neophyte like me, and one day I hoped I could be as aggressive as some of those guys.
Finally, with regards to the F-5, the USAF did operate it in a few, small, very special, and elite squadrons. The pilots that flew these F-5s were called “Aggressors” and it was their assignment to travel around the USA and to fighter bases overseas and expose the American Fighter Pilots to Soviet style tactics. Mock dogfights and air battles, with the Aggressors as the enemy, were flown against the unwitting USAF Fighter pilots. The Aggressor pilots were extremely good at their job and they defeated and humbled many, many American Fighter pilots in these mock air battles. The objective of the USAF in forming and implementing the Aggressors was the belief that if American Fighter Pilots were exposed to the Soviet Style tactics before ever going into war, than they would be better prepared for what a Soviet trained fighter pilot would do in combat and therefore stand a better chance at surviving and indeed, neutralizing the threat. It was excellent training (In later years I would have many dogfights with these most excellent fighter pilots).
Because the Aggressors were so relatively new to the USAF when I was in pilot training and their expertise and exploits so legendary, anytime the topic of them was raised, whenever a few of us pilots were gathered together, the Aggressors commanded the highest degree of respect and were revered…if not idolized…in those conversations; simply put, from what I heard those guys walked on water. Oddly enough though, and this is what I found funny, most of those Instructors, if not all, whom spoke of the Aggressors’ amazing war fighting abilities had never met, let alone flown against one.
So I’m doing my second T-38 RSU tour of duty. I was in the formation phase of T-38 training, in other words I was nearing the end of my year of training and I was excited about the next phase of my USAF life. I was sitting “in the box” on this cloudless and relatively cool, by Arizona standards, day with the normal compliment of two Instructors. Controller One, the dude that watched the approach end of the runway, was obnoxious as hell. OH Em Gee, he was a “Check Section” Instructor, which meant, in his eyes, he was “SPECIAL.” The Check Section guys gave check rides to both students and Instructors alike and some of them were on power trips in which they felt superior to the rest of us aviators. Maybe they were great, I don’t know, but most of the ones I met before this guy were very nice and didn’t seem to process any super powers.
As we sat in the box and watched the T-38s, and occasional F-5s do their thing in the pattern that day, Mr Check Section continually made disparaging after disparaging remark about almost every T-38, or even F-5, that flew. I could tell Controller Two, by the roll of eyes when I looked at him, was maxed out with Controller One’s almost continuous cynical jabs at the pilots in the pattern.
As our time “in the box” was nearing an end, and the T-38 traffic became non-existent, a single F-5 came flying up initial…and I mean flying. Normally T-38s and F-5s came into the pattern at 300 knots Indicated Airspeed. But, this F-5, much faster. I don’t know how much, but he was hauling ass as my father might say. He broke swiftly and sharply over the numbers and pulled hard in the turn. He must have been doing 7 Gs in the break since his rate of turn was so fast, with an increasingly decreasing radius of turn. As he broke Controller One remarked at how aggressive this “cowboy”, as he called him, was flying. Since this was the only aircraft in the pattern, Controller Two was watching this lone F-5 do his thing as I watched in awe. I’d never seen an F-5 turn that aggressively. Then, instead of rolling out on downwind as everyone else did, this F-5 immediately, once he had turned 180 degrees, began an immediate, and steep, descent while rolling into a steep right bank as he turned back towards the landing runway. As required by regulations, the pilot announced, “Gear down, full stop” while continuing his pattern. I can’t express to you how aggressive this pattern was. I’d never seen another aircraft fly this “tight” of an overhead and I couldn’t believe an aircraft could fly this way without crashing. I was convinced this guy was going to overshoot the T-38 runway and would have to go around for another pattern.
All of mine and Controller Two’s observations and our vocal awe (we were saying things like, “holy crap that’s a tight turn!” and, “How is able to do that!?”) on this aerial demonstration were not lost on Mr Check Section (Controller One). He was mumbling incoherently as the F-5 seemingly violated every known law of aerodynamics as it maintained its steep descent and bank as it neared the runway’s altitude and heading.
As the F-5 was on very short final and almost aligned with the landing runway’s heading, Controller One said, “F-5 on short final, go around, unsafe!”
Immediately, the F-5 rolled out and you could see the gear begin to retract. As the gear came up and the aircraft began to level off, it rolled slightly left and began heading directly towards the RSU. I think we were all crapping our pants upon seeing the flight path of that F-5. I thought he had lost control and was going to crash on or near us, but, at about 25 feet above the ground the wayward jet leveled out and straightened out to head in the same direction as the runway.
The aircraft was now just in front of the RSU, 25 feet up, and about 50 feet away…I mean we had a full view of that jet. It was now, as it flashed by, in about a 30 degree left bank, not turning, slightly nose up, and no doubt the pilot was holding it on a slight knife edge that he began silent, but loud….communication. His O2 mask was hanging down, his visor up, and he looked right at us while flipping us the bird…middle finger up. Immediately, upon seeing the distinctive markings on the jet, you could tell it was an Aggressor F-5.
It was my first case of aerial road rage. It was impressive to say the least. After his RSU flyby, in afterburner I might add, since it was so loud, he rolled wings level and headed down the runway, descending to maybe 10 feet.
“I didn’t know it was an Aggressor, I didn’t know it was Aggressor!!” yelped Controller One after the F-5 pilot communicated his displeasure with being sent around. Neither I nor Controller Two said a thing; we were speechless.
A few seconds after passing the RSU the F-5 pilot requested a “Closed” and Controller Two immediately approved it. With that approval the Aggressor pulled initially steeply up and then as his nose achieved about 45 degrees in pitch he banked sharply right and performed another impossibly tight pattern. Not another word was said as we sat and watched this amazing display of airmanship; how and why that jet didn’t crashed, I’ll never know.
Years later, when I was an Instructor in the USAF F-4 Fighter Weapons School and coming back from a BFM mission in clean jets, with my student as number two. For some reason on that day, that sortie, I thought about that F-5 guy as I came up initial. So, feeling a bit “frisky”, I pitched out ridiculously aggressive in my break turn, well, at least that’s what my Squadron Commander said as he sat number one, waiting to depart from the same runway I was landing on and watched me. I thought I was doing what all fighter pilots should do, as I flew a tight pattern, and touched down still in a slight left bank, never having fully rolled out of my final turn. As a good wingman, my number two did the same. I was grounded for two weeks.
The moral of the story? Even though imitation my be the sincerest form of flattery, it doesn’t necessarily mean its the best way to express it. Still, my hat is off to that F-5 guy, whoever, and wherever you are...you are my hero.
Copyright Roger B. Johnson, November, 2021
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Another great story, well told. Again, it brought back many memories. I loved the F-5, coolest jet I ever flew. I have about 500 hours in the E model. I never did any flying nearly as nifty as that Aggressor pilot. About the closest I came to that was “simulating” a Blue Angel air show above the mock runways at the China Lake weapons ranges in California. To give Navy aircraft something to attack with practice bombs, the Navy Sea Bees had bulldozed into the desert sand a facsimile of a runway and taxiways and constructed plywood buildings to simulate an enemy airbase. If you squinted just right, it would almost look real. While flying the F-5E as a TOPGUN instructor, I often found myself orbiting overhead the dirt runway waiting on F-14s and F-18s to “attack” this simulated target as part of their training syllabus. If I had a wingman, we’d get bored waiting on the fighters and so we’d pretend we were the opposing solos on the Blue Angels and try to copy their air show maneuvers. Honestly, it was an accident begging to happen. To this day I don’t know how we didn’t kill ourselves. But the F5 was nimble and forgiving and Lady Luck smiled on us. And I’m sure the jack rabbits enjoy the show.