PIREP Leg 38 - NV72 Sweetwater (USMC) to KBTY Beatty.

[J G 927]

Leg 38 - NV72 Sweetwater (USMC) to KBTY Beatty.

 

Having successfully completed leg 29 I hung around Scherger for a while, but to be honest there was nothing here to do. Scherger AB is an RAAF ‘bare base’ situated in the far north of Queensland, on the western side of the pointy bit that extends up towards Papua New Guinea. This means that it is in the arse end of nowhere, and only exists to provide the RAAF with the necessary infrastructure to support forward deployed forces during a crisis. 

 

While the base has facilities to cater for 400 personnel in fixed accommodation, 1,000 personnel in tent lines and about 40 aircraft, it is normally only manned by four Air Force personnel on caretaker duties. The RAAF used the base about one major exercise per year during which the base is fully maned with units drawn from all over Australia. The only other tourist sight to see was the Schergar Immigration Detention Centre just down the road. I didn’t bother with seeing this.

 

 

Goodbye Scherger, It can only get better from now.

 

Now was not an exercise period, and so I had only a few RAAF personnel for company.  Don’t get me wrong, they were great guys, but there are only so many beer soaked evenings with the same four people that I can take. These guys must be of strong constitution not to go barking mad here alone for an extended period.

 

Finally, an incident one night told me it was time to move on. One evening I had just popped into the shower block for a wash and was heading to the bar in the dark with, fortunately, a torch to light my way when I saw, in its beam, a stick lying across the path. There was something about the stick that wasn’t quite right, so I stopped and played the beam along it until it reached the edge of the path. Funny, sticks don’t usually curve like that I thought as I saw the way it appeared to drape itself over the edge of the path and disappear behind a bush. I moved the beam over the bush to its other side whereupon I saw the stick emerge. Feck me! I thought, this was no stick but a bloody great brown snake. It looked at me for me for a second or two, then turned and rustled off into the undergrowth.

 

After checking that my trousers weren’t soiled, I proceeded to the bar. When I arrived a beer was waiting for me, and, unsettled as I was, I took a massive pull at it. ‘Strewth mate! You look like you needed that.  Everything ok?’ exclaimed one of my drinking buddies. I explained the snake incident to the assembled drinkers, after which they told me not to worry as it was probably just a brown tree Snake and not very harmful to an adult humans.

 

 

 

Brown Tree Snake

 

This was of some relief, but seeing I was badly rattled by this one of the guys reached behind the bar and produced a book of Australian snakes. He quickly leafed through the pages and showed me a picture of the Brown Tree Snake. This revealed a dark brown snake with lighter small bands evenly spaced along it, about one to two meters in length.  Not my snake at all. The size was about right but not the colouring. My snake was a lighter brown, more like the colour of set honey and was uniform in colour.  ‘Have a look at the book and pick it out’ I was asked and the book was handed to me. I found it and passed the book. This is when I discovered I had just had an encounter with a Coastal Tai Pan, Australia’s most deadly snake. I instantly needed a gin, and a sit down, and another gin, and my mum.

 

 

Coastal Tai Pan

 

So, given that I came so close to leaving in a wooden box, I decided I was leaving the very next day. There were no flights for a few days, and so I elected to drive to Cairns, 500 miles, should be ok. Do it is a day, easy.  Actually, it was probably a mistake, no motorways. No service stations, no nuffink as they say in the east end. It took ages.

 

I arrived at Cairns having driven for eighteen hours non-stop. After just a few hours in Cairns and then I was on a flight to Sidney the following day, changing planes to get myself bound for San Francisco.

 

 

Jasmine

 

As I came out into the airports public space there was a woman holding up a card with one word on it: Twat. It was then I recognised the holder was Jasmine. ‘Very funny’ I said by way of a greeting.

‘Don’t worry’ she replied, ‘most Americans don’t know what it means. Let’s get you to a hotel, you look like you need some sleep’. She had hit the nail on the head there. Once in the hotel I slept for 48 hours.

 

I spent the next few days exploring San Francisco as I had never been there before., but all too soon Jasmine was on the phone to tell me to get to the Airport as we were on a US Marine Corps C130 to Sweetwater in a couple of hours. We left ‘Frisco and flew over the mountainous Serra National Forest, then the baron crags of Death Valley National Park, into Nevada and on to Sweetwater Airport, which incidentally, is owned by the U.S. Navy in spite of it being about 250 miles from the nearest sea.

 

It seemed like I had gone from the Aussie arse end of nowhere, to the USMC’s very own version of the arse end of nowhere. This was the USMC Mountain Warfare Training Centre, not a town as such. It wasn’t sweet, and it looked as if it hadn’t seen water in a long time, although it must have as there is some skiing in the mountains here in the winter. Having said that, it didn’t have the same sense of being cut off that Schergar has.  America is known for its supersized things, but they can’t beat Australia for producing an arse ends of nowhere.

 

 

 

Sweetwater: Nothing here to see.

 

We sat in the rental car to wait for Pete and the baton……  we played I-Spy, Charades, rock, paper stones, I-Spy again…..  There really was nothing to do. Please hurry with the baton Pete, before I die of boredom!   I tried to get Jas to play kiss chase but she was having none of it.  I thought suggesting a game of hide the sausage would probably end up with some of my bones being broken.

 

The weather had been a bit dodgy toward the mountains with plenty of cloud shrouding the mountains in places. I knew Pete was flying a light aircraft into Sweetwater and I was wondering how he was getting on when I heard the approach of a light aircraft from the west. It was yellow and I was sure it was Pete.

 

We drove to the airstrip and waited as the aircraft taxied up to us.  It was indeed Pete, who climbed out of the aircraft and, after the hellos and introductions were done, handed over the baton. 

 

‘I have been trying to contact you on 122.5 but you weren’t answering’ he said. 

 

‘I am sorry’ I replied, ‘the car radio wont stretch to that, and as you can see there is nothing much here’.

 

‘Where is the nearest hotel or bar?’  Asked Pete’.

 

‘Probably in Las Vegas’.

 

‘Well there seems little point in staying here’ he replied.

 

We said our goodbyes and went off to start our preparation for Leg 38, leaving Pete making his preparations to bug out of Sweetwater as soon as he could.

 

Jasmin and I were both to be flying this leg, and it was still not to be in the Tornado. It was fixed but couldn’t get here in time for this leg, instead we would be flying an F4 Phantom. Jas (as I now called her) was to be my navigator in the rear seat. We started the planning for this short flight.

 

Intel had come in that Putin’s mob had recently acquired a Russian Osa Short range SAM weapon system. This vehicle mounted system was thought to be  disguised and was known to be in the US somewhere, but just where was currently unknown. The NATO name for this beast was Gecko which kind of suites its look I think, God only knows how they got it into the US.

 

 

The Osa Sam system. Or Gecko if you prefer the NATO designation.

 

As a result of this information we were to fly this leg with a full load of live weapons as well as an ECM pod and a full set of chaff and flares. Permission to use weapons over the US mainland came from the top, and I mean the very top, of the US government. However we had to get local controllers permission should the need actually arise. It seemed a bit weird setting up the aircraft for a war footing for an internal flight in the U.S.A.

 

We began our planning.

 

I was to be in the front seat and so I would fly the aircraft and launch any ordinance should the flight go into combat, as we referred to it with good old British slang; go“tits-up”.

 

Jas was to be in the rear seat, responsible for navigation, setting up and arming weapons, and in charge of defensive and countermeasures systems such as chaff etc.

 

The first decision was to answer the question: Do we fly high, well away from any missile launch vehicle or do we go low to possibly fly under its radar and to use ground cover and clutter?

 

Flying high would not get us out of range of an Osa missile, in fact it would expose us as a target for longer, probably too long. The decision was to fly low and present little or no target to this potential threat. We would be aiming to keep to about 200 ft. from the ground or less. The idea was that by the time they heard or saw us coming we were already gone.

 

Our plan took full advantage of valleys, using the adjacent mountains as cover from a SAM attack. We would be crossing a mountain range in the very last stage of our flight plan, an event which would make us vulnerable but necessary because of the destination.  Our final plan looked like this:

 

 

Our plan using the valley as a screen.

 

Our vulnerable point would be immediately after take-off as we gained height and sorted out the aircraft, and then at landing, coming over a high ridge and into approach pattern.

 

Take-off was going to be tight as the runway was on the short side of short for an F4, and so we cut down our fuel as much as we dared, allowing the minimum to fly the distance, but a good margin to cover any eventualities.

 

The Aircraft was waiting outside, and so after a walk round we jumped in and started to set the aircraft up for this short flight. In addition to the standard checklists we had another one.  The weapons checklist. On our walk round we had checked the missiles were installed correctly and that they were actually the real thing.  Something I am not used to doing, and now doing the weapons checklist, it began to dawn on me that I might just be putting my life on the line for a cylinder of blue plastic.

 

Our load out was four Sidewinder air to air missiles and four HARM anti-radiation missiles. I doubted we would need the Sidewinders but the HARM missiles might be useful if the Gecko rumours were true. We would also be carrying under wing fuel tanks, not that we would need them, but the ferry pilots taking the aircraft from us would do.

 

We taxied out to the dirt runway and lined up for take-off. 

 

‘All set?’ I asked Jas, she wasn’t, she was having a last go through the armament checklist.

 

‘All ready’.  She said a few seconds later.

 

 We started our take off run and lifted off almost at the end of the runway.

 

 

Goodbye Sweetwater

 

Wheels up – gear moving -Lights out, flaps up, 300 kts – terminate afterburners, check fuel flow – ok, RPM – ok, EGT – ok Nozzles – good.

 

 

In the air and all’s good.

 

We are up and running well. No threats detected yet, so I took her down to the deck.

 

 

 

150 ft. above the valley floor.

 

We skim across the ground feet from the hard stuff, all the while Jas scanning systems with particular attention to the threat warning instruments.

 

Low over the ground we race, tucked into the hillside anyone out there would hear us coming but we would be hard to pinpoint against the patchy backdrop either by radar or by the mk.1 eyeball.

 

 

Jasmine’s view of the world from the back seat.

 

Down the valley we push onward, weirdly my mind wanders and I am thinking that this leg of the challenge is more like a race, no, a mad dash for cover. A looming rock face brings me back to the reality, and I concentrate on the job in hand.

 

 

200 ft. above the rocks, not easy to spot. – Good.

 

The aircraft is still gaining speed, then she starts buffeting, I look down at the airspeed gauge, just a tad over 670 Kts, faster than the speed of sound.  Jasmine calls ‘No threats’, we race on, now skimming the rocks at 700 kts. I check my clock, It will soon be time to decelerate for our turn to hop over the mountains to our destination.  

 

 

 

A nice view of our more dangerous stores aboard for this leg.

 

Jasmin calls ‘Port turn in one minute’.  I acknowledge, pulling the throttles back to idle and, when the speed has dropped enough, I slam on the air brakes. The air frame judders as the brakes lower beneath the wings, and I have to counter the uplift this inevitably causes.

 

 

Crossing the mountains to our destination.

 

We bank sharply to port and trade height for speed as we pop up and over the mountains. As we clear the crest all hell breaks loose! Alarms sound and Jas yells ‘We are being painted by an active SAM radar! Arming weapons systems’ …

 

 

Oh s**t!

 

Meanwhile I am on to our controller who replies to me in a totally out of place calm, almost monotone voice ‘That’s affirmative, cleared for air – ground weapons use’.

 

Jas had heard this as well as she shouted ‘HARM lock-on!’ I pressed the tit and the aircraft swayed slightly as the missile shot away at just over Mach 2.

 

 

 

Missile away.

 

Why hadn’t they fired at us? They must have had difficulty locking on to us with our lovely, rocky cloak of ground clutter, where as their strong radar pulses gave us a solid target to attack.

 

 

Fried Gecko.

 

By now the target was on our starboard quarter, I watched the weapon snake away and saw the bright flash of an explosion as it reached its mark.

 

‘That’s a good hit’ I called back to Jas.

 

’Yes, too bigger bang to just be the missile.  Just to confirm, the radar pulses stopped and the target disappeared from our screens’.

 

And then it was all over, just as quick as it started.

 

A few minutes later we were on finals, flaps and gear down, making a leisurely approach to Beatty.

 

 

Parachute deployed bringing the Phantom to a stop after landing.

 

Down on the black stuff I threw out the ‘chute, slowed down to 30 kts., dumped the thing and then  taxied to our allotted parking bay.

 

 

 

Parked up at Beatty.

 

Soon enough we were parked up and exiting the aircraft.  The ground crew were gawping at the space where there was a missile missing as if it were some sort of miracle.  I was just worrying that we had indeed hit a real threat. At the flight de-brief we were told that some U.S. Army personnel had been to the target site and had verified that they had indeed found the remains of a Russian Gecko AA system and a flat bead truck. There were five bodies at the scene, but none were Putinfeld.  That was good news and bad news. The good news was it was the bad guys we had hit and I was not going to prison for life for killing innocent people, and the bad news was Putinfeld was still at large and we had a mountain of paperwork to do as a result of firing a live HARM missile over U.S. public space.  

 

 

Beatty, positive teaming with life as compared to Sweetwater and Scherger!

 

Well it was hours in the doing but when we had completed the paperwork, we wandered into town to find a hotel freshen up and wait for Joe.

 

Jas wondered off for a while, to “powder her nose” as the euphemism goes. I ordered a couple more drinks and waited her return.  Fifteen minutes later she came back. ‘M’ has just told me that the Gecko was smuggled into the US from Russia in bits via Hawaii, the last part by a Jumbo, hidden in a collection of crates importing an aircraft in pieces. The aircraft was there, but so, it seems, was something else. Apparently there was a corruption investigation going on in Hawaii and several arrests had been made. Taking payments for smuggling dodgy cargoes and falsifying documents to trick the unsuspecting cargo hauler into accepting a dodgy cargo was part of it but there was also an ongoing investigation in the U.S. as to how the incoming cargo was handled. Someone was bound for the local nick for that I reckoned.

 

 I shivered as I realised that it was a while since I had seen the inside of a cell. Right now it felt like I was more likely to see the inside of a pine box at this rate. Life was just getting more and more uncomfortable, and all I wanted to do was help shift a blue plastic cylinder around the world. I must be barking.

 

Best not to think on it too much, a so we went in search of a bar to wait for Joe. Jas and I got drunk and I fell over.  Unfortunately I grabbed at the nearest thing to stop my fall, more unfortunate was the fact that it was the barmaid, and she was a well-endowed girl.

 

I woke up in the local jail.

 

 

[mutley 4,493]

Great PIREP JG, I'm looking up the bail conditions now 

 

Hope to meet up soon, I'm on  my way.

[hurricanemk1c 195]

Excellent story as normal John - back to where you belong?

[Captain Coffee 2,030]

Terrific new installment of the Puttinfeld story. I was beginning to think you were unnecessarily paranoid bout Puttinfeld, till "all he'll broke loose". SMITE makes right...and you and Jas put the 'feld gang to rights this leg. Good job J.G...sorry you ended your US tour a registered sex offender. Welcome to America!

[stu7708 244]

Oh John, what shall we do with you... the money spent on bailing you out of jail is starting to rack up to considerable amounts

 

Well told story, and great shots as usual.

[brett 2,302]

Low and fast at it's best JG, great PIREP.  So far you have been on the defense against the wily Putinfeld character and that can be a dangerous position, might be time to go one the offense against that lowlife. Good thing for you is that prison is one of the best places to glean information on a rival. 

[Auger 22]

Nice Wild Weasel mission there John!  I expect to see a gecko silhouette painted below the canopy rail on your next leg.