T-38 Bailout
Author: Larry Harris
When it came time to return to the States from UH, I was dragged through a knothole by the USAF. I had applied to the Test Pilot School at Edwards AFB and was selected as an Alternate. (The primary selectee was over at Lakenheath, and he didn’t drop out. Better luck next time. I should have gone for his knees.) For the next round of selections, “they” told me I didn’t have enough “retainability” left, so I wouldn’t be considered. I threw my hat into the mix for a normal assignment and landed a job at the F-111 Operations Test Squadron at McClellan AFB (Sacramento), CA.
I had 100 copies of the orders in hand. But another guy at Lakenheath learned of my assignment and argued that he was already qualified in the “F” model that McClellan flew (vs. the “E” model we flew at Heyford), so he would be the better choice for the assignment. MPC agreed and cancelled my orders.
Our DO, Col Sam Westbrook, went to bat for me. (Westbrook was later the Wing Commander at Lakenheath during Operation El Dorado Canyon, the Libya raid.) He called MPC and told them that, since they had been so ugly to me up to this point, they needed to give me a “good deal”.
OK. We’ll give you a good deal. Your good deal is this: We’ll give you a choice of assignments. And here are your choices: You can go be an Instructor at either Cannon AFB, NM, flying F-111Ds, or to somewhere in ATC flying T-37s. Wow, what a deal.
It turned out that one of my first T-38 PIT students was now the T-38 assignments guy at MPC. Larry Mastny. Hey, Larry. What can you do to help me out?
“Sorry, man. ATC policy is that you must return to a different airplane than the one you flew before. The only possible way I could get you back into the T-38, is to bring you back here to Randolph . . . ” Well. . . . It didn’t take long to decide that one.
I’d been out of T-38s for long enough that I had to go back through the entire PIT course again. What a kick taking a course that I used to teach! And then my instructors all knew that I was going to remain at Randolph and become their Supervisor . . . Hmmm.
I was still, technically, in training, but I was going to take over as one of the Squadron Section Commanders. I spent a bit of time each day poking around in the Squadron “business.”
This particular day had started out with dense fog. Flying was ‘Standby’ - nothing moving. It looked like the weather might be lifting, so the SOF picked two instructors (Pat Nolen and Joe Dirago) to fly the “Weather Ship” to troll around the traffic pattern, and the maneuver areas, and report back on the radio. This they did. “The weather looks to be improving. Launch the fleet!” All right, they’ve done their duty in scouting all the areas, now back to the traffic pattern to try practicing some instrument approaches.
One of the student syllabus events at the time was to practice an Alternate Gear Extension. The pilot in the front cockpit had a “D” ring on the forward instrument panel, connected to a braided steel cable. When pulled, it would disconnect all the electronics and hydraulics from the landing gear, pull the uplocks, and allow the gear to fall by gravity to its extended position. The system could be reset to ‘normal’ by cycling the gear handle up, then down again. Nolen and Dirago decided to practice one of these on their first approach.
I happened to be standing at the SOF desk when their radio call came in . . . “Hey, SOF, you’re not going to believe what just happened to us.”
They had pulled the “D” handle. It came out about an inch before the cable separated from the handle. The cable end snaked back behind the instrument panel. And they had one main gear down. The other main gear and the nose gear were still up and locked. This was not a “landable” configuration. If they tried to land, the opposite wingtip would dig in, and they would cartwheel out of control. They had already tried to reset the system, with no success.
There were several other ‘senior’ officers hanging around the SOF desk. We all looked at each other blankly. Never heard of this one before. But the ensuing teamwork still makes my heart swell with pride.
The duty SOF was relatively junior. Without undermining his responsibility or authority, we all divided up the QRC cards, each taking one to quickly perform the specific emergency actions. The SOF was left, unhindered by distractions, to talk on the radio to the emergency aircraft and to think .
One checklist activated the “crash net” at the Base; one notified our bosses (Squadron CO, DO, Wing Commander, etc.); one checklist launched the rescue helicopter; one fellow pulled out the Flight Manual to see if there might be guidance we had overlooked. Etc, etc.
My checklist card required telephoning the factory. I placed an Emergency/Priority long-distance call to Northrop Aviation in California to reach the factory’s Chief Test Pilot and see if he could offer us any advice. The advice was grim: Unless we could get hold of that loose end of cable, we were unlikely to effect any change in the configuration. (We passed that information over the radio, and I later learned that whoever was in the front seat actually unbuckled his parachute to try to squeeze an arm behind the panel to try to grab that loose end. Had it been me in that plane, I don’t think I would have separated myself from my parachute.)
Bailouts are usually frantic, hectic events. The plane is on fire; it's spinning out of control; both engines have failed... The ejection decision is automatic and well rehearsed. In this instance, the pilots had a long time to think about it. We tried as many procedures as we could come up with to get those landing gear down, but nothing worked. As they were running out of fuel, Nolen and Dirago flew to the “controlled bailout” area, an unpopulated stretch of desert south of San Antonio.
Just before they ran out of fuel, they pulled the throttles to idle, raised the nose slightly, then pulled up the ejection seat handles and squeezed the triggers.
The canopy pops up and peels off the plane in the wind. A half-second later, the ejection seat rocket motor fires, blasting you up the rails. The acceleration feels like a punch in the stomach. Faster than a thought can go through your mind, the “butt kicker” boots you away from the seat, and the lanyard attached to the seat pulls the ripcord to automatically begin deployment of the parachute. Before you know it, there is a fully inflated parachute over your head, and you’re floating gently toward the ground. . . . And all of a sudden, it’s very, very quiet. You might be able to see your plane diving toward the ground off in the distance.
This is not a sport parachute; it’s a military survival parachute. You can get a little steering out of it, but not much. Reach up on the risers and pull the red tabs to release a few of the rear shroud lines, giving you some steering capability.
. . . Recall the weather. The fog has risen a bit, but it’s still a solid undercast across South Texas. Nolen and Dirago have a long, gentle descent ahead of them, but they are going to drift through the clouds before they get to the ground. . . . And what do they hear? The sound of a helicopter! Whop-whop-whop-whop-whop-whop!
Being fairly certain they would eject from the plane, we got the rescue helicopter airborne well before the actual bailout. What Nolen and Dirago didn’t know was that we were smart enough to tell the helicopter pilots where the ejection would take place (we didn’t want that dead airplane to fall on them, either), and we kept them well away from danger.
Imagine descending into that thick layer of clouds in your parachute, not knowing for certain whether or not that helicopter was hovering right underneath you.
Well, they popped out of the base of the clouds very close to the ground, and Dirago managed to land in the only Mesquite tree for miles around. Instant folk heroes, they were as soon as the helicopter returned them to the Base. We had a brass T-38 belt buckle minted with our 560 th FTS emblem to commemorate their adventure. It bears the tail number of that unfortunate airplane - #4376.