Tattoo - 10 May 1994

Author: Deke

One of my craziest experiences in the T-38 was flying in a Tattoo ceremony at Randolph. I flew in a couple of Tattoos, but this one was on 10 May 1994. I was leading this T-38 4-ship that was set to fly across the Taj, in fingertip, boards hanging, full afterburner, at night during bat procedures and a relatively flexible TOT. When Bob Holliker posted the beer run story about a T-38 coming across the Taj at 500kts it struck a chord in my memory.

This Tattoo featured an extensive program that began with a 4-ship T-37 flyby at sunset, followed by opening remarks, a presentation on the history of the Tattoo, a performance by the Texas A&M drill team, guest speakers, the National Anthem, a nighttime T-38 flyby, and concluded with closing ceremonies.

Since the T-38 flyby was in the dark, the flyby was done using afterburners to make the jets visible, the use of speed brakes was to keep us from breaking the sound barrier!

The background was the 4-ship held at approximately 1000AGL, 10-20 miles east of Randolph. We had a holding pattern that was approximately 3 minutes, 1-minute turns, 30 seconds outbound, 30 seconds inbound and the run in was approximately 20 degrees off the inbound holding at 1+30 but if you extended the inbound leg there was an alternate run in heading that was 1+15.

Since the Star-Spangled Banner play length is 1+48 +/- 10 seconds, in a perfect world you'd receive a 2-minute call on the inbound leg of holding. In practice this put you overhead the Taj "on-time" between 450-475 knots in perfect fingertip with 4-sets of fully lit and bright afterburners.

To get that result, at a 2-minute call the 4-ship deployed speed brakes, after settling into fingertip and making the turn to "run-in", afterburners were lit. The lead technique on the "afterburners now" command was to push to full afterburner, look for 2 swings, and pull back ½ knob width on the throttles. If there was not enough throttle response for wingmen, you reduce another ¼ knob width. Anything more than that, the burner flames were minimal and not visible for the flyby.

Tonight, we were established in holding and our ground man gave us a heads up that one of the speakers was running late and we had at least 5-minutes. When we received that call, I thought "perfect" as we began our turn to outbound.

As we completed the turn and pointing out bound for 30 seconds the ground man called "2-minutes", the cranium fire started, I have a 1-minute turn, 10-15 seconds in-bound and 1+30 run-in. At best I'm more than 30 seconds late.

I immediately started the turn and gave the command "speed brakes now", the 4-ship remained relatively solid as I increased power and bank angle bank angle to the in-bound heading. During the practices the Taj was lit up like normal, the large white structure in the middle of the base. During Tattoo all the lights were off until the closing ceremony.

As we started to roll out and still 15-20 seconds from the turn to the run-in heading, I gave the command "afterburners now", pulled the ½ knob and started a very slow turn toward the little red light on top of the Taj. Everyone was stable and we were hauling the mail. We were just crossing the base perimeter when we hit 500kts. As we crossed over the Taj we were 535kts and I started a gentle climb.

Once clear of the field we pulled out of afterburners, with a slight climb and turn over Universal City to report a 15-mile initial reforming to echelon for pitchout and landing. We hit the flight room for an abbreviated debrief and then went to the club for the reception.

When we walked in the 12th OG looked at me and said "Deke you were a little late but a lotta fast, good job"

I smiled, said "yes sir" let's get a beer!