A Gulf Story (Part 6)

In the very early hours of January 20th 1991, I’m ‘off’ shift, in the hotel, more than likely not sleeping due to constant air attack warnings and ‘Dhahran Annie’ was going to war.
When the groundcrew see-off a jet, especially a fast jet like the Tornado, it’s a process involving a complex series of Human/Human and Human/Machine interactions that can be broken down into checks, requests, responses and observations, some of this is verbal by means of a headset and throat microphone worn by the groundcrew and connected to the intercom system and some is visual in the form of hand signals, the driver and nav are constantly running through a series of Checklist procedures. One of the 2 groundcrew involved in the see-off procedure, helps both of the crew to strap themselves into their ejection seat, it’s essential that this is done correctly as in the event of them having to use these seats to escape from the aircraft in an emergency, they really want to be securely harnessed in as the vertical acceleration force of ejecting is about 20g or 20 x the force of gravity. The 2 Martin Baker Mk10 seats in the Tornado are capable of allowing the occupants to eject with the aircraft stationary on the ground, this is therefore referred to as being a ‘Zero/Zero’ seat. Just why you’d want to jump out of an aeroplane while parked on the ground and have a very short parachute ride and extremely hard landing is another question? Not all drivers and navigators (in fact, very few) are Tom Cruise or Val Kilmer type Top Gun lookalikes! Certainly not most of the RAF ones that I’ve worked with anyway! Strapping in aviators with the ‘fuller figure’ is like putting a cart horse in its harness and there’s often a lot of tugging and grunting involved and in a hot climate and with both groundcrew and aircrew wearing protective NBC suits, you’re guaranteed to both be sweating like a pair of blind lesbians in a fish shop! After tying the guys into the jet and checking that everything looks right with their various hoses, leads and connections, the groundcrew removes a safety pin from the explosive system that will allow the crew to eject through their Perspex canopy if they have to. The ejection seat and explosive systems involved are only intended for use in a dire emergency, so there are several of these safety devices (pins) fitted while the jet is on the ground, as the last thing you want to do on the ground is to accidentally catch the wrong handle, lever, rod or linkage and set off an explosive seat or it’s rocket motor, let’s put it this way, it will kill you, it will mean someone will have to clean what’s left of you from the roof of the sun shelter that the jet’s in, but on the plus side, you won’t have to buy the Armourers a crate of beer! The removed safety pin is handed to the seat occupant (driver and Nav both have pins 📍) This is a procedure done every time a jet is launched, but at Dhahran in 91 for everyone involved it’s the first time we’ve done it when our ‘warplane’ is actually going to go and fight! So although, we’ve done this hundreds of times before, this is a whole new set of emotions. Ob and AJ (driver & groundcrew) both commented recently on this and the pair of them absolutely nailed it on the head, by saying that there was an element of ‘should I be saying something different?’ Followed by both actually doing what they always did! In this case with Ob and AJ it was a friendly tap on his flying helmet and “Laters” I think all of us just gave ‘our’ crews big positive thumbs up signals and big smiles, this was especially true, in the event that they had just sorted out or fixed a ‘crew in’ technical problem! Technical Gremlins seem to love situations like sending jets to war!
Murphy’s Law typically states; Anything that can go wrong, will go wrong and probably at the worst possible moment! We had prepared for this, SEngO had devised a system with a series of ‘spare’ jets. These were, to loosely explain; Hot Spares, complete with most systems (including one engine) fired up. Warm Spares, most systems up and running (not engines) But, if at all possible, we would do our very best to ‘fix’ the primary jet that the crew had climbed into, sometimes peacetime rules and procedures were ‘deviated from’ We all knew what we should be doing, what the risks of not doing it that way were, and we had a SEngO who would act as ‘Top Cover’ to back us up in our actions. We have had occasions were a crew have climbed out of one jet, into a spare, broken that one too, then another one! Then jumped back into their original jet, that had now been fixed once they had got out of the way and let the specialist technicians climb all over it, change a ‘box’ fix a leaky hydraulic system connection or whatever as long as it gets the crew away on the mission with in a ‘serviceable’ jet loaded with the correct weapon and fuel load!
During all the see-offs that I did at Dhahran, I was on the headset talking to the crew, as an NCO (Non Commissioned Officer) I was an experienced technician, I had also worked on the Tornado for a lot longer than some of the guys, so in the event of small technical issues that pop up during a ‘normal’ see-off, I’d hopefully be able to sort these out without needing to call a specialist and very hopefully without the need to ‘crew-out’ and them to take a spare jet! Just like AJ strapping Ob into his jet during the launch of the first mission, when it came to me doing my final checks before unplugging my headset on the first war mission that I was to see-off, I had thought of what I would say? I always joke with my ex Army mates, that the famous RAF ‘war cry’ is “Good Luck Sir”! However, in reality, I don’t think that any self respecting ‘Liney’ (groundcrew out on the flight line) would ever even think of saying this! In the end, all I did was add a couple of words to my normal final checks of the jet and clearly said, giving the driver full eye contact from the right side of the jet;
“Your CMP is reset and Clear, All panels are Secure, No leaks apparent, Disconnecting, Pulling the Chocks and watching for Mid Flaps and Seat Pins - Taxi when Cleared - I’LL BE RIGHT HERE”
It came to me at the last moment! A line from the movie ET (the Extra Terrestrial) a movie that this big softy still blubbs at while watching! ET saying “I’ll be right here” to Elliott in the final scene just seemed kind of right! I even raised my index finger as I said it, imitating ET’s parting gesture to friend.
Big thumbs up, little kind of informal, wave/salute gesture and they’re away!
It was emotional!
To be continued...........