The Boulevard

 A post of many years ago from an old blog.

 

I just wanted to send an update to let you know how things are going out here on the good ship USS Buttercup. We're in our seventh week of deployment and have 108 days to go. We began combat operations on June 21st and have been flying over the beach almost every day since then. This is the most flying that I've done in a while. Naval aviators are limited by instruction to 30 flight hours a month and, to exceed that, you must have a written waiver by the Flight Surgeon. As of today I have 65 hours in the last 29 days.

Our missions are regularly 6 hours long. It’s an hour transit to and from the ship just to get on station in southern Afghanistan. All the air traffic travels up a common air route that we call the boulevard that traverses Pakistan and crosses the border into Afghanistan. All the traffic on the boulevard is either Naval aircraft from our ship or Air Force tankers coming from Qatar.

Most of our missions thus far have been in southern Afghanistan near the city of Kandahar. That is where a lot of the enemy forces are dug in. On a typical mission, we check in with a Joint Tactical Air Controller (JTAC) on the ground who is part of a ground unit. The JTAC is trained to communicate with aircraft and if necessary call in for air support in case some shooting starts. They used to be called Forward Air Controllers.

Thus far I have worked with American Army Special Forces, Delta Forces, Marine Special Operators and SEALs, as well as British SAS. It is very interesting to see the mix of troops on the ground. But it’s nice to see that all the procedures are very standardized no matter what unit or what nationality you are supporting. 

On most of our missions we provide Armed Reconnaissance, which has us watching over a friendly ground patrol, in vehicles or on foot, and looking ahead of their route of travel to try and find enemy fighters or potential spotting positions.

We do most of our searching using our FLIR camera which is an infrared camera that has the ability to zoom in pretty close. The JTACS on the ground can also link up with our FLIR camera and see what we are seeing on their laptop. A lot of times the JTACS give us coordinates of known bad-guy locations and have us watch for movement or activity.

A few nights ago I was talking to a JTAC and I could hear gunfire over the radio and he calmly said they were taking fire from an unknown location and wanted me to scan the hills surrounding them to try and locate the source. A few days ago I was watching over an Army Special Forces unit. There were about 15 to 20 guys all riding four-wheelers in the hills overlooking a small village. The were using my FLIR to spot the bad guys shooting at them, but they were so scattered there was nothing I could really do to help beyond that.

 On average we drop four or five bombs per mission as well as conduct strafing runs on enemy positions. In addition to supporting troops in direct contact, we look for bad guys in groups digging holes for mines or placing roadside bombs and eliminate them.  I recently made a strafing run on individuals who were driving away after digging and placing a bomb at a roadside intersection. It was at night, complicating the complexity of shooting at a small moving target from an aircraft flying at 500 mph in terrain that would get your attention in daytime let alone in the dark. The skills you need to do that are, if I do say so myself, something to be proud of.

We also do a lot of Shows of Force, which are simply a high speed low-altitude pass over an enemy position to get them to stop shooting or even run. That's done due to ROE requiring us to reduce the possibility of civilian casualties.

I enjoy working with the guys on the ground. I think it’s a comforting feeling for them to know that we are overhead and can deliver a devastatingly accurate blow within seconds of asking for it. Even if we don't find bad guys, I feel a lot of job satisfaction just being up there and talking to the guys on the ground. These guys are pretty awesome. I will hear them say something like, "We are taking fire from an unknown location so we are going to get out of our vehicles and move into the open so we can try to locate where the fire is coming from." Amazing bravery. 

Some of the most harrowing parts of our missions are refueling, particularly in the dark or in bad weather. On a typical six-hour mission, we refuel off of big wing Air Force tankers three times. The tankers all hold at specific points and altitudes around the country. I know before I launch what my tanker's call sign is, what point he will be at, what time I'm supposed to be there, what altitude he will be at and what frequency I will talk to him on. 

There is an overarching control agency that runs the tanker plan and it is constantly changing, usually based on the fight that is going on the ground. A lot of times tankers get pushed over an area where there is fighting so that the airborne assets don't waste time trying to get to their tanker and back into the fight. Once one tanker moves, it starts a domino effect that affects almost everyone. It’s like a shell game. They are constantly shuffling tankers around. I don't think I've launched on a single mission and hit all my tankers that I was originally scheduled for. The other day I was on a tanker and two Air Force fighters were waiting in line with me at 22,000 feet for their gas because their tanker had been sent elsewhere at the last minute. 

When the mission is over we hit the tanker one last time before exiting the country and fly the boulevard south the hour flight back to the carrier. There is a point on the boulevard that once I cross it I know that if I have had a problem with my tanker, I do not have enough fuel to get back to the carrier, so that last refuel is vital. 

When it’s all done then I get to look forward to that night carrier landing. Luckily the North Arabian Sea is calm and the weather has been good over the carrier. No pitching deck out here so far. 

By the end of the mission, I'm usually starving. I try and take food and water with me in the cockpit and typically I get a chance to eat and drink something on the trip back to the carrier. Thank goodness for altitude hold.  But you don't want to drink too much because that presents a whole new problem in a single seat cockpit.

The cockpit gets pretty crowded with all of our extra gear. We have our standard-issue gear for going in-country which includes our pistol and two magazines, a camel back full of water sewn into our flight vest and our blood chit which is basically a piece a paper that we use in case we find ourselves on the ground. It is written in several different native languages and basically says, "I'm an American and you will be paid if you help me return to friendly American forces."

On every mission we go on, we have a stack of papers that have coordinates and radio frequencies. I also have my new helmet-mounted targeting system.It clips to the regular helmet and projects vital information on to my visor.  It is honestly the best piece of gear that I carry with me. I can type in the coordinates for a friendly unit on the ground and then look outside the cockpit and a diamond will be projected on my visor directly over the position of that unit on the ground. 

It also helps me find things in the air. Yesterday, I saw my tanker from 28 miles away because my helmet puts a box around the radar contact that I have locked up so I know exactly where to look. Pretty cool. 

I also take a pair of NVGs on every flight. Night-vision goggles are absolutely necessary once the sun goes down. The ground units use a lot of infrared lights to help mark their positions or the positions of enemy units and I can see all of that from 20,000 feet with my NVG's on.

Well I've written way more than I should have. I hope I haven't bored you. This is to try to help you understand what I've been doing. It in no way is meant to be tooting my own horn. The guys on the ground are the real heroes. I'm simply a supporting element to the fight.

I want to say thank you for the care packages. They were very much appreciated by me and everyone in my ready room. Keep watching the news. If you hear about airstrikes in Southern Afghanistan there is a good chance it came from my air wing.