“Alconbury Tower, Sting two-two, holding for the active.”
The gray fighter vibrated with the power of two mighty jet engines. Even at idle power the aircraft wanted to lope along, and on this cold day, with the brakes set, it chattered and slithered across patches of ice until its tires found purchase,
“Sting, Alconbury, hold for traffic, U-2 in the pattern.”
At the height of the Cold War, RAF Alconbury in the moors of East Anglia was a hodge-podge of spy planes, Electronics Countermeasures Aircraft, and a squadron of garishly painted Northrop F-5’s meant to represent a hophead’s dream of Soviet MiGs. The “MiGs” were flown by a collection of misanthropes who were short on military discipline and appearance and long on combat skills. Their job was to humiliate NATO’s air forces in close combat and hone the tactics that might be used when the big war came.
We had come with a half-dozen F-15 Eagles to take on the gaggle of Aggressors in simulated combat and try out our newest technological goodies.
“Hold on, damnit,” the jet slipped again, writhing sideways slightly. “I don’t mind the flying, but this stuff on the ground is dangerous.” The front seater was a green lieutenant, known to all his mates as “Skunk,” and I was riding in the back of a two-seater to catalog his skill with the hush hush new gear recently installed in the jet. He was on a training hop to fight four Aggressors singlehanded, and he was expected to win.
With my visor down against the glare from the white sky, I craned upward and saw the U-2, a black crucifix against the sky. Turning base; its long wings were tilted steeply. I watched its leisurely progress and reached for a switch near my right knee to test my G-suit. I felt its reassuring pressure against my abdomen and legs as it squeezed me with a giant’s grip. I switched to one hundred percent oxygen for a second and felt the dryness whistle in my nose, flavored with the mask’s indefinable rubbery essence. I closed the zipper of my flight jacket against the chill and surveyed the bleak landscape of the airfield still encased in the mantle of an uncharacteristic snowfall.
“Alconbury, Dragon six six on final, gear and flaps, full stop.” The U-2 pilot’s voice was slow and calm, I glanced back at it now, descending steeply toward the runway, its slender wings disfigured by flaps, slats, and spoilers, its bicycle-style landing gear looking hopelessly inadequate.
“Here comes the bravest man in the Air Force.” Skunk’s voice held a kind of reverence unusual for one fighter pilot to express for another, let alone for the pilot of a slow, straight wing reconnaissance aircraft without even an afterburner to its name. I wondered what provoked the statement.
Just at that second a Chevy El Camino pickup in Air Force blue livery roared past our nose, accelerating hard down the runway, the roar of its exhaust audible briefly over even the sullen roar of our two GE F-101’s. Crouched in the bed was an airman in a hooded parka. He wore large day-glo orange gloves and he clutched the “pogo” wheels on a long strut that would be inserted in a socket in the U-2’s wing as it touched down.
“Holy Shit!” I craned to see what had provoked Skunk’s reaction.
“Dragon six six, Alconbury, go around.” The U-2 emitted a sudden stream of blue-grey smoke from a firewalled engine, cleaned up the spoilers and ascended as if by an elevator, retracting the gear and milking up the flaps as it disappeared into the low overcast.
“Look at that truck,” Skunk breathed through the intercom.
I glanced to the left to see the pickup completely out of control, using all two hundred feet of the runway’s width as it described perhaps the third big looping three-sixty. The wheel man in the bed was rigid, unmoving riding the wild steed to the end of its performance.
The driver regained control, made a highspeed U-turn and accelerated past us to line up for another run. As it crossed our nose, the wheelman snapped a smart salute.
“Bravest man in the Air Force,” breathed Skunk, “bar none.”
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