Super flying

It’s a truly surreal experience, and an awesome demonstration of the Super Hornet’s low speed handling abilities. I can only imagine what an old school fighter pilot used to, say, a Mirage III would think of Super’s controllability. As it was no doubt intended to do, Lt Lockwood’s demonstration of the jet’s high alpha performance reinforced that this is, from a basic piloting point of view, quite an easy aircraft to fly. And that’s when the light bulb went on – that’s the point – modern fighters are designed to be easy to fly so the aircrew can focus on the fighting – using the radar and other sensors, understanding the tactical environment and building a good ‘SA’ – situational awareness – of threats, both in the air and on the ground, to employ weapons.

Until the current generation of fly-bywire controlled aircraft, flying a supersonic fighter was a particularly demanding task as aircraft designed for high performance were invariably ‘hot ships’ with high stall speeds with little margin for error when manoeuvring. But as fly-by-wire flight controls were introduced into fighters such as the F-16 and F/A-18 ‘classic’, the task of flying became much easier as computer controlled flight surfaces made continual minute adjustments as pilots made control inputs, allowing flight envelopes to be significantly broader, making fighters far more manoeuvrable, but also easier and safer to fly.

That understanding reinforced the other lesson from my first flight in a military fast jet – that being a fighter pilot is a professional skill developed over time, and that learning to fly the aircraft is essentially just the foundation stone upon which the real skills of this specialised craft are built.

Thankfully for pilots and aircrews, fighters became easier to fly just as the task of assimilating and understanding data from ever more sophisticated sensors – primarily radar, but also electronic warfare suites, datalinked information from other aircraft and ground radars, perhaps an infrared sensor – became more challenging, with crews today flying in a far more complex operating environment.

My Super Hornet back seat flight was one of two media flights during the Avalon Airshow in March (the other went to a News Ltd journalist Ian McPhedran).

Boeing had brought two Super Hornets to Avalon as a part of an international marketing tour that had earlier taken in Denmark and India, and locally RAAF Bases Tindal and Williamtown. The two jets were from VFA-122, the US Navy’s West Coast US Hornet training unit based at Lemoore in California (where RAAF initial Super Hornet crews are now being trained).

During their world tour the Supers were flown by US Navy instructor crews from Lemoore, such as Lt Lockwood, with Boephotoing employees providing line maintenance and aerial refuelling provided by Omega Aerial Refuelling Services’s KDC-10 tanker. While at Avalon one of the two jets was demonstrated during the airshow flying program by Boeing’s Super Hornet test pilot Ricardo Traven (profiled in the May ’07 edition of AA), while in the end both jets operated a limited number of VIP – generally senior Air Force officers – and the media rides.

The Supers came to Australia both to take part in the Avalon Airshow and to visit the current RAAF classic Hornet bases of Tindal and Williamtown. This allowed members of the RAAF fast jet community to get a first hand look at Australia’s next fighter before the RAAF’s first of 24 AESA radar equipped ‘Block II’ two-seat F/A-18Fs enter service early next year.

Precisely because of the data rich environment in which they’ll operate, and the capabilities of the Block II Super Hornet’s Raytheon APG-79 radar – arguably the most advanced and capable radar fitted to any fighter currently in service – the RAAF elected for an all two-seat F/A-18F fleet of Super Hornets, so that the combination of pilot and air combat officer (formerly navigator) could best employ the aircraft’s capabilities.

In fact the leap in capability over the classic Hornet is such that GPCAPT Steve Roberton, in charge of the RAAF’s Air Combat Transition office responsible for introducing the Super Hornet into service, describes his transition team as being in the “cultural change business” because of the generational leap in capabilities it offers over both the classic Hornets and the F‑111s it will replace.

Most of those capabilities weren’t really apparent on my flight – not only were we flying in an older ‘Block I’ Super Hornet with the older mechanically scanned APG‑73 radar (as fitted to the RAAF’s classic Hornets), I only saw an unclassified view of the aircraft.

But in that vein, probably my biggest anxiety before the flight was information overload of a different kind, just not knowing how fast things would happen and my concern of being overwhelmed by the speed of events and the severity of the aircraft’s power and manoeuvrability.

That sense of apprehension and concern of information overload was only heightened while waiting for my flight, watching Ricardo Traven review the HUD tape footage of the Super Hornet airshow display he’d just completed for that day – all I saw was the horizon spinning around at dizzying speeds! But I shouldn’t have been so concerned, I wasn’t about to fly the airshow routine, and the objective wasn’t to overwhelm the senses or make me airsick, but to get a general introduction to fast jet flying and the Super Hornet in particular, and in that regard this proved a successful ‘mission’.

Like all military flights mine began with a briefing, focused primarily on safety.

Less typically, my flight had actually been preceded by two briefs. Originally I was scheduled to fly in the morning with Lt Chris ‘Frodo’ Fisher, another VFA-122 instructor. But after the whole build-up of being briefed, suited up and strapped in, the aircraft broke! The first unserviceability on the Supers’ world tour happened while I was strapped in the back of F/A-18F tail number ‘135’.

As part of his pre-start checks Lt Fisher encountered a warning light and message indicating a problem with the bleed air system. After cycling through his checks a few times the warning indication remained, and Frodo summoned one of the Boeing support staff.

“Err, this problem could take 10 minutes or a whole day to fix,” was the prognosis, “we’d like to push the jet back and take a look at it. ” So with that the flight was scrubbed, and the prospect of another opportunity to fly again was unclear, given the need to continue the airshow display routine.

So we returned to the demountable building Boeing and the US Navy were using as a flight operations centre for the Super flights to wait a verdict on the aircraft and discuss options. Do we go flying in the display aircraft, which was ready, but with only enough fuel onboard for a short 25 minute flight, and what happens if an unserviceability pops up on our flight, would that mean that no airshow Super Hornet routine that day? Do we reschedule the flight for the following morning – that morning’s VIP flight has already been allocated to none other than the Chief of Air Force, but perhaps two flights could be ‘generated’ in the morning (visions of mock air-to-air combat against CAF started crossing my mind!). Or maybe, if the aircraft can’t be repaired, my Super Hornet flight might just have to wait for another time.

So for a while, still in my flight suit, I sat nursing a coffee and talking to Lt Fisher about his flying career, (he’d flown operationally over Iraq) until, in time, a decision was made – ‘let’s get back to you’. Using the display aircraft that morning was too complicated, instead other options would be considered.

That meant changing back into my business suit and heading back to the airshow expo site, disappointed but philosophical.

Since being offered the flight opportunity I’d adopted the philosophy of ‘it happens when it happens’. Disappointing, for sure, but out of my control.

And so I was more than a little surprised when early that afternoon, when sitting in on an interview with, appropriately enough the new head of Boeing Defence Australia, that Boeing’s Australian PR chief pulled me aside. “What are you doing at two o’clock? Want to go flying?” Some reshuffling of the schedule meant I could go

That’s when the light bulb went off – that’s the point – modern fighters are designed to be easy to fly so the aircrew can focus on the fighting.

flying that afternoon. Needless to say, for the rest of that interview my concentration was more than a little shot! At the appointed time I went back to the flight operations demountable where I met the affable Lt Lockwood, who at a broad-shouldered 195cm (or 6ft 5in) tall is perhaps not of typical fighter pilot build, but had also flown Super Hornets operationally over Iraq.

A new pilot meant a new safety briefing, and while I had a little experience of ejection seat equipped aircraft before, having flown in RAAF PC-9s, the brief was still arresting.

“If for whatever reason I become unresponsive and you see my head lolling about, perhaps after a bird strike, I need you to switch this dial here,” Lt Lockwood said, pointing to the top right of his Powerpoint slide showing the Super Hornet’s back seat panel, “to aft initiate. That means you can initiate the ejection sequence and send us both out of the aircraft. ” My having to initiate an ejection was always going to be a highly unlikely scenario – we were a lone aircraft manoeuvring in a pre-cleared box of airspace flying typically well above the heights birds are found at.

But that aspect of my briefing reinforced that this was to be a very different flight.

After the safety briefing it was into the demountable’s life support locker room to get suited up – a kind of Clark Kent turning into Superman in a phone booth moment – for the second time that day. I’d entered the locker room wearing my business suit and I stepped out transformed into an extra in Top Gun, wearing a tan flight suit, black lace-up boots, g-suit and life preserver harness, with a flight helmet under my arm. I felt a bit of a phoney, to be honest – my flying is limited to about 40 hours in Cessna 152s, which is a world away from high performance military aircraft – but still, kind of cool! Stepping out to the aircraft was a bit of a Hollywood moment too, walking past the other Super Hornet (the broken 135) and the USAF F-15 and an F-16s to ‘our’ aircraft, the refuelled display jet, ‘134’, fresh from Ricardo’s airshow routine and still ‘armed’ with its inert missiles and bombs.

Lt Lockwood led me around the aircraft for his preflight checks, pointing out details of the aircraft as he went, peering into engine inlets and undercarriage bay doors, and double checking the weapons were securely attached. And then it was up the retractable ladder and into the jet.

This time around the cockpit environment was a lot more familiar to me – what straps attach where, how to affix the mask, adjust the seat height, and make sure the ICS switch was correctly positioned, and how to arm the ejection seat.

Strapped in, Lt Lockwood ran through his start and preflight sequence – including APU and then engine starts, and the avionics system’s self diagnostic tests which included testing all the flight controls, which shakes the aircraft violently. After that Lt Lockwood checked freedom of control movement by waggling the stick around and pushing the rudder pedals, and then after gaining our taxi clearance from ATC, we rolled out.

After the long taxi down the length of Avalon’s runway 18/36 past the airshow chalet line, Lt Lockwood lined the jet up for a departure off runway 36. After takeoff clearance, he pushed the throttles into afterburner, and the jet quicklygathered speed, roaring down the runway and shoving me into my seat. We rotated at about 120kt, and getting airborne was a powerful experience, although perhaps not as violent as I expected – Lt Lockwood was to explore my tolerance to g and hard manoeuvring gradually, so there was no dramatic pull up into the vertical and roaring straight into the heavens.

Climbing rapidly we pulled our first tight turn, turning to the left to head southwest of Geelong to our designated box of airspace, which extended from 7000 to 20,000ft in altitude. Entering into the box Lt Lockwood could start to demonstrate some of the Super Hornet’s abilities.

First came a simple roll to inverted flight, just to check if there was anything loose in the cockpit. Nothing unsecure, we rolled back to level flight, and the fun began.

First was a series of manoeuvres dubbed the ‘squirrel cage’, comprising a vertical loop, then into a half Cuban eight, directly into an Immelman and then a split-S.

Thankfully Lt Lockwood sequenced the manoeuvres with enough time between them to pause for breath. As much as anything I think it was a testament to his smooth flying skills that I kept my bearings during the sequence, so it was not quite the ride ‘in a washing machine on spin cycle’ I was fearing.

Still, the ‘g’ was tough. Many of the turns we pulled a sustained 5 gs, spiking to over 7 gs – when the g really came on for me it was enough just to stay conscious and keep my wits about me, so it’s highly impressive that fighter pilots have to think and fight during high g manoeuvres. Twice I started greying out as the blood drained from my head, although I never completely blacked out.

Briefly Lt Lockwood handed control over to me and I rolled and turned to the right.

Stupidly, I pointed us towards cloud, so wisely Lt Lockwood took back control, but I felt enough to appreciate that the controls are surprisingly light, although not overly so, and the jet is terrifically responsive.

After a square loop and some aileron rolls we took a break from the aerobatics for a quick sight-seeing run down the coast adjacent to the Great Ocean Road and past the Twelve Apostles – at 500ft and about 350kt. This was a great bit of fun, and the low altitude reinforced the sensation of travelling at speed, but I realised too it was an opportunity for me to gather my senses before some more manoeuvring.

“Are those helicopters a concern?” I asked as we pass the Great Ocean Road visitors’ centre, which is home to the sightseeing helicopters of 12 Apostles Helicopters.

“Not particularly,” was the answer.

“They’re not cleared down to our level, so we’d fly below them. ” Passing the Twelve Apostles, we pulled more g as Lt Lockwood turned the jet tightly 180 degrees to head back to the manoeuvring box. Cruising back along at 500ft chatting about flying the Super Hornet and the differences from the pilot’s perspective of the single seat E model and the dual seat F, and it struck me what great fun and what a great privilege this was, flying along in an armed Super Hornet at 500ft along the Victorian coastline talking shop – this was far from typical day at the office for me.

With some fuel still remaining we reentered the designated box for some final manoeuvring, including pirouettes (similar to hammerhead turns), the little Ricky, and general high angle of attack manoeuvring, the Super Hornet’s speciality. It was extraordinary to be flying at just over 100kt with the nose pointing skywards at an over 40 degree angle of attack, and being able to slew the nose left to right using rudders – highlighting again the Super’s controllability and the flight control system’s ‘carefree’ handling characteristics which will typically prevent the aircraft from departing controlled flight.

Pretty soon though we hit our bingo fuel level and it was time to return to Avalon.

During the short approach back Lt Lockwood had enough time to demonstrate the APG-73’s ground mapping synthetic aperture radar modes, ‘painting’ Avalon after selecting it with the cursor on the moving map display. Even from more than 30km away we could make out Avalon’s hangars, runway and taxiways.

Approaching from the south we landed on runway 36 – given the Super Hornet is designed for flare-less landings on aircraft carriers I was impressed with how smooth the touchdown was.

And so my 1. 1 hour Super Hornet flight experience had come to an end. On reflection, it was brutal, powerful and great fun, and proved a great demonstration of the Super Hornet’s controllability. The g was tough, very tough (showering that night I was surprised to find slight bruising across my stomach from the g suit!), the flying fun, the aircraft impressive and the view spectacular.

This was a fairly unique mission, and for a civilian, a rare, prized opportunity. The Super Hornet really impressed (but I’m certainly not under any illusions that my flight qualifies me to better endorse or criticise the decision to buy 24 for the RAAF).

Interestingly too I wasn’t the only one impressed by our flight. So too was Lt Lockwood, who had the rare opportunity to go flying essentially for its own sake.

“The flight we had from Avalon was very unlike most (95 per cent or more) of my missions,” Lt Lockwood said back on the ground. “In most cases I would spend several hours planning for a mission as well as doing ‘dress rehearsals’ with the other members of the flight – don’t forget that in most cases our missions will involve at a minimum two, but more likely several other jets, even upwards of 20 in some cases.

Then, we will complete the mission with a thorough review of everything we did in the air – both successfully and unsuccessfully, for several more hours.

“In our case, we had a bare-bones preflight brief to ensure we could execute safely and in accordance with all the local regulations, but then had the opportunity to spend 13,000lb (5900kg) of fuel essentially ‘playing’ in the skies over Victoria.

We enjoyed as much aerial acrobatics as we could stand, followed by a 20 minute sightseeing low-level tour of one of the most picturesque locations in all of Australia, the Twelve Apostles! All in all, it was one of those flights that I will remember, among and above all the others, for the rest of my life as a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity!” That was for sure!