by Dale Varner, MD

  Recently Dale Varner, a flight surgeon with the Air National Guard, had an opportunity to experience an F/A 18 in the back seat. Dale is also an avid simulation fan, and flies Falcon 4.0 in addition to Flanker 1.5. Here is his story...

Speaking of F/A-18's, I got a hop in one. The Canadian Air Force was at our base this weekend for DAC (dissimilar aircraft) missions. They brought 5 hornets all with backseats open for salivating flight surgeons. This morning, I was on a 4 v 6 (Hornets v 16's). We flew CAP over Kit Carson to protect Pueblo from those nasty Vipers.....whoohooo, what a fur ball!!

It was amazingly easy to sort out bandits in visual range. When I was in on viper v viper a couple of years ago, it was almost impossible even when the bandit had an orange day-glow AIM-9 on his wing. Yesterday, I was bummed when I got in the back seat and found out that the instructor seat had no RWR, I always thought that was the coolest thing on the 18. I did have the MFD version of the HUD so I could see some RWR on that.

And no, I know your next question, he didn't let me play with the buttons. In fact he gave me the proverbial don't-touch-the-levers-with-yellow-and-black-stripes lecture to annoying duration. As you know from the sims, the ejection handle in a Hornet is strapped right against your dick...good design because we all know the first thing that a Navy guy will reach for when in trouble.

Our flight out to the MOA (military operations area) was awesome. We took off in formation (I always thought that was cool but pilots seem to favor the vertical climb out of the sandbox). There was nearly full and smooth cloud coverage to about 8000 ft MSL (the base sits at 5000 MSL). The lead pulled the flight up to that level and we skimmed top cover. It seemed like snow skiing at 350 knots...really cool. I pointed out the AF Academy on the way past Pike's and the Canadian pilot gave me a courteous, "Oh." And I felt like an idiot.

Once we got to the MOA, we set up a CAP. The vipers were late so this wasted a bit of time but gave me a chance for the Varner to Varner, "don't get sick you pussy" lecture. Soon "AWAC"s called and announced a threat was in the area...fights on!

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Canadian F/A 18 Hornets taxi out to take-off for a mission from Aviano Air Base, Italy, in support of Operation Joint Forge.

We had two engagements but each lasted a long time...or it seemed. Flight time was 1.5 hours. (We flew lead, the wm stayed very tight in the hornet 1-2 position until we were close to the merge. We either split for the pinc or the WM dropped low to the left depending on the threat.)

We initially went 4 hornets v 6 vipers. We flew CAP over the MOA and the viper package came from the west. Our guys (18's) flew some kinda' funky CAP pattern ( I think 'cause they knew the threat was west) which was a short straight run followed by a 4 to 5 G 180 degree turn.

In the first fight, my pilot and wingy were on the away run when the escort bandits (2 vipers) approached. Hornet 3 and 4 engaged them initially as we held in CAP. So we were there with what was left of the other crew (Hornet 4) when the 4 viper strike team approached...they came low. Our wing man took the lead viper and while we were high and right. We then inverted and pulled down on the second bandit.

Where were bandits 3 and 4 you ask? Beats me, they were off radar and I was busy trying to avoid GLOC while looking straight up (really down) for our bandit on the deck. He blew by pulling a bit vertical and we didn't get our nose on him. Virtual missiles were flying at this time too. The ground referees were calling kills and missed shots.

We pulled up out of a fur ball and I had lost my SA. I looked to the left and thought I saw our wingy...oh shit! It was a bandit directly at 9 o'clock level, a quarter mile out and heading the same vector. What would you do? Keep in mind that the viper can out turn you but we were just under the viper's cornering velocity (about 300 knots).

Go to Part II