"The Human Touch" -- humorous consequences mating Man & Machine
In an attempt to “call timeout” and reduce some tensions among some contributors at a particular message board, I found some humorous moments recalled by Jerry O’Rourke who at one time was Commanding Officer of the VF-102 F-4 squadron in 1963. I came across the book The F-4 Phantom II by G.G. O’Rourke / Aero Publishers, Inc. and purchased it at the Pentagon bookstore.
“Each Phantom aircrew develops its own peculiar brand of cooperation, which fits into a combined personality of the 2 men residing in the F-4 cockpit. Inter-service debate has been fairly heated on the merits of each system. But the Navy’s primary F-4 mission is that of interceptor where the back-seat full-time radar-expert Flight Officer pays off. The Air Force equates the air superiority and attack missions and feels (quite properly) that a second pilot with radar training is a better bet for these tasks.”
“ ’Radar Heads’ -- Some pilots are great “radar heads” from past experience in single-seat fighters. A radar-headed pilot with a forceful personality can drive a retiring Flight Officer out of his mind in nothing flat just by needling and second-guessing the radar operation.”
“ ‘Wild Blue Yonder types’ -- These pilots don’t care to understand about radars. This fellow invariably has a fine set of eyes, ‘leaves the radar to George’ in the back seat, and is from Missouri anyway. He doesn’t trust a TV tube and won’t really believe anything unless he can see it himself. He can drive a good conscientious Flight Officer crazy by refusing to turn and attack on radar knowledge.”
“ ‘Fumblers’ -- A slow and fumbling performance by a Flight Officer during an intercept can turn an old “radar-headed” pilot almost apoplectic in a matter of seconds. In this case, the pilot knows damn well that he could do better all by himself and bewails the fact that so few radar controls are in his portion of the cockpit.”
“ ‘Flying Tourists” -- These Flight Officers (usually an art or music major in college) are simply along for the ride. They sit blithely in the rear enjoying the golden hues of the breaking dawn, or the tortuously slow boiling of gathering bright white cumulus clouds, or the sinuous shadowy blackness of a jet contrail as seen from above. ‘Targets? Radar? … Oh yes. That stuff …’ "
“ ‘Tweakers’ -- Many Flight Officers are initially attracted to the job by a love of electronics. Unless firmly disciplined quite early in their training, they can become twiddlers and tweakers and drive good pilots to drink. They just refuse to let a good set operating without some additional ‘fine tuning’ which often-as-not screws up the whole operation in the long run.”
“ ‘Wheezers, Gaspers, Garglers, Whistlers, Grunters, Moaners’ -- For inter-cockpit communications, either a hot or cold mike operation is possible. A “’hot’ mike has the advantages of instant availability. But it can be noisy and bothersome, particularly when a poorly operating oxygen regulator lets the sounds of breathing get onto the wires. You get to know your flying buddy quite well when you have to listen to his every breath, inhaling and exhaling over several hours!”
“ ‘Nervous Nellies’ -- These come in either pilot or flight officer garb. Nellies constantly check the other fellow, or the fuel, or the radios, or the weather. Prudent they are. But fun they ain’t. Listen to one of these doomsayers over an intercom for a couple of hours and you find yourself almost wishing that something would go berserk just to satisfy the old worrywart!”
“One very young Phantom flight officer on his ride suddenly let go with an ear splitting roar as the pilot instructor was demonstrating a high-G turning maneuver. The pilot, momentarily deafened by the blast resounding in his ears, was sure that some horrible accident had occurred back aft. He immediately headed for home broadcasting Maydays en route. When he landed, he clambered back the rear cockpit to find the hale, hearty, but thoroughly bewildered young fellow sitting there. ‘What in hell was that roar about?’ the outraged instructor demanded. ‘Oh that, Sir,’ breathed the cherubic Ensign. ‘They told me at Pensacola that I could take more Gs by making my stomach muscles hard and that shouting was a good way to do it.’ "
“One instructor pilot took a young flight officer out for his first F-4 ride. When 60 miles out over the Atlantic, a fire-warning light flashed on indicating serious troubles in one engine. The pilot immediately reported a ‘MAYDAY’, turned for home, and went vainly through all the proper procedures. The light still burned ever so bright. The instructor, very reluctant to trust just a light but equally reluctant to gamble against long odds for the sake of a piece of hardware, ordered the young Flight Officer to eject and prepared himself to follow.
BANG!…out went both the flight officer AND the warning light! The flight officer was soon plucked from the seas by a helicopter, wet but unscratched. A very sheepish instructor landed back at home base with a gaping hole where the rear cockpit had been. When asked what he thought of his first Phantom ride, the Flight Officer remarked that the takeoff was great. But recoveries would need getting used to.”
“A new F-4 pilot returning low over rugged mountains in bad weather encountered pitot tube icing. This caused the indicated airspeed to fall rapidly toward zero even though the airplane was still flying quite routinely at its normal airspeed. The Flight Officer, wary of the pilot’s proficiency in weather and unfamiliar with the icing phenomena, really thought that the airplane was stalling and ejected himself after shouting frantically at the pilot. The pilot in turn asked himself the very fleeting question “What did he know that I don’t?” and answered it by ejecting himself. While squatting together on a mountain a few minutes later watching the flames of the demolished airplane on a nearby hillside, they figured out what happened!”
O'Rourke concludes this chapter with “surprisingly enough, most Phantom aircrews adapt to each other at a very rapid rate. Nervous Nellies are calmed by Flying Tourists. A Wild Blue Yonder type earns respect for bespectacled George after he had been led to a few unseen targets by radar. And a fumbling Tweaker is turned into a real pro by the verbal lashes of a Radar-Headed old timer. In actual practice, most pilots and flight officers select their own partners and crew integrity is maintained to the fullest possible limit. These choices are made on the basis of mutual respect which is also the soundest foundation for lasting friendship. … For an older squadron commander, the most rewarding part of his job comes in overseeing the formation of these relationships.”
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