James Ricci: Veteran Pilot's Airport Buzz Reflects How Technology Has Changed Air Force, Military Behavior
At a quarter past noon on Jan. 21, a U.S. Navy F-18 Super Hornet jet fighter flown by a combat-tested pilot named Richard Webb appeared over the Edna Valley and streaked toward San Luis Obispo County Regional Airport.
On its first pass, the Super Hornet screamed along at more than 650 miles an hour, just 96 feet above the main runway. Soon it circled back, touched down on the tarmac for an instant, then went into a steep climb, afterburner roaring, and disappeared in the skies.
...
Martin Pehl was in the washroom of the airport's administrative offices near the terminal. ... Then he and nearly everyone else bailed out of the building to see what was happening. He saw the jet fighter's afterburner afire as the aircraft climbed into the sky.
The Federal Aviation Administration designation for the airspace above the airport is Class D, meaning that it has a speed limit of 230 mph below 2,500 feet. "Oh boy, we're in trouble," Pehl thought. "We've got a real PR issue.... "
*
Like the turbulent wake of a jet, the incident's impact spread outward, with severe consequences for Webb's aviation career.
George "Bud" Day, a Vietnam-era combat fighter pilot and Medal of Honor winner, recalled a time when military aviators were entitled to occasional displays of thrilling bravado.
"Back in the old days, I used to fly by my house on the way back from an exercise and give a little toot on the afterburner just so my wife would know I was on the way home," he said.
Webb's case, however, demonstrates how far fighter pilot culture has evolved.
An important factor is the greater cost and sophistication of today's jet fighters. Although the Super Hornet's cost is often cited in the media as about $60 million apiece, Department of Defense figures collected by the authoritative defense policy group globalsecurity.org place it at about $95 million, when development costs are included and the price is calculated in current dollars.
"The weapons systems today are so complex from an engineering and science point of view that the old idea of who a fighter pilot is has changed," said John Sherwood, a historian for the Navy.
"Right now the ones who make it are perfect physical specimens, and they tend to be engineers, people with a strong math and science background. In the Vietnam War you would still get a lot of people who'd played football and were jocks and brave guys who were willing to risk their lives to fly very unsafe aircraft off of very unsafe ships. But that's changing."
Along with the changes in the aircraft, several highly publicized accidents and the 1991 Tailhook scandal, in which numerous Navy fliers were disciplined for wild drunkenness and overt sexual harassment, have helped shift the culture, as has the emergence of female fighter pilots, Sherwood said.
[Editor's Note: This is a very short excerpt from a much longer article. See the LA Times for more.]
On its first pass, the Super Hornet screamed along at more than 650 miles an hour, just 96 feet above the main runway. Soon it circled back, touched down on the tarmac for an instant, then went into a steep climb, afterburner roaring, and disappeared in the skies.
...
Martin Pehl was in the washroom of the airport's administrative offices near the terminal. ... Then he and nearly everyone else bailed out of the building to see what was happening. He saw the jet fighter's afterburner afire as the aircraft climbed into the sky.
The Federal Aviation Administration designation for the airspace above the airport is Class D, meaning that it has a speed limit of 230 mph below 2,500 feet. "Oh boy, we're in trouble," Pehl thought. "We've got a real PR issue.... "
*
Like the turbulent wake of a jet, the incident's impact spread outward, with severe consequences for Webb's aviation career.
George "Bud" Day, a Vietnam-era combat fighter pilot and Medal of Honor winner, recalled a time when military aviators were entitled to occasional displays of thrilling bravado.
"Back in the old days, I used to fly by my house on the way back from an exercise and give a little toot on the afterburner just so my wife would know I was on the way home," he said.
Webb's case, however, demonstrates how far fighter pilot culture has evolved.
An important factor is the greater cost and sophistication of today's jet fighters. Although the Super Hornet's cost is often cited in the media as about $60 million apiece, Department of Defense figures collected by the authoritative defense policy group globalsecurity.org place it at about $95 million, when development costs are included and the price is calculated in current dollars.
"The weapons systems today are so complex from an engineering and science point of view that the old idea of who a fighter pilot is has changed," said John Sherwood, a historian for the Navy.
"Right now the ones who make it are perfect physical specimens, and they tend to be engineers, people with a strong math and science background. In the Vietnam War you would still get a lot of people who'd played football and were jocks and brave guys who were willing to risk their lives to fly very unsafe aircraft off of very unsafe ships. But that's changing."
Along with the changes in the aircraft, several highly publicized accidents and the 1991 Tailhook scandal, in which numerous Navy fliers were disciplined for wild drunkenness and overt sexual harassment, have helped shift the culture, as has the emergence of female fighter pilots, Sherwood said.
[Editor's Note: This is a very short excerpt from a much longer article. See the LA Times for more.]