Right to Right, in the Pattern - Brief Article

Approach, Oct, 2000 by Ryan Bernacchi

Two weeks after leaving the FRS at Lemoore, I was scheduled for my first night flight in my new squadron. We went out to the area for a target-acquisition and attack hop that was mostly aimed at gaining some experience with the FLIR. It was a dark night with no moon, but I felt comfortable because I had recently flown at night for CQ.

With the tactical part of the flight complete, we headed back to base for what I expected to be a routine night arrival. As we approached the initial, approach called out traffic, a KC-10 on a 10-mile GCA base. My lead and I both saw the tanker as we descended for the break. At this time, the only other jet in the pattern was a Hornet on downwind. The Hornet pilot had declared min-fuel and asked tower, "Wave off the heavy."

Tower responded, "Keep it coming and I will wave him off if I need to."

We broke and rolled out on downwind. As I rolled out, I noticed the very bright landing lights of the KC-10 on GCA final. I reached for the gear and flaps and started down from 1,500 feet to 600 feet. The KC-10 appeared to be lower than my altitude in a shallow, climbing, left-hand turn, and a mile or so away. I was still descending to pattern altitude and running through the landing checklist when another check of the tanker showed it had gotten bigger, and its aspect hadn't changed. It was the textbook constant-bearing-decreasing-range scenario. I figured he must be above pattern altitude on the missed approach, so I pushed forward to increase my rate of descent toward the farm fields invisible in the darkness below. I tried to get down as fast as I could, bringing my comfort level past the breaking point. The lights were getting bigger and brighter and were co-altitude as I reached 600 feet.

My lead urgently called on the back radio, "Look out, Two, he's coming right for you! Climb if you can!" At this point, I reached the abeam position and tower chimed in to clear me to land number three behind two Hornets (the min fuel and my lead). It was clear to me that the rapidly approaching lights coming for me were no illusion. I went to mil power and rolled left into a 50-to-55-degree AOB turn toward the runway, it didn't look like I could go above him, and I was worried that going under him would be unrecoverable if I ran into his wake turbulence below 500 feet at night. I started to stage the blowers but pulled them back to mil when the line-of-sight rate picked up. I passed right to right with 100 to 200 feet of step down and what looked like 600 to 800 feet of lateral separation. I could clearly see his engine nacelles, fuselage, wings and tail in the dark.

As soon as I was clear, the next problem was my lead. I was headed about 60 degrees off downwind heading and accelerating past 210 knots, which put me in position to cut off my lead at the 90 in a matter of seconds. An aggressive cut back to the right and a large power reduction got me out of lead's way and back into something resembling the landing pattern. I called tower to let them know they had just vectored a KC-10 right over me and confirmed that I was now number two to land, since I only had one other FA-18 in sight. An uneventfull landing followed.

The subsequent phone calls to the tower revealed that approach, for the proposes of training a controller, had given the KC-10 an IFR, simulated-emergency break-off. This maneuver entails an immediate climbing left turn, instead of the straight-ahead climb followed by the crosswind turn. The tanker's rate of climb and turn radius from the missed approach point brought it directly through the VFR landing pattern.

The controllers and I learned many lessons. First, my lead's high SA and crew coordination over the back radio were key to helping me confirm what my eyes were seeing, which in turn allowed me to act aggressively. Second, controllers normally do a great job, but you cannot blindly trust them to keep you separated from aircraft or the ground. Third, even though most of my recent night experience was in the night landing pattern at home field and only two other planes were in the pattern, takeoffs and landings remain some of the most dangerous parts of flight.

Lt. Bernacchi flies with VFA-113