"The buff and the big sky theory …."

Flying Safety, August, 2007 by Eddie Knox

Worldwide contingencies have placed our aging fleet of aircraft in roles that they were never designed to carry out. The airplanes are getting older and the pilots are getting younger. The Air Force has asked its planes and pilots to learn new missions and deploy longer than any other time in our history. Through all of this, the US Air Force has had its best year from a safety standpoint, despite a time of contingency worldwide operations. Statistics play a vital role in looking at where we stand from a safety perspective and where we're heading, or trending to be more precise. In the age of modern air combat, it's not combat losses that "buy the farm," it's the day-to-day, to-and-from missions that we struggle with.

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My story is a little bit of combat and a little bit of minutia. I was in the right seat at that time of a mighty B-52H Stratofortress. This was my first combat deployment. As you can imagine, I was excited about the prospect of putting my years of training and millions of tax payers' dollars to use. I was more than halfway through my first tour. I wouldn't say I was complacent, but I had other distracters on the mind. We had been extended during our vulnerability period due to some ongoing operations below us. The whole crew was excited to help the effort on the ground. For the pilots up front, we were also faced with a no-nonsense reminder about our fuel and the rate at which we were burning it. We were assured through the Combined Aerospace Operations Center (CAOC) that a tanker would meet us with some extra gas on the way home to a small tropical paradise island. We were well below Bingo when we were finally cleared off. The decision was made early to climb and "make some fuel." The return home was for the most part uneventful. As nightfall set, "Feet Wet" passed, and it was time to think about finding a tanker. The tanker crew had their "stuff in a sock" and arrived as fragged, minus a few thousand pounds of precious JP-8. Poor weather at home caused some delays. Fuel exchange was smooth, and I had the opportunity of getting a couple of extra contacts for practice. Now fat on gas from our climb home, we all breathed a little easier.

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The tanker scooted on ahead of us and left us in trail. Now 16 hours into a sortie that was all but complete, the crew was feeling the effects of an extended duty day. "White Triangles" in hand, I was ready to face the rest of the night and the weather that was rolling in. A thin cloud deck started to roll in and made the night sky appear to blend with the cold ocean below. I began to dim cockpit lighting, partly for visibility outside the jet and partly for an easy-on-the-eyes flight home. The 17th hour had passed, and the mighty air warrior now felt the need for a mighty night's sleep.

Over waypoint Uniform I heard our tanker ask, "Buff, are you guys expecting one of your boys? Our TCAS just picked up a phantom." I looked at the ATO, and as expected, one our boys was heading down range. "Affirm, say range." "About 15 miles." "Roger." In my groggy state of mind, I was trying to do the arithmetic to figure out where they should be, in regard to our loose formation. At a minimum, we planned to be deconflicted. Giving up on public math, I leaned a little closer to the wind screen and used the old Mark-1 eyeball. Looking out of the jet, all I could see was a very faint view of the stars above, and what looked like a couple of ships in the water below. I had no discernable horizon to work with. Just then, through the fog, I spotted some movement. I fixed my gaze and through my visor, I spotted one red light and one green light. About that time, I found myself looking into the cockpit of another heavy aircraft! I made an immediate full deflection bid to the right, force disconnected the autopilot, and rolled belly up to my new sky buddy. You just wouldn't believe how close this aircraft looked! In my mind, everything seemed to move in slow motion. I could tell the heavy was making a drastic move as well. The certain collision never happened, but I did manage to shake up some crew members with an abrupt "heading change" and nose low recovery, to put it eloquently. The next morning, I walked to the tanker squadron and personally thanked that tanker crew. After the handshake, my next stop was to our deployed safety office. I told them of the incident, and the info was disseminated. The conclusion was that the other aircraft was an Asian airliner in a climb on its way to the Middle East.

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Since that flight, I had a chance to learn some things. The first: stuff happens and big sky theory doesn't always work. We need systems in place when Murphy rears his ugly cranium. Our system worked. The B-52 is reliant upon our tanker's WX RADAR and TCAS to guide us through the storm. Our tanker knew that something didn't look right, and simply asked the question. They would have been right to not have said anything, due to a schedule showing a B-52 around that time. Judgment on their behalf kept us from taking an early morning swim.