Chasing the "Spirit"

Flight Journal, Oct 1998 by Machat, Mike

Editor's note: on April 18, 1997, author Mike Machat became the first, and only, Air Force artist to fly a chase mission with the B-2. As an official guest of the 420th Flight Test Squadron, Machat was flown in an F- 16 for a two-hour test mission that included low-level and high-altitude maneuvering and a live bomb drop of 80, Mk. 82 500-pound conventional stores onto the Edwards' bombing range at high speed from 4,000 feet Here's his firsthand account of the flight, during which he took the Air Force-approved photos on these pages.

"Why are we using an F-16 for a chase plane?," I asked naively. "After all, the B-2 is a bomber." I was sitting in a cockpit procedures and egress trainer at Edwards AFB, California, receiving instruction from 420th Squadron Cmdr. Lt. Col. Tony "Bear" Grady in the fine art of surviving any number of potential emergency situations in the jet. Little did I know that in less than 24 hours, I would dramatically find the answer to my question.

Strapping into our glossy red-and-white F-16B the next morning, Col. Grady and I prepare for the 7 a.m. launch. Our test mission begins with an afterburner takeoff and an "in-flight pickup," in which the chase launches first and flies an extended pattern out over the lakebed as the B-2 taxies into position and lines up on runway 22. As we approach the runway at 1,000 feet for a standard "360-overhead" to a landing, the bomber crew calls "B-2 rolling, thirty seconds," and we fly into the break, turn base and then final. Instead of actually flaring for touchdown, however, at 100 feet, Col. Grady retracts the gear, and the F-16B transitions into a low pass abeam the bomber, now well into its takeoff roll. As the B-2 lifts off and majestically climbs out, Grady maneuvers into our final chase position just off the bomber's right wing.

While we head out to the low-level range and descend for the terrain-following portion of our flight, I begin to realize what an incredible machine the B-2 really is. Flying lower and lower, the ground rushes up like the visual for an off-field landing. Altitude: 200 feet. Airspeed: 520mph. It is eerily smooth, serene and comfortable. Suddenly, a row of hightension power lines looms up on the horizon and then flashes by underneath us in a big, gray blur. The B-2 seemingly levitates over them with a minimal change in pitch attitude.

Still skimming the surface, we enter an area of mountains ahead, and the B-2 banks at a roll rate akin to a fighter's, following the earth's contours like a surface wind. It's hard for me to comprehend this 350,000pound, 172-foot-wingspan airplane linking through the hills like an F-105 "running" Thud Ridge. I reach out to reset the G-meter. It reads 3 positive and 1 negative-not your average bomber. Then the nose smoothly moves up, and moments later, we're level in a racetrack pattern at 15,000 feet, and joined in formation by a second F-16 chase with an Air Force video photographer who will film the low-level bombing runs.

Throughout the two-hour mission, I constantly marvel at the visual aspects of the bat-wing bomber. From the side, it appears squat, almost animalistic, with its hawk-like beak and tadpoleshaped fuselage profile. Being unable to actually see the crew members in the cockpit adds to the aura and mystery of scale and makes the bomber seem even larger than its 69-foot length.

From behind, the knifeedge shape almost disappears, conjuring up images of the YB-49 jet flying wing from 1948, but without the telltale oily black exhaust. When it's banking, the top and bottom views show off that famous boomerang shape now so familiar, and I watch in utter amazement as the giant wing maneuvers effortlessly through the sky, its garage-door-size control surfaces moving at rates of 100 degrees per second. It's as though the bomber were on rails, like one of those modern, high-G thrill rides at an amusement park.

My question had at last been answered. Even though the B-2 is America's newest strategic bomber, it is so agile, so maneuverable and so impressive that it takes an F-16 just to keep up with it, even in the ordnance runs!

With 80, 500-pound bombs in the bay, I had expected to see the famous "wall of fire" so familiar from Vietnam newsreel footage. But those images were of B52s dropping bombs from a high altitude. We were down at 4,000 feet at a high speed, and I couldn't believe how small an area that much ordnance was concentrated into. If the target had been something manmade of significant size, it would have simply been erased-not just damaged, but erased, leaving nothing but a dirty smudge.

This airplane is the bad guys' worst nightmare. Their radar wouldn't see it coming and their lookouts would have to be sharp to pick out its nearly invisible head-on profile. At 200 feet and 500mph on the lead-in run, it would be there and gone before they knew it. All they would know is that a black "something" out of "Star Wars" flashed over them and removed a troublesome spot from the battlefield forever. The only word to describe the Spirit in its new role is "awesome."