O-Dark-Thirty
My most satisfying mission took place at o-dark-thirty in the early part of the war. When we showed up for the mission, we checked in with our GFAC, who was south of Kandahar. His forces, about twenty vehicles and a lot of people, were on the run after being shot at all day. He couldn’t tell us where the good guys were because not everyone in his group had checked in. We decided to go to the tanker. By the time we got back, the GFAC had located all his guys and had scrambled on top of a peak overlooking a valley. The bad guys, who were rapidly approaching the GFAC’s position, were within 900 meters of the peak. That’s close. Really close. Within bullet range close. That night, the GFAC couldn’t point targets out for us because his laser marker did not have enough power. Our marker is very easy for friendly forces to see. So we started working a FAC wheel with the Litening pod and our laser marker. We put the laser marker on the ground in the general area of the bad guys so our friendly forces could call in adjustments over the radio. We then started bombing the leading edge of the approaching enemy forces. As our bombs fell, the bad guys ran to their vehicles to leave. When they put on their lights, we spotted them immediately with our goggles. As the vehicles began driving away, we shacked them. The GFAC was thrilled.
– Maj. Chris, 301st FW

• FAC wheel – orbiting route as a forward air controller

Kandahar Airport: Perspective Three
We would save our bombs for last when we performed as airborne FACs. Right in the middle of the battle for Kandahar Airport, AWACS sent us north to contact one of the UAV controllers who had found a target in the middle of Kandahar. The controller wanted us to hit the target at a specific time so certain people would be there. He gave us coordinates and then lased the target. We used our targeting pod to find the spot and get a positive identification. We waited for another ten minutes until the UAV controller verified what he wanted to hit was at the target. Then we shacked the target. The mission showed the versatility of the Viper. We flexed from a FAC role to an urban target, working in concert with a UAV to strike a target verified with real-time intelligence.
– Maj. Chris, 301st FW

• UAV – uninhabited air vehicle

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Multitasking
I was working as an airborne FAC mission when I ran low on gas. I had several aircraft in the queue waiting to bomb, including a B-52. The tanker tracks were very close to the target area so I saddled up next to the tanker. I was on the boom getting gas and giving targeting coordinates to a B-52 dropping CBU-103s at the same time.
– Maj. Chris, 301st FW

Digging Out Targets
My second mission was a road recce mission in the mountains north of Kandahar. We were sent to work with a GFAC deep in bad guy land. He was whispering on the radio to prevent enemy troops from hearing him. He wanted us to clear his avenue. Nothing was happening on the ground that I could see. My wingman and I stayed with him for three hours. During that time, I spotted some dim lights in a ravine about four or five miles from his position. The lights were visible only through my NVGs. My wingman and I slewed our targeting pods to them. After some time, we figured out that the light came from a lantern or a small fire under a tarp. We also figured out that the tarp covered an artillery piece, a big gun. Its barrel stuck out from under the tarp. We talked with the GFAC and ensured no friendlies were in the area. Then we destroyed the artillery piece. Later that night, we found two other guns. We hit them, too. The mission was gratifying because these targets were hard to dig out. We went back to the same area a few nights later and destroyed more guns. Apparently, al-Qaeda and Taliban forces were trying to move these guns through the mountains south to Kandahar.
– Maj. Bruce, 301st FW

Quantifying Improvements
The biggest improvement in the F-16 is hard to quantify. Goggles allow us to see things at night we can’t see with the naked eye. Dropping a single bomb and getting a kill is a lot better than dropping six bombs to bracket a target. Flying a ten-hour mission as a wingman at night on goggles without SADL to help keep station would have been nearly impossible in Afghanistan. Without GPS, our INS would have drifted off so substantially that we would not have been able to find the target. I can’t identify one single improvement that makes the F-16 more lethal. Each builds on the other.
– Maj. Bruce, 301st FW

Nose Calluses
Road recce missions were painful. They involved a lot of time on the goggles. Three hours of looking through those tubes can cause some big headaches. Our datalink allowed us to flip up the goggles on the way to and from the operating theater, but I put them on for refueling. In the AOR, we wore goggles the entire time. The oxygen mask rubbed the bridge of my nose. A lot of guys put moleskin on their noses to cushion their masks. I wore moleskin and still got blisters on my nose.
– Maj. Bruce, 301st FW

• AOR – area of responsibility; target area
• moleskin – thick felt material with adhesive on one side; normally used on feet to treat or prevent blisters

Laser Marker
Our targeting pod has a marker capability. I can put a little dot on the ground with my laser. I can watch the beam as it leaves my airplane and find the dot on the ground. I used the marker one night with a GFAC and an AC-130 gunship. The GFAC asked us to hold for the gunship, which fired one round of 105mm artillery. The round hit the ground and made a cloud. I put my marker over the impact and found the target immediately. I marked the exact point with my targeting pod and stored the location in my system. A minute later, the AC-130 was shot at by a surface-to-air missile and left the area soon after. We came in right after that and hit a bunch of tanks and armored personnel carriers. In the old days, I would have spent a lot of time communicating with the GFAC to relocate the target area.
– Lt. Col. Jeff, 301st FW

No Surprises
Nothing surprised us in Afghanistan. Every situation we put ourselves into was one we trained for in the United States. The long durations and the live weapons made the missions more stressful. A mistake could kill somebody. I told our guys to take their time. Nothing needed to be bombed right away to save American lives. If they have to make two or three passes, make two or three passes. Check coordinates twice. Know where the friendlies are. Kill the right people.
– Lt. Col. Jeff, 301st FW

Fatigue
Fatigue was much more an issue than I thought it would be. I had to work harder when I was tired. It was harder to think. I flew five all-nighters. I took off about six or seven as the sun was going down. I arrived in Afghanistan at midnight or at one in the morning. The first couple of times, flying every third day, fatigue is not a big issue. But the third time I flew one of these missions, I was very tired. By the end of the mission, I had used up all of my stored sleep. Like most pilots, I was on an adrenaline high in the AOR. Coming down from that high on the flight back could be dangerous. My body had been surging adrenaline for three or four hours. Afterwards, the fatigue hit at one time. The most scared I have ever been in a fighter was coming back from one of these long missions. I could not stay awake. I almost fell asleep in the cockpit, even on the tanker.
– Lt. Col. Jeff, 301st FW

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GFACs
The GFACs were awesome. I can’t say enough good things about them. They were professional. They were always very calm and very meticulous. I never heard fear in their voices. We worked with them quite a bit. I also worked with an AC-130 gunship a couple of nights. It was tremendous. A great capability.
– Lt. Col. Jeff, 301st FW

B-1 Coordination
We never knew if we were going to drop until we checked in with a FAC. On my first mission, no one in my flight dropped. On my second mission, only my flight lead dropped. We flew against a Quonset hut area south of Kandahar. We showed up and checked in. We were working with a UAV. The UAV controller lased the target, and we used our laser tracking capability to find the spot. We described what we saw and the controller confirmed the target. The controller asked if we wanted him to lase the bombs in. We said we would lase our own bombs. He then asked us to coordinate our attack with an incoming B-1. We held and waited for the B-1 to show. We circled back, joined with the B-1, and away we went. We used our NVGs to deconflict with the bomber. We had two separate targets about 700 meters apart. The controller wanted the bombs to hit at the same time. The B-1 dropped a JDAM, and my flight lead dropped a GBU-12. I flew in trail formation and captured both hits through my targeting pod. Just after the drop, the controller driving the UAV came over the radio and said that the Secretary of Defense was watching. Rumsfeld saw the bombs hit the targets in real-time. We walked into the chow hall the next day for breakfast and our video was playing on CNN.
– Capt. David, 301st FW

• deconflict – measures taken to avoid air-to-air collisions

Maintenance Kudos
We were flying planned missions for OSW, sitting alert for twenty-four hours for OSW, and flying regular OEF sorties into Afghanistan. All of these taskings were twenty-four-hour commitments for the pilots. The alert assignments covered twenty-four hours. The fragged missions into Iraq had both day and night takeoffs. And the OEF missions lasted as long as twelve hours, which doesn’t include time spent briefing and debriefing. So our ten F-16s were spread pretty thin. Our maintenance team did a great job. We didn’t lose one sortie over there because of maintenance. We sent jets over thinking the average sortie would be two to two and one-half hours. Many ended up lasting five times longer than that. Our maintenance crews performed about six phase inspections in our four weeks in theater.
– Lt. Col. Chris, 301st FW

• fragged – planned