CHECKSIX - Report: Viking Squadron

It’s just after half past five in the morning and besides the sound of opening and closing lockers you can hear “good morning, hello and MoinMoin*”, (*typical saying in North Germany). A couple of minutes later you can see those guys queuing in line for the coffee-machine in the crew lounge. It is 5:45 local time and duty has started in the 2nd Squadron, the “Vikings”, of the naval air wing 2 in Eggebek, North Germany. The following walk with the coffee mug in hand to the squadron bunker is the beginning of a day far removed from everyday life. At 6 o’clock the briefing begins for all flying crew of the squadron and for the external crews coming from higher commands who still have a flying license. After entering the ops-area there is a first glance at the weather screen followed by a look at the Schedule. This informs everyone about the take-off times, aircraft configurations, and the kind of task to be flown and finally the crew members who will today share cockpits. There are no fixed crews, this only occurs on exercises where crewing will be the same for every sortie. The daily change in the crews keeps the pilots and WSO´s more flexible and trains everyone in crew coordination

Besides ordinary smalltalk, the crews of individual missions liaise together just prior to the start of the briefing. Initial ideas and thoughts come up just prior to sitting down in the briefing room. The weather forecast is the first information the crews will receive. Detailed information on the weather situation within the operations area, which covers the area from the Netherlands – North Sea – Skagen – Bornholm – Lower Saxxony, will be mentioned. Afterwards the actual weather and the forecast for the surrounding airfields will be given as well as the situation at the home airfield. The next person who talks to the crews comes from the air traffic control section. He tells of the latest news in regard to navigational restrictions, (NOTAMS), active dangers, and restricted areas and he will inform about the status of the airfields within the operations area.

The squadron Intelligence Officer, (IO), will have the next word and he gives the actual situation report at sea of the operations area of the wing. He provides position reports of own units at sea, NATO units and other more or less important surface contacts. At the end of his presentation he gives detailed information on a selected ship as mentioned before in the Schedule. The Squadron Electronic Warfare Officer, (EWO), will brief additional info on this ship and he will speak about some of the tactics to be used against the vessel. A daily designated pilot or WSO is the next person who has to talk to the crews. He starts with the traditional time check. Then he continues with an emergency briefing according to the pilot’s checklist and he will give additional background info out of the aircraft bible, the so called Dash-1 (the flight manual of an aircraft). Last but not least, it is the turn of the head of operations to speak to the crews. In a short and snappy brief the Schedule for the next take off phase in 2.5 hours will be given. A short word for each mission and the then audience knows exactly what will go on this morning in the squadron. He concludes with daily business news concerning the soldier’s life of the squadron members.

“Squadron leader something to say?” he asks the boss. “No, fly safe!” is the answer. These words conclude the 20 minutes of briefing and the work starts now. Some flight leaders come up with their first orders like:”mission such and such, first breakfast, then planning” or “mission xyz will meet in the planning room immediately”. A little confusion occurs while everybody gets up and goes out of the briefing area to do his duty and it will take a moment until everything is settled for starting the planning process. Today there is a mass flight scheduled, with the task to attack a simulated group of ships located in the middle of the North Sea. A Tornado two-ship, equipped with photo-reconnaissance pods, has the task of a scout. The task is this; search for and locate the units in a certain area and report the position of the contacts via radio to the flight at a given time. One Tornado will be flying in the tanker roll and has to refuel all the other Tornados of the squadron. He has to establish a tanker track in a pre-briefed area, altitude and time. Besides dry plugs for training purposes, wet plugs are also possible for the flight this morning. The attack flight consists of 8 Tornados. Two of them will carry captive anti-radiation HARM-missiles, two will be in the bogus Kormoran Anti-ship missile configuration and the rest of the flight will have a bogus weapon load of 4 times MK84 iron bombs.

There is one Tornado left on today’s schedule. This will be the Bandit for the mass flight. He will be the air threat for the morning mission and he has to attack the Tornados while the formation is en-route to the target area or homebound. The flight will, if they feel uncomfortable with a radar contact or after a visual contact, react according to a specific air-to-air plan to get out of his simulated air-to-air missile range and still make the target at the given time-over–target, (ToT). This ToT has priority over all! As you can already imagine, there is enough to plan, to arrange and to discuss. But time is in very short supply. One hour prior to take-off the crews have to leave the squadron. Everybody has to change into their flight suit with the appropriate flight gear: fire resistant underwear follows the cotton wool suit, and then comes the anti-g trousers and finally the MK41, a cold and water resistant dry suit. The life vest with the survival equipment, the jet helmet and the famous white fabric gloves complete what a pilot and a WSO have to wear to be perfectly dressed to go flying. Between the end of the morning briefing and the time to get changed there are only 90 minutes left to plan and to brief the extensive mission. This can only be managed with team-work. The flight leader distributes tasks to the crew members. Every individual is a specialist in his profession and will add a piece to the puzzle; mission preparation. In the mission briefing those guys will brief the flight about their results.

The IO prepares the simulated situation report which consists of the simulated units at sea and he also will brief the crews about the expected threats. He will then provide tactics against these weapons and the EWO will support him concerning electronic warfare considerations. Often a WSO is the designated EWO in the squadron. Those Officers are well trained in EW and they know very well how to handle the TDASS, (the Tornado defence and sub-system), almost blindfolded. They know the tactics and manoeuvres a Tornado must fly to avoid being locked-on by radar. Both the IO and the EWO support the crews who plan the HARM-attack. Another crew has to come up with an air-to-air plan for this mission. Their result will be briefed in a moment, and will explain how the formation of Tornados has to react in the case of a threatening aircraft attack whilst they are en-route to the target area. The tactics against an air threat vary and are dependent upon the kind of formation the flight will establish, the weather and in peace time the airspace structure. The route will be initially drawn on a glass covered chart on one of the planning tables in the main planning room.

The weather situation as well as the daily-changing navigational restrictions dictates how the routing will be. Once the route is figured out it has to be punched into the Tornado Mission Planning Station, (TMPS). This is necessary because the computer of the aircraft needs this data to compute the automatic flight plan/steering later on. All the data will be stored on a small data-carrier. On this data-carrier are also libraries for the radar warning receiver and the HARM and Kormoran missiles. Information for the storage configuration computer of the aircraft is also on this electronic device. The TMPS calculates the flight-log with all information which is important to conduct the flight. Waypoints, track numbers, planned groundspeed, altitudes, fuel consumption, fuel left, total flying time and leg -times are examples what you can find on this piece of paper. A huge plotter is connected to the planning system and in short time this prints the complete route with selected information onto a previously inserted chart. One crew member is designated to collect all the paperwork and to make copies of it so that everybody in the flight has all the required information for the mission. Flight-log, mission-data sheet, tanker plan, air-to-air plan, EW-data sheet, attack-plan, route chart, target chart – this is the paper work you will find in such a mass flight that has to be carried with you. Guess who has to manage this flood of paper in the cockpit? Yes, it is the backseater. The Weapon System Officer can handle this much easier than the pilot can do.

There is a lot of work to do for this kind of mission. This is especially so with the coordinated attack with HARM, Kormoran and bombs on simulated and moving units, (which are defined from the Scout-given coordinates somewhere in the middle of the North Sea). Many “what ifs” and “maybes” will come up during the planning process and this will force the crews to consider all those tiny problems to find out a perfect timing for every part of the flight. Timing is the most important thing to consider in such a mission. Every flight member will rely on this. The only crew who is relaxed this morning is the crew who will act as the Bandit. When the main planning is finished, they will get all the information from the flight and they will start their planning. Up to 3 times during the mission the Bandit will act and behave like a realistic air threat to the mass flight. High speeds and a certain flexibility will force the Bandit later on to join with the Tornado tanker more than once to have enough fuel for the engagements and the possible dog-fights.

07:15 local time: it’s final briefing time for the up-coming mission. Some crews are already properly dressed, holding a mug of coffee in their hands and walking towards the briefing room. At the entrance they will grab a flood of paperwork and the data-carrier. In a couple of moments the crews will listen to those guys who are in charge of briefing the results of individual parts of the mission planning. From now on it’s time to ask questions and to clarify minor problems to be able to conduct a safe flight. After the mission brief it’s time for the individual crew briefings. Safety aspects and crew-coordination are the main topics of this short briefing. When everything is cleared, each flight crew has to sign the flight order. On the screen besides this book the designated Tornado side number for the mission is displayed and also the location of the shelter in which the crew will find their “Baby”. “Nothing forgotten? O.K. let’s go to have some fun!” Relaxed words sound through the squadron while everybody gets to pick up their flight gear on the way to the crew bus or as it is also known - line taxi.
At the aircraft the maintenance crew will salute and inform the crew about the aircraft status. Then the pilot will have a look at the aircraft form 781 and the WSO has to check all the external load of the Tornado. While the pilot makes his walk-around, the WSO straps in and a moment later the pilot is also in his cockpit. The adventure can start now, or did it already start earlier? Who knows!