Sierra Hotel: Flying Air Force Fighters in the Decade After Vietnam (Paperback)

CHAPTER 1

Fallen Comrades
Oh, there are no fighter pilots down in Hell."

On November 2, 1969, an F-4D from the 555th Tactical Fighter Squadron (TFS) ripped along at high speed and low altitude above a dirt road through northern Laos. The big fighter essed back and forth across the track so the two-man crew could look for targets to strike-North Vietnamese supplies earmarked for use against U.S. forces and their allies. The jet's weaving flight path also made it more difficult for antiaircraft gunners to track the green, black, and tan camouflaged Phantom II. Suddenly, a single .50 caliber bullet smashed through the canopy quarter-panel and struck the back-seater in the chest. Only two years out of college, 1st Lt. Richard Lance Honey bled to death in the time. it took his pilot to race at supersonic speed to the nearest air base.
Four decades have seen bitter debate among Americans about the morality of the war in Vietnam. Yet, to a fighter pilot, the answer to the question of why Rick Honey was in Southeast Asia was an casy one: his nation called. Others have written the story of why America asked him to be there, but this is a chronicle of fighter pilots, not politicians. The fighter pilot wonders why Honey was in such a vulnerable position where a golden BB could snuff out his life. "What were they doing right?" he might think, and "What were they doing wrong?"
Their call sign was Laredo 03, and their mission was to find targets along the stretch of dirt highway known as Route 7. The small, dusty road, not much more than a country lane, ran from the Laos-North Vietnam border westward to the Plain of Jars in central Laos. Laredo 03 was a fast forward air controller (FAC) mission. Once they found a target, typically a truck or two, or perhaps a poorly hidden supply cache, they would rendezvous with other fighters, guide them to the target, mark it with a white phosphorous smoke rocket, and then direct the other fighters' bombs onto the target. The scheme of fast FACs directing flights of other fighters onto small targets was the predominant interdiction tactic used in Laos along the Ho Chi Minh Trail, but it was very ineffective. Even the fast FAC familiar with his area had a difficult time finding targets, because he had to fly fast enough to survive AAA (antiaircraft artillery), and he had to fly high enough to stay out of the small arms fire such as that which killed Honey.