In 1979, author Richard Drury published his book My Secret War which was about his flying experiences during the Vietnam War. He flew the A1 Skyraider, a massive single engine fighter bomber. I recall one chapter that had me on the edge of my seat in the comfort of my home. I am sure Richard Drury will not mind if I take edited extracts from his wonderful book and use them here on Pprune. Because here was surely the epitome of fine airmanship - the subject of the original post. In loose formation at night with a second Skyraider, Drury was on the way to attack enemy ground formations near the infamous Ho Chi Minh Trail on the border of Laos.
He wrote: "We drifted in and out of clouds all the way to the target, which was Tchephone in Southern Laos, not a very hospitable location on the Ho Chi Minh Trail. Hank (the other Skyraider pilot) turned off his position lights some fifty miles out and I was visually alone, darting through clouds without natural horizon, generally on instruments. The target was a truck park in Tchepone, defined once again in terms of distance and heading from a faint white ground marker dropped from a Forward Air Controller.
I flipped the master arm switch on simultaneously with the roll in from 8500 feet, but nothing happened. The gun-sight was cold and dark. I punched the mike button to say that I couldn’t release anything but heard a break in the static and a lifeless transmitter. The cockpit lights which I had already dimmed went out entirely. Pulling out of the dive on indistinct instruments, I tried to communicate, but the radio was lifeless.
Then the generator warning light came on bright red. I attempted to reset the generator but that also failed. I recalled the words from all night briefings: “if you have a problem, just use the manual release handles and jettison everything. The explosions will let you know you are in trouble.” I flew over the target area and pulled both the outer and inner wing station handles and felt everything drop away.
With the trim set in the down position for dive-bombing, the aircraft entered a violent dive when I pulled the manual release handles. I was nervous enough when suddenly the cockpit started filling with smoke and the instrument panel was nearly obscured. The propeller started to surge and sparks poured through the exhausts stacks.
I pulled down my clear visor to cover my eyes and tightened my straps for the exit. Fighting the nose down trim and smoke I thought about being captured once again, the vision of being lashed to a tree and skinned alive that many of our companions had faced before. Then the propeller stopped surging and the sparks went away. But the smoke was still there. It was stinging my eyes and smelled like a real electrical calamity had taken place.
I unzipped my flight-suit pocket, took out my little flashlight, held it between my teeth and attempted to fly with what was left. The only thing that appeared workable for navigation was the magnetic compass, the one we referred to as the standby compass. It sat atop the instrument panel and pointed roughly west. I swung to the right and attempted to set out northwest. The attitude indicator started turning upside down, toppling without power, and I used every ounce of determination to avoid looking at it to keep from believing I was really turning upside down. The heavy stick began to hurt my arm since all that down trim created a series of oscillations which carried me roughly a thousand feet either side of the altitude I was trying to maintain.
It occurred to me that perhaps my survival radio would work, and I unzipped it from the little pocket in my vest and opened the canopy enough to stick out the extended aerial which was something like the whip antenna on portable radios. Alternating between voice and the emergency beeper, I received nothing. As I ended the procedures for generator failure, the smoke began to filter from the cockpit and after a short time I was once able to breathe clear air. The magnetic compass still showed northwest and I kept it in that direction.
We had flown southeast to the target for some forty minutes, which had been partially in a departure pattern; so, figuring that a three-mile-a-minute airplane would do around ninety miles in half an hour, I tossed in the forecast winds and derived thirty two minutes on my heading. It should put the airplane directly over the base. I calmed down a bit, changing from stark terror into a more relaxed frame of mind.
The weather was still there, and I tried to keep the airplane upright using the standby compass and its fluid level. It was a rather impossible task, and fortunately I would break out of cloud decks in time to accurately determine aircraft attitude, which was usually a matter of being in a steep bank. It was tiring and hard work but it was taking me home. For thirty-two minutes I kept the machine going, flying with less than precision but with brute forced and physical endurance and great amounts of willpower.
In that moment of time I was over a thin layer of cloud through which I saw lights, bright lights. I reduced power and broke out directly over the town of Nakhon Phanom. The field lights twinkled in the distance under some low clouds. I smiled, I laughed, I sat back weary yet delighted.
Skimming the cloud bottoms, I flew by the tower flashing my flashlight and moving the throttle to get some attention. As I was, I was flying a phantom ghost ship across the runway, lights out. I saw no return light, so I continued down the field until the boundary, where I made a sort of tear-drop shaped reversal and came back for a landing. The flaps wouldn’t go down, nor would the indicators indicate, since the electrical system was out, but I leaned out of the open canopy and watched the gear move forward into position, the knee caps on the struts showing I had wheels down. Blessed are the basics of aviation where a pilot can stick his head out and see things. The wind felt good and cool. Cloud drifted across the end of the runway and light drizzle sprayed the cockpit. I took the flashlight and placed it in my left hand, which also held the throttle. With quick flashes I was able to see the airspeed indicator. Over the threshold I turned out the light and made a blackout landing on the wet runway.
It was hard to believe that I had gone off into night combat over Laos, fought the weather, waged battle over enemy territory, had the emergency, almost panicked, made it back and was home