Page 53 - Never Fly Solo

26 | NEVER FLY SOLO
“Stroke Three, c’mon, break right! Break right!” blared
the frantic voice of the flight lead.
“SAM launch!” yelled another.
“Stroke Three, go southeast . . . now!”
“Break right! Break right! Stroke Three, break right!”
“OK, Stroke Three is OK. Wait . . . another SAM lock!
Another SAM lock!”
Silence.
The frenzied voices in ET’s headset caused him to climb,
dip, roll, and push his F-16 to the limit of its capacity.
No less than six SAMs were launched at ET that evening,
and any one of them could have ended his life in an eye
blink.
But ET wasn’t flying solo. His wingmen were monitoring
his every move as well as the enemy’s—they had his back.
They were checking his six.
Check six is fighter pilot terminology for watching your
teammate’s back. It refers to the six o’clock position, where
the jet is most vulnerable. It’s the pilot’s blind spot.
When a fighter pilot is strapped into the tiny cockpit of
an F-16, he can barely move. Clamped into a mask and hel-
met, with a lap belt cinched across his waist, and a shoulder
harness lashing him to the seat back, he can wiggle side to side
only three or four inches. This lack of mobility and the back
end of the jet make it all but impossible to see your own six
o’clock.
Let’s do a quick exercise. Without cheating (remember,
you have only a few inches to move), try to turn your head
and body enough to look directly behind you at your six
o’clock. Just about impossible, right? Now imagine someone
is seated five to ten feet to your right, and look over there. I
bet it’s a lot easier to see your wingman’s six o’clock than to
see your own!