Wilson was confused. The position Hofmeister had pointed to was right in the middle of the Caribbean basin, over 200 miles from the nearest land. His pilots could operate “blue water” and depend on tanker aircraft to keep them fueled if they had difficulty getting aboard. But what was there to do out there? The drills Meyerkopf wanted to do could be done here, near Puerto Rico, just as easily, and the current location would allow his pilots better training opportunities.
“What are we doing now?” Weed muttered next to him. Wilson nodded slightly, hoping Hofmeister, who was on his best behavior with the admiral and the other heavies sitting in front of him, had some good news.
“While the ship is in this vicinity,” said Hof as he pointed again to their destination, “we’ll be engaged in an exercise called Assured Promise, which will involve training with local air forces in Panama and Colombia. Each day and night we’ll have KC-135 and KC-10 tankers to fill you guys up before you bump heads with these guys to exercise their air defense systems.”
The aviators perked up. Yes! Dissimilar Air Combat Training! And “gas” from big wing Air Force tankers. Lots of it, for them to burn! This was turning into a good deal after all, and the cheesy name of this exercise, Assured Promise, could be ignored like all the other politically correct names the heavies in Washington or SOUTHCOM gave these things. Whatever.
“The Colombians fly refurbished Kfir’s sold to them by Israel. They are older jets but are capable of Mach 2 and present a forward quarter threat. They also have a modified 767 tanker you guys may be getting gas from. The Panamanians have nothing more than light civil aircraft in their glorified police force, but the Air Guard is sending a Viper squadron from South Dakota and an F-15 squadron from New Orleans to give us some good training. They and the big wing tankers will be operating out of the old Howard Air Force Base at the southern end of the canal.”
Cool! Wilson thought as he and the other aviators murmured their approval. Hofmeister shifted gears.
“We also have riders here from the Operational Test and Evaluation Force staff who will be flying with you. They will be working with the guided missile destroyer USS Max Leslie which has a Fire Scout UAV detachment aboard, evaluating it for fleet interoperability. Part of that evaluation is to release inert practice ordnance on floating targets and smokes. They will be operating independently. Welcome aboard, gentlemen.”
Weed whispered to his friend, “Damn, was hoping to get a fun fighter weps hop with you instead of the test profile crap we have to fly.”
“Maybe we can work you in,” Wilson offered.
“Maybe, but the coke-bottle engineers on Mad Max have a test program the size of a phone book, testing every little tron in every condition. Hope it works out, but I think our dance card is full.”
Wilson nodded. He felt a twinge of sadness for Weed, his roommate when they were in the Ravens. Both had air-to-air kills from the action five years ago with Iran, but Wilson had two, and he was now a squadron commander. Weed had gone to routine test duty, primarily a desk job at a backwater staff where promotion was not assured. It wasn’t fair, and Wilson was grateful Weed didn’t resent him for it. Hoped he didn’t. At least Weed was flying.
To move on to a new subject, Hofmeister changed the slide behind him.
“While out there you may come across go-fast boats, what we know as cigarette boats. These guys are carrying two to three tons of product, anything from cocaine to marijuana, and they are sometimes serviced by trawlers that they rendezvous with mid-ocean. If you see a go-fast, report it back to the ship: time, lat/long, course and speed, yadda yadda yadda. When these things get cranked up on a smooth sea, they can get up to eighty knots. Yes, eighty. If you come across a trawler with a bunch of 50-gallon drums on the fantail, that boat is operating illegally. In either case, report it and we’ll relay the info to the Coast Guard. If they have a cutter nearby with a helo or a rigid hull inflatable, they can deal with it as a law-enforcement issue. You can’t — so just report back.”
One of the squadron commanding officers asked if they could contact a cutter direct to help coordinate an intercept. Hofmeister looked at the admiral and captain for guidance. Not receiving any, he answered, “Well, you could talk to them on emergency GUARD or find them on an HF frequency, but we don’t have any plan to assign discrete frequencies for direct coordination.” He looked again to his leadership for help, and CAG Matson stood up to address the group.
“Guys, we are not going to get involved with prosecuting the War on Drugs beyond reporting what you see, just as we would with any surface contact of interest. Maybe the E-2 will vector you to identify something for them, but that’s pretty much it. Same with low-slow fliers, and it is unlikely we’ll see any of those. This interdiction stuff is in the Coast Guard lane, and to keep all of us busy, we have our exercise and the ship has their engineering drills. If you see something unusual, sing out, and we’ll task some of the sorties to do routine surface search around the ship as we always do. Nothing new here.”
That was fine with Wilson, but he remained skeptical. Why bring the ship way down here, except to placate the State Department? Or the general in SOUTHCOM who wants some toys to play with so he can pretend to be a big time theater commander? Whatever the real reason, there were worse places to operate. Maybe, on the way home, they would get a port visit to Fort Lauderdale as a reward.
When Admiral Meyerkopf rose to leave, the room popped to attention. With the Captain and CAG in trail, he waited until he was almost outside before he released them with a terse “Seats.”
Annie gave Weed a smile. “Well, you gonna fly with us?”
Gesturing to Wilson, Weed answered. “If Kemosabe here will have me! Actually, we have about eight of us from OPTEVFOR on this test program. Seriously, can I bring one of my pilots to join the Firebird ready room? We’ll pay for the gas we use, and you’ll get extra sorties to pad your total. What a deal!”
Wilson smiled and nodded. “Sure, but who is the pilot? Not Chainsaw?”
Just then an imposing lieutenant commander in a flight suit walked toward the group. Well over six feet tall, he held Wilson’s gaze with his unsmiling, cold dark eyes as he approached. Weed introduced them.
“Flip, Annie, this is Keith Meadows, one of our flight test pilots. Mongo, this is Skipper Wilson and XO Schofield.”
Mongo, tight-lipped and businesslike, threw in a curt sir and ma’am as he shook hands with the two commanders. Having his hand squeezed like a vise did not leave a favorable impression on Wilson. He’d seen this air of condescending superiority and evil-eye gaze before in the overachieving population of fighter pilots he part of, but it was rare. There were many, many more gregarious Weeds than taciturn Mongos.