“Good morning, gentlemen, welcome to Whiteman Air Force Base,” General Wright began. “I’m Brigadier General Tom Wright, commander of the 509th Bomb Wing, the home of four thousand dedicated men and women who take care of the world’s most sophisticated warplane, the B-2A Spirit stealth bomber. As you may know, the 509th has the distinction of being the only American military unit to employ nuclear weapons in anger—as the 509th Bomb Group, we dropped the first two nuclear bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in World War Two. Our unit crest is the only military crest authorized to depict a mushroom cloud on it. We take great pride in our past as well as responsibility and leadership in our future.
“Today, we employ a weapon system that is far more sophisticated and far more important to our national defense than the thermonuclear device—the B-2A Spirit stealth bomber. We will be introducing you to the world’s deadliest war machine by giving you a short unclassified background briefing on the aircraft, a thirty-minute classified familiarization ride in the B-2A Weapon Systems Trainer, a tour of our facilities, a meeting with some of the outstanding officers and airmen of our major units, and of course a look at the aircraft itself. Without further ado, I’d like to introduce you to the 509th Operations Group commander and our most experienced B-2A aircraft commander and instructor, Colonel Tony ‘Tiger’ Jamieson, who will conduct today’s simulator familiarization session. Colonel Jamieson?”
Jamieson had already set up all the standard briefing stuff, and he flipped on the digital slide projector and got to his feet: “Thank you, sir. I’m Tony Jamieson, Operations Group commander here at Whiteman. I’m responsible for overall operational and administrative charge of five squadrons in the wing, about two thousand men and women, dealing directly with combat flying activities, training, and deployment: the 393rd Bomb Squadron ‘Tigers,’ the first operational B-2A squadron; the 715th Bomb Squadron ‘Eagles,’ which is due to receive its first B-2A aircraft later this year; the 509th Air Refueling Squadron Griffiths,’ which fly the KC-135R Stratotanker aerial refueling tankers; and the 4007th Combat Crew Training Squadron ‘Senseis,’ which fly the T-1A Jayhawk and T-38 Talon jet trainers and operate the B-2A part- and full-task weapons-system simulators. The Senseis conduct all B-2A initial, recurrent, and instructor ground and flight training.
Also under my chain of command is the 509th Operational Support Squadron, which include the life support, weapons loaders, flight line security, weather, intelligence, and mission-planning officers.
“My job is simple: provide General Wright with the maximum number of mission-ready tactical aircrews ready to go to war at a moment’s notice,” Jamieson went on. “We do this by maintaining a rigorous training schedule to keep all crews fully proficient, including using the simulators and Jayhawk jet trainers for normal proficiency training, thereby maximizing the number of bombers and tankers available to go to war. We feel the combination of the part-task and full-motion simulators and the specially configured Jayhawks can keep our crews proficient without too much training time in the bomber itself, which allows us to deploy the B-2A as much as possible without sacrificing capability or training—in fact, we can deploy all of our B-2A bombers overseas and still train aircrews to full mission capable status here at home.
“The name of the game here at Whiteman is ‘quick strike’—the ability to successfully strike any assigned target anywhere in the world with any weapon in our arsenal within twenty-four hours of a warning order,” Jamieson continued. “In simple terms, in case of war or if ordered to deploy to an overseas base, my group and I move as a team as quickly as possible, brief and launch the combat-ready bombers and tankers, load our prepositioned mobility packages into the first available transport planes, and begin attack operations and/or deploy to our forward operating location, depending on our orders.”
“I hate to burst Colonel Jamieson’s obvious pride hubble,” General Samson interjected with a smile, turning toward the stranger, “but I must add that the 509th is not yet fully mission ready. We’re at least a year ahead of our planned initial operational capability schedule of January one in the year 2000, and we could fly combat missions with the ten planes we have here right now, but the 509th won’t be officially combat capable for another year or two.”
Jamieson took a deep breath as he clicked the button and brought up the next slide. Man, this was a total waste of his time, he thought. The VIP looked disinterested and distracted, as if thinking about a hundred things happening thousands of miles away.
Probably already has his report written, Jamieson concluded.
“This morning, after showing you around the base a bit,” he went on, “we will present an overview of the 509th Bomb Wing organization, a briefing on current and near-future technology, then present standard flight mission planning profile in the-“
“Colonel, we can stop this right here,” General Samson said, holding up a hand. “Tony, I apologize. I’ve had to lead you on a bit. My orders were to conceal the real purpose of this visit as much as possible using my own discretion, so I made this visit look like a VIP tour. It isn’t.” He motioned to the civilian seated beside him and said to Jamieson, “Tony, I want you to give this gentleman a full B-2A emergency procedures simulator check ride.”
Jamieson nearly dropped his jaw in surprise. Was this some kind of joke? “Of course, sir,” Jamieson responded sarcastically.
“Give a check ride in the B-2A stealth bomber to a civilian. Not an orientation ride, but a check ride. Yes, sir.” He turned to the stranger with an amused grin and asked, “So. How did you do on your open-book and closed-book exams, sir?”
“I think I did pretty good, Colonel,” the VIP replied, in a deep, monotone voice, opening his briefcase.
Jamieson scowled at the guy’s smart-ass comeback, then laughed as if dismissing the thought of this guy passing a B-2A bomber crew-member exam. But all traces of humor disappeared when the VIP picked out a folder with a red TOP SECRET cover sheet on it, and extracted a single sheet of paper—a 509BMW Form 88, “B-2A Record of Aircrew Training and Performance.” Jamieson examined the form with a dumbfounded expression, then muttered, “What is this shit?”
“It’s all genuine, Colonel,” the VIP said, as if reading Jamieson’s mind. He had indeed finished his open-book and closed-book exams, with near-perfect marks, along with a 100 on a “bold print” emergency procedures test, a complete publications inspection—this guy apparently had a complete and up-to-date set of B-2A tech orders, including the classified ITO-B-2A-25-1 weapons-delivery manual—an oral exam, and a complete Class 1 flight physical and psychological stress exam. He was even certified under the Personnel Reliability Program, the program used to certify any person who had responsibility for nuclear weapons or components. A few of the sign-off blocks had been blacked out so he couldn’t read who the evaluator was, but all of the other blocks were signed off by Eighth Air Force Standardization/Evaluation instructors, with General Steve Shaw himself, the four-star commander of Air Combat Command, in charge of all Air Force combat air forces, as the final approving authority.
“Yeah, right. And I’m the Prince of fucking Wales,” Jamieson snapped. He swung around to Samson and tossed the form on the table. “What’s going on, General? Who is this guy? Why is Eighth Air Force Stan/Eval signing him off?”
“Tony, I’ll answer all the questions you have … later …
maybe,” Samson said. “But all your questions will be moot if this gentleman can’t fly. I need you to give him an EP check ride.”