Muff had several nuggets of information to share. The U-2, in addition to its Photo Recon and Electronic INTelligence (ELINT) missions, was often tasked to fly special missions for the Department of Agriculture. Muff had flown one of these missions. He surveyed a large swath of western Kansas that was to be evaluated for a proposed water distribution system for large farm operations. Muff had flown out to Kansas, done the survey, and was on his way back to Beale when things went awry. He was about 100 miles out at 72,000 feet when he pulled the power back to descend and the engine quit. Muff was not in a hurry, he knew the glide ratio of the airplane so he wasn’t concerned about making it back to Beale.
The glide ratio compares how many feet forward the aircraft will fly for every foot it descends while gliding. For example, an aircraft with a glide ratio of 2:1 will fly two feet forward for every foot it descends; alternatively, a rock has a glide ratio of 0:1. The U2 has a glide ratio of 23:1, which gives it a range of a little over 300 miles. Muff continued toward the airport, ran through his checklists and considered his options. Since the airplane had no hydraulic flight controls it flew exactly the same with the engine running or shut down, so he had that going for him. The weather was good and he could comfortably reach Beale, so there was no reason for him to try to go anywhere else. As he descended, he kept trying to restart the engine. He tried five starts, all failed. As he came through 10,000 feet he tried one more, and this time it worked. He landed uneventfully and handed the airplane over to maintenance.
The next story he told me didn’t come out as neatly as the first one. This one occurred while he was overseas at Osan Air Base, Korea. Muff’s mission was to monitor a North Korean munitions test. This was a high priority mission that our Intel people had to have. Muff had an early morning departure and he was expected to be airborne for about eight hours. The previous night he had a generous helping of the Korean specialty, Kimchi, which is made by sealing cabbage, daikon radishes, and several potent spices in clay vessels. These jars are then buried in the ground for months to cure. Kimchi can be very spicy.
Muff felt fine the next morning as he prepared for his flight. He ate his normal pre-flight breakfast and did his one-hour of pre-breathing. He continued to feel good until about two hours into the mission. The spicy Korean cabbage was definitely causing some distress south of the border — Muff’s, not the Korean’s.
He knew he was in trouble but the mission was too important to abort. He felt the irresistible urge and fought it as long as he could. He finally surrendered and dumped in his suit. This was not good. At that point he still had over five hours to go, so he sat in it and flew the mission as planned. By the time he returned, he was in agony. He spent the next four days at the base hospital being treated for a severe case of adult diaper rash. And they had to throw away his pressure suit.
Another fellow U-2 pilot was Rich Boyle. Rich was the first person I met when I came to Beale to start my medical evaluation. Rich had been in the squadron about 15 months. He acted as my squadron liaison and introduced me to the squadron staff. When I arrived at Beale in July 1977, Rich had just returned from a two month TDY in Cyprus. The primary Cyprus mission was monitoring the Middle East peace. Egypt, Israel, Lebanon and Syria had all agreed to allow U-2 overflights. A thorough photo recon of the entire area ensured that no one was cheating on the peace accords. Since none of the signees knew when a mission would be launched it kept all the players honest.
While in Cyprus, Rich was scheduled for a high priority mission. This was a photo recon mission scheduled to fly up through Turkey, then northeast along the Bulgarian and Romanian border. He wasn’t told what he was looking for, only that his route of flight was strictly controlled with no deviations permitted. This type of high security mission through multiple borders and international waterways required diplomatic clearances from all countries involved, and was not easily obtainable. The State Department was able to get these clearances but it took over six months to do so. Once the clearances were obtained, the flight was arranged and Rich would fly it. The eight-hour flight was scheduled to depart in the early morning. The photo target of this flight was in Eastern Romania.
The squadron navigators would prepare 8 ½” x 11” green waypoint boards for the pilots. These boards listed the overfly waypoints from top to bottom. Special instructions for each waypoint were marked along the right-hand column of the card. When the pilot reached the last waypoint on a card, he selected the next card and worked his way down it. The highest number of cards I’ve seen was eight.
One of the important remarks along the side of the card was “camera on.” Rich reached the point in the mission and saw the “camera on” prompt. He reached over and engaged the switch. The switch had three positions: OFF, NEUTRAL, and ON. When the camera switch was ON, a small green light next to it illuminated. Rich continued following the waypoint boards until he saw the “camera off” prompt. He reached for the switch and was shocked at the absence of the green light. Unfortunately for Rich, he had placed the switch in the NEUTRAL position. The camera was never turned on.
That’s when the awful truth washed over him. All this mission planning, international clearances, and State Department negotiations were wasted. All the hard work by the support staff, the navigators, the maintenance people who prepared the airplane, and the back-up pilot had all been for naught. There was no do-over. He couldn’t turn around and try it again. This was a one-time clearance and he had FUBARed it (Fucked Up Beyond All Recognition). He had the whole way back to Cyprus to think about it. He couldn’t feel any worse than he did. It took Rich a long time to forgive himself for that one.
My neighbor across the street was also in my squadron. Major Dave “Doc” Hall was the official old guy in the squadron. He actually had grey hair. He had been around a while and had seen some interesting things. Doc had two experiences he was willing to share with me. The first one concerned a flight he had taken two years earlier.
This flight departed from Diego Garcia. This footprint-shaped atoll is located south of the equator in the central Indian Ocean. It is part of the British Indian Ocean Territory. The U.S. Navy operates the Naval Support Facility that includes an air base. Diego Garcia is about as remote a location as one can imagine. It sits in the middle of the ocean with nothing else around it for hundreds of miles. Doc had flown down there earlier in the week from Cyprus. He was positioned there to fly a photo recon mission over Somalia, East Africa. Diego Garcia was the closest launch point for a Somalia mission. Flight planning was crucial because of the fuel supply. One of the factors Doc had to consider on this flight was his navigation planning. His Omega navigation system, the primary system he would use on this flight, had been written up on a previous flight as being inoperative. Maintenance had fixed it and signed off on it.
The long flight to and from Somalia would take about 9 hours and 30 minutes. This left only about one hour for photo recon once he reached the target. The flight over to Somalia took 4 hours and 45 minutes. Doc spent about 45 minutes photographing the target. He finished his photo run and turned back out to sea; Diego Garcia was 4 hours and 45 minutes away. This was the beginning of a stressful series of events that would make for a long night.