I was also introduced to Korean food. I found it spicy but I ate it with caution. After Muff’s warning about kimchi, I avoided it on days before I flew.
The Korean mission was different from the recon mission I was used to. We weren’t over there to take pictures; we were there to listen. Instead of loading a camera in the nose, cylindrical pods approximately 20 feet long were loaded under the wings. The left pod was installed for balance only; it was empty. The right pod could be opened and loaded with electronic gear on its internal racks. A variety of electronic equipment could be loaded hence the name given to our mission, ELINT, which stood for electronic intelligence gathering. We never knew exactly what they were loading in the racks but it was our understanding that this equipment could monitor phone calls and even uplink these calls to a satellite, which would relay the information to the NSA. All of this occurred real time.
When we flew we stayed south of the border. The normal mission would last eight or nine hours, with a takeoff at either 7:00 a.m. or 7:00 p.m.. Our flight pattern included eight waypoints, which were loaded into the Omega, the aircraft navigation system. The autopilot would fly the points in order, 1 through 8, and the resultant flight path looked like a figure eight.
I was a rookie in Korea but the other two pilots were very experienced. Each had been here two or three times. Dave Kantor was married with no children; Ken Stafford was single.
Dave was known as the “Corvette Man.” The armed forces had a special deal with General Motors. This deal allowed overseas airmen to purchase new cars at a great discount, basically at cost. The purchaser would order the car while he was overseas and the car would be waiting for him when he returned to the states. Dave bought a new Corvette every year. When he got back to the states, he picked up his car and drove it home. He then sold his “old” Corvette for more than he paid for it. He always had a new car and he always made money on the deal. He was smart and lucky.
I was acting as mobile for Dave one day at Osan. Dave was doing the standard mission with the morning departure so there was not a lot of flight planning involved. I had pre-flighted his airplane earlier, and then joined him at the PSD building as he completed his pre-breathing. Once that was done, he climbed on the van for the ride out to the airplane. I followed along in the chase car. While Dave sat in the van, I rechecked the cockpit to ensure it was set up just the way he liked it.
Dave climbed out of the van and into the airplane. The techs connected him to the airplane’s air conditioning and oxygen systems. When they finished, I hopped up beside the cockpit and gave all his connections one last look. He was ready so I gave him the thumbs up and he closed the canopy. The maintenance guys pulled the steps away and he started the engine. We followed him out to the end of the runway.
Security was very tight at Osan. The airplane was stored in a hangar when not flying. In order to get to the runway we had to taxi across a public road. The Security Police stopped traffic on both sides to allow the aircraft to taxi across. One of the vehicles waiting for Dave to taxi across the road was a workers’ bus filled with early morning commuters coming on base. A security policeman noticed someone with a camera at one of the bus’s windows. The policeman boarded the bus and took the film from every camera on the bus, whether it was used or not. Once the bus was film-free, Dave resumed his taxi to the runway.
When I acted as mobile, I always rolled down my window after the airplane had been cleared for takeoff. It was easier to see or hear if anything was amiss than if I was sitting in the car with the window full up. The weather that day was typical Osan winter weather. A solid cloud layer started at 1,000 feet and went up to about 12,000 feet. Dave’s airplane looked good as he powered up and roared down the runway.
The U-2 on takeoff is an extremely loud airplane. Standing at the end of the runway for the takeoff was a bone-rattling experience. After the airplane rotated for takeoff, it climbed very quickly. Dave’s airplane disappeared into the clouds in seconds. As I started to roll down the runway to retrieve the pogos, suddenly there was dead silence. I couldn’t see his airplane but that sudden cutoff of noise meant only one thing. Dave’s engine had quit.
I stared up at the clouds and saw his airplane break out the bottom of the cloud layer, still silent. He continued to descend but could not land. He was too high, his gear was up, and he was too fast. No sooner had I seen his airplane come out of the clouds I heard a tremendous roar. He had restarted the engine, and then, just as quickly as he had popped below the clouds, he pulled up and disappeared into them again. I ran to the radio to find out what the hell was going on. Dave told me that the engine quit as soon as he entered the clouds. He maintained his heading and pitched the nose over while hitting the start button. He broke out of the bottom and was reaching for the ejection seat handle when the engine restarted. He said it seemed to be running OK now so he elected to continue. He came back on schedule eight hours later.
If the engine had not restarted, Dave would have ejected. The U-2 ejection seat was state-of-the-art. The same seat was in the SR-71. It was a “0/0” seat. This meant that it would safely eject the pilot while sitting still on the ground — 0 speed and 0 altitude.
When Dave returned from this mission, the maintenance techs did a thorough inspection of the engine and found nothing amiss. It was just one of those things.
About a week later, it was Ken’s turn to fly with Dave acting as his mobile. This time Ken had another engine problem but nothing like the one Dave had.
Ken had the morning departure and all looked good for his 7:00 a.m. launch. The weather was not only bad at Osan; the entire Korean peninsula was fogged in. Every U-2 mission had a thorough weather briefing. The pilot needed to know where to go if he couldn’t land back at his origination station. That morning, his weather alternate was Kunsan Air Base, southwest of Osan. The ceiling and visibility at Kunsan were low but were adequate for a normal alternate.
Ken was two hours into his flight when he had a serious engine problem. This, coupled with weather conditions, made for an emergency situation. The J-75 engine in the U-2 was normally operated at a high Exhaust Gas Temperature (EGT). If the EGT was exceeded, a red warning light illuminated and the pilot would pull back on the throttle. You didn’t want to leave the red light on because doing so risked an engine failure or fire. Ken saw the red light come on and throttled back slightly. This would normally bring the EGT down and extinguish the light. That day it didn’t work; the light stayed on. So he reduced it a little more and the EGT came down, but then climbed right back up and turned on the light.
Ken reviewed his options. He had to get the airplane into position at an airport where he could make an engine out landing. He needed good weather for that and there was no good weather in Korea. In fact, the nearest place he could take the airplane was Okinawa, Japan; a distance of about 800 miles across the East China Sea. He informed all the appropriate agencies about his plans and he turned the airplane towards Japan. The engine would run for about 20 minutes before it started to overtemp. He would pull the throttle to idle and, in order to stay on speed, start descending. He then pushed the power up, started climbing, and watched the EGT climb. When the red light came on, it was back to idle and another descent. He did this vertical zigzag all the way to Okinawa. When he finally reached Okinawa the EGT climbed into the red even in idle power. Ken set himself up for an engine out approach and landing and then shut down his engine. He made an uneventful engine out landing and for his effort, didn’t have to buy a drink at the Officers Club that night.