Ford sat in the weakly lit, air-conditioned trailer, eyes glued to bright video and data screens, while his hands were on the small stick and throttle. Next to him was his old friend and B-1 copilot, Tiffany “Pinky” Pinkerton, invited, screened, and completely read in to the operation.
Pinky, small, petite, and athletic, wearing a short brown bob and an aura of confidence, could handle her own in a mostly male aviation world. An Air Force Academy graduate recruited for women’s soccer, she received her top choice of “pilot” upon graduation. Her personality was as a perfectionist, self-critical but bold in her actions. She had good decision-making skills, was smart and sharp, and was a rule follower. And attractive, too, earning the Miss Black America beauty contest title a few years ago at nineteen years old.
Pinky was also a fighter for equality, fighting for her right to be considered for leadership positions throughout her career. Racist critics were always making comments just outside earshot of her, constantly wondering if she was accepted to the academy or a coveted pilot position due her race. All she ever asked for was the opportunity to compete equally and fairly, as Pinky was just as clever, ambitious, and gifted as anyone else at the academy or in the air force. Her top performance as a mathematics major at the academy demonstrated her capabilities, and she graduated from the Colorado Springs school with honors and a smile. Her parents taught her well and were proud.
Because of her strong pilot performance, Ford selected her to accompany him to India to fly the Black Scorpion out of Asia and into America. She wouldn’t be with him in the B-2, but it was important they train together as a crew for the actual flight. Just yards away, many aircrews were doing real-world missions, but today Ford and Pinky were just learning the ropes on an RPA simulator.
The technical challenge Ford had was that he would have only one instrument panel screen to view on his laptop, one without a camera available, where normally one would be in use to see outside the cockpit. In comparison, RPA pilots had six screens to use to fly the MQ-1 Predator, RQ-4 Global Hawk, or MQ-9 Reaper drones between two aircrew. The newer RQ-170 Sentinel (Wraith) was next in their lineup.
One thing in their favor was the standard layout of flight instruments located in the cockpit. Every cockpit in the world, even the NASA space shuttle fleet, had a standard flight instrument panel layout. This standardization allowed all pilots to fly globally in a variety of cockpits with only some basic familiarization of flight instruments. The attitude indicator was always in the center, the altimeter was always on the top right, and so on. These flight instruments provided the pilots with information about the aircraft, such as altitude, airspeed, and direction. Ford, once getting the laptop up and running, would immediately recognize all the Black Scorpion instruments and gauges. These instruments would allow them to fly the aircraft in all attitudes and altitudes, takeoffs and landings, turns and level flight, and if needed, without a visible horizon.
Located in the standard instruments were an airspeed indicator, an altimeter, a compass, an artificial horizon, rate-of-turn indicator, a slip-skid indicator, and a clock. Some advanced aircraft cockpits, like the Gulfstream 650ER have four glass screens called electronic flight instrument systems, which was similar to what Devil Dragon had installed.
The contracted instructor, retired Master Sergeant Bill Myers, USAF, was standing behind Ford and moved the headset mic closer to his mouth. All Bill knew about Ford and Pinky was that they needed a few days orientation training on an RPA, with no other information provided.
Sporting his trademark muscular tattooed arms and handlebar mustache, he provided encouragement to Ford in the trailer. In his gruff voice, he coached the pilots. “Ford, you’re doing fine here. Don’t forget that you won’t have a need for shooting a Hellfire, or constant video surveillance over mountains, deserts, and oceans,” said Bill. “Fly the basics here. Keep your scan going. Basic instrument scan. Pinky, back him up. Use your own IFR scan, too. Make sure you tune up your NAVAIDs all the time.”
IFR was the acronym for instrument flight rules, or flying by instruments only and not looking outside visually. NAVAIDs was the nickname for navigational aids, signals coming from the ground or GPS satellite providing navigational guidance to aircraft.
Ford kept up his instrument scan and flew precisely on the route instructed. “Thanks, Bill. Can you share with us anything on the downlink? How do these aircraft communicate?” Ford asked, looking to gain more information since his classroom brief.
This was complicated, so Bill paused the simulation. “You mean how does a flight crew here at Creech control an RPA halfway around the world?”
Both Ford and Pinky replied back with a yes.
“Both easy and difficult to explain. Here it is as simple as I can make it. Fiber optics to Europe, then a satellite uplink, then to a Pred or whatever RPA you got. Pred video is from Pred to satellite to here in reverse. Launch and Recovery is similar, but, as you know, requires folks on scene to help. On the ground. Does that answer your question?” Pred was the nickname for Predator, a US Air Force unmanned aircraft.
“I guess so. Get more technical. I want to hear more,” Ford answered, being a smart ass. Bill was crusty, but he didn’t get Ford’s humor. Ford didn’t want to hear any more.
It actually was way more complicated than Bill was making it out to be, but he answered anyway. “OK, Ford. You asked. There’re videos, full-motion videos, secure comms, satcoms, and chats to deal with. The complex system that the Defense Information Systems Agency had set up uses difficult-to-comprehend Asynchronous Transfer Mode transmission technology. It’s enough to make anyone’s head spin. This ATM cell relay, or fixed-sized cells, is internet protocol for variable-sized packets and frames. I learned about it on Google because the manuals are too technical. This switching method used by the commercial telecommunication networks uses asynchronous time-division multiplexing to encode the data into small, fixed-sized cells and…”
“Hold up, Bill. Hang on. I had enough. Google or not. I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Ford replied, zoning out and thinking about hitting the casino floors with a drink in a few hours.
“Jeez. OK. Let’s get back to the mission then. Unpausing the sim,” Bill said, laughing, shaking his head.
The airframes technicians from the Black Scorpion team were finishing the ducting work on the left wing and were about ready for a maintenance inspection. The light stands were all huddled about one area, ensuring the men could see their precise work. One buckle of the airframe at high speeds could rip the wing off, and a small buckle would ruin their stealth capability.
“You done? You done?” asked the chief of maintenance to the men, attempting to hurry them along. What he wanted was a rush job, but as safe as possible.
“A few more long hours. Ready two nights from now, yes? Two nights. Two nights,” answered the shift supervisor.
The duct work in the wing was where hot air from the engines flowed internally to keep ice from building up in flight. The weather up at altitude was from cold, moist atmospheric environments that could lead to ice on the fuselage, wing, or engine inlets. No matter where ice ended up on an aircraft, it was bad news, so it was important that heat was used properly in all aircraft to prevent icing conditions. Not only did it change the aerodynamics of the wing, but added extra, unnecessary weight. Even unheated and exposed fuel lines to the engines that contained water in them could cause catastrophic failure. Ice meant internal blockage of fuel, working like a plug in the bottom of a bathtub.