Florida Earthquake? No Chance!

So there I was as lead of a two-ship flight in my trusty F/A-18 Hornet. After not flying for quite some time on our recent USS Neverdock deployment (Operation Unified Assistance for the tsunami off Sumatra Indonesia and the incredible United States ?military humanitarian relief) we were back at home with training requirements and money to get back up to battle speed. Wow! What a great feeling! I could think of no better way to train then to hit the road from NAS Western Sun to Orange Town AFB and spend a few days in Florida at some spring training games. After all, it was early March and that’s the best time for baseball down there. On the way we could do plenty of target acquisition and even a high fast flyer scenario out over the Gulf of Mexico. Awesome! Let’s do it.

After mission planning for the week prior to set up our trip, we were on our way on a beautiful Friday morning. Two great flights through Southwest AFB and NAS Mid States and we were about to rock and roll due south and see how fast we could get in our relatively new jets out over the Gulf. We coordinated an unrestricted afterburner climb out of Mid States and were cleared up to FL 230. Once we switched up to Center, I asked for direct on course which was due south. We were cleared. We were also cleared up to FL 450. After our continued burner climb up to 450, we throttled back a bit and enjoyed a beautiful sunset. Things were going great. I could almost hear the crack of the bat and taste a hot dog. And of course I could see the ladies cruising around for spring break with their bikinis on enjoying a few drinks out on the Gulf beaches … where I would also arrive.

We journeyed a bit further south and I asked for our previously coordinated block FL 400–500. We were approved. We lit the cans again and jumped up to 50,000 feet. I checked the winds at altitude … an impressive 275 at 175 knots! Man alive! The jet stream was pretty far south and earning a reputation! Coincidentally it also happened to be the coldest night in Southcoast City since winter. It was a great night for flying I thought, crisp and as clear as it can possibly be. As we got about due west of Orange Town AFB, we were cleared direct to the base. We were still at FL 500 so we relit the burners. We now headed due east about 150 miles out. We cruised through Mach 1 and settled ourselves in at 1.35. With the tailwind, Center tracked us at 975 mph which I thought was respectable in our fleet-configured aircraft. As we motored closer to the field, Center cleared us out of altitude down to 10,000 feet. We came out of burner at approximately 60 miles and were subsonic around 45 miles. Sweet! This is going to be great. The city was all lit up and we were almost there. And every training objective set for the outbound flight was met except for the section approach.

After arriving at the field with a normal landing, we were greeted warmly by the ground fellas. “What’s up guys? Great having you here. Hey, were you guys out fighting on your way in say about 15 minutes ago? We thought we heard something.” “No” I replied. “We were way out over the water.” After some more chitchat they drove us to base ops. As I walked into operations I noticed a fighter plane on their two TVs. Then the woman behind the desk asked me if I was the F/A-18 mission commander. I said yes. Her response (with a list of phone numbers in hand), “You need to call all of these people.” At this point my first reaction was I think I just lost my Wings of Gold. But there was no way! I planned this thing perfectly and I know we were way out there. Well as my confidence again started to climb thinking I knew I was right and did stellar preflight planning I was saddened by the TV —“Earthquake Magnitude 2.7 Strikes Florida.”

I first called the wing commander of Orange Town AFB. He told me not to worry about calling anyone else. He further inquired of what our ?mission was and did we go supersonic out over the Gulf. I told him we did but we were well within the DOD restrictions for supersonic flight. He was a cool customer fortunately for me. I then called my skipper who was out to a nice dinner with his wife. “Hey sir, the jets are safe on deck, but we have a minor issue.” He replied “Cool, what’s up Bloody?” “Well sir, … we are on the news right now for busting the number.” He too was very cool and asked if we screwed up. I told him I was 99.9 percent sure we were within our flight plan and outside the prerequisite range to the coast with a good margin to spare, but we also caused an earthquake from Gulf Coast West to Gulf Coast South. He replied “OK. Let me know what else if anything I need to know and keep me posted on what’s up.”

We were able to straighten it out as best we could with a little PR work and statements to the media. After a few more calls to the wing commander and then back to my skipper, things settled down. I was still a bit jittery though not knowing what repercussions would ensue the next morning or when I returned to NAS Western Sun. I guess having sensed this my skipper decided to call me back. He told me one of the coolest things a skipper has ever said to me. “Hey Bloody, don’t sweat this, get your ass out, have a good time and get to a game tomorrow. Enjoy the weekend.” That was a relief coming from him. I was glad most Navy fighter skippers remained great dudes with a junior officer attitude of sorts.

We departed the base and proceeded direct to the restaurant where most of the fare was free, thanks to other patrons as we were plastered all over the news until well after reasonable hours. The next morning the news had some info on the booms that apparently lasted upward of 15 seconds and shook even downtown Orange Town. We spent the first night at the base at the request and generosity of the Air Force.

The next day as we departed the base I asked the cab to take us to the best hotel downtown. He dropped us off at the Marriott. I proceeded to the desk, newspaper armament in hand. I asked for the manager, please. I asked if he heard any noise the night prior around 1900. As I asked, everyone from the staff, to the manager himself, to the people checking in said, “Yeah. Oh yeah! We all heard something.” My weapons now came into play … I showed him the two ?articles I gathered that morning and said, “That was us last night. I’m having a really bad weekend and I was hoping you could set us up with a sweet deal.” After reading the article he responded, “That was you guys? That’s pretty cool. The best I can do is a luxury suite for $99.” “DONE!” I replied. Afterwards we proceeded down to Orange Juice Burgs and didn’t buy a thing for the rest of the evening. That made it seem a bit more worth it.

The next day we saddled up for the quiet flight back to NAS Western Sun. After further review with Boeing, we were in fact cleared of any punitive action. That GPS plot showed our entire track in color with our supersonic portion highlighted in red. We were subsonic at 51 miles. Nice! I thought it was great training. You can’t get that just anywhere. Only in a kickass United States Navy Strike Fighter. Right away I was looking forward to my next road show.

Kickin’!!