Knights of the Air

From a special edition of the Colorado Springs Gazette, saluting the 50th anniversary of the Air Force Academy:

In just one minute and 29 seconds, all of Steve Ritchie’s training, experience and reflexes jelled. He felt no fear, no hesitation, no second thoughts.

It was the most perfect moment in his life.

Looking back more than 30 years later, Ritchie credits in large part the Air Force Academy for his survival and his triumph that day, and for many of the opportunities that followed.

It was July 8, 1972, and Ritchie, then a 30-yearold Air Force captain, was leading a flight of four F-4 Phantoms over Vietnam. Suddenly, a radar control plane 100 miles away picked up “two blue bandits” — two Russian-made MiG-21s — just north of his position.

During the next 89 seconds, Ritchie threw his big, smoky jet into a classic, low-altitude dogfight with lightning-fast turns and even a barrel roll. It ended with the two North Vietnamese jets exploding and plunging to earth.

They were Ritchie’s third and fourth air-to-air victories of the war.

Less than two months later, on Aug. 28, on his second tour and his 339th combat mission, Ritchie downed his fifth MiG.

That magic number made Ritchie the Air Force’s only ace pilot since the Korean War, and the only American pilot to shoot down five MiG-21s, the most advanced fighter U.S. pilots faced at the time.

Ritchie’s final kill — and the dogfight a month earlier — made him a legend in the Air Force and among those who know anything about airpower.

In part, that’s because he might be the last.

The changing nature of warfare makes such men a rare breed. For example, in World War II, there were 1,285 aces, but that number had dropped to 43 in the Korean War. Ritchie and Navy Cmdr. Randy Cunningham were the only aces in the Vietnam War.

Indeed, such men are becoming a rare breed. The US military now so dominates the air that few, if any, nations can compete. In the first Gulf War Saddam left his planes on the ground. Arguments as to why and whether this was a sensible move on his part are academic; a fully launched Iraqi Air Force would likely have delayed the inevitable outcome of that engagement by only a few hours. (And perhaps resulted in a good number of new American aces.)

The British Navy's dominance of the sea in centuries past may be comparable, but the translation of that dominance to ground supremacy is not as direct. Couple the overwhelming might of American airpower with the increasingly sophisticated networked ground combat units and you quickly gain appreciation for the concept of "full spectrum dominance" - an appreciation certain other 'world leaders' would do well to acknowledge.

Still, in spite of rapid progress, some "seat of the pants" flying traditions carry on to this day. But even so, as the following Air Force Times story (no online version available) regarding another anniversary indicates, some changes from years gone by are evident:

The enormous image on the IMAX screen draws oohs and aahs from the assembled crowd: the dull green surface of an A-10 attack jet, disfigured by a ragged, two-foot-long hole revealing honeycombed skin and ruptured control lines.

A click, and more gasps at the new photo — hundreds of tiny shrapnel punctures in the rear fuselage. Click. The swiss-cheese pattern marring an engine. Click. Surfaces blackened by burning hydraulic fluid.

Up come the lights, and standing at the podium in the National Air and Space Museum’s IMAX Theater is the show’s real star, the 5-foot-5 woman who piloted this crippled jet from near-disaster over Baghdad to a note-perfect landing in Kuwait.

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Her story, by now told several times over, bears repeating: Flying as wingman to Lt. Col. Richard Turner, the 75th’s commander, Campbell had completed her final strafing pass over enemy troops in Northern Baghdad on April 7, 2003, a day obscured by low clouds and dust-choked desert air. A sharp shake told Campbell she’d been hit, and unresponsive flight controls told her the damage was bad. Warning indicators and gauges told her she’d lost all hydraulics.

Staring at the rapidly approaching Baghdad landscape, Campbell switched to her jet’s manual reversion system, a backup to the A-10’s dual hydraulic systems. Manual reversion uses mechanical cables and links to operate flight controls as an emergency system designed to get a pilot over friendly territory before ejecting.

Instead of bailing out, Campbell flew the several hundred miles back to the 75th’s Kuwait home, Al Jaber Air Base. She safely landed the horribly wounded jet, duplicating a feat that had been tried three times — once successfully — during the Persian Gulf War.

She repeats the tale to the museum audience with well-practiced good humor. After playing gun camera footage of her touchdown in Kuwait, she smiles and proclaims it one of her better landings, to laughs and applause.

(Note: Photos can be seen here.)

The story and her background make her a public affairs dream. Air Force Academy grad. Holder of master’s and MBA degrees. Her radio call sign is KC — draw your own conclusions as to whether that’s for "Kim Campbell" or her media-friendly nickname, "Killer Chick." Articulate, she is effusive in her praise of her squadronmates, the unit’s aircraft maintainers, the workers who designed and built the A-10 — praise that comes with a sincerity indicating that she doesn’t just say such things because they’re the right things to say.

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Her story has become another piece of evidence for defenders of the rugged A-10, a defense she gladly joins. Like many Warthog pilots, Campbell lavishes praise on the jet. "My story would have ended very differently," she tells the museum audience, "if I’d been flying any other aircraft." She says she’s encouraged by talk of new engines and electronics upgrades for the A-10 fleet.

Flying in combat, she said, has convinced her of the A-10’s importance. So has the flow of letters, e-mails, even a note on a napkin from ground troops thanking her and fellow A-10 pilots for timely attacks on enemy troops.

"The thing to recognize is when the weather is bad and the troops on the ground need help, you’re going to have to take risks," she said. "That’s our job.

"When you get a note from somebody saying, ‘If you’d been a few minutes late, I wouldn’t be here now,’ that’s what it’s all about."

And there is, of course, plenty of curiosity about her gender. One listener to her museum lecture asks about her academy class: How many women? How many became fighter pilots? A woman in the audience asks, "Did you ever get any negative feedback being a woman in the Air Force?"

"My time at the academy, my time in the Air Force has been 100 percent positive," she answers. "I’ve never gotten any negative feedback because I’m a female."

And after her lecture, in the Air and Space Museum’s spacious central gallery, parents guide young daughters forward for Killer Chick’s autograph.

The USAF Academy marked its 50th anniversary on April 1st 2004.