Yesterday was my first flight in the UK in the F-15E, and it was really incredible. I wanted to share some photos of it.
Some background on me, for those who don't know -- I flew the F-15E for three years or so between '99 and '03, and most recently I've been a T-38 instructor for a little over 3 years. I have just been assigned back to the F-15E at RAF Lakneheath in England for another 3-year tour (sing it with me everyone, "....a threeee yeeear toooour").
Since arriving at my new squadron, life has been a flurry of activity, from finding a new place to live, to learning to drive on the "wrong" side of the road. By far the toughest of these things has been learning how to fly in the UK. For those of you who've never flown here (as well as you Brits who've never flown in the US), the rules of flying and the words used over the radio here are quite a bit different than I'm used to. As such there is an in-depth academic and simulator program designed to teach these differences, as well as a "local area orientation" flight.
Most of the differences have to do with airspace -- what is controlled and what is not controlled -- and radar service -- what the ATC people are providing, from traffic avoidance to traffic awareness to terrain clearance. The reality is that there are FAR less restrictions in the UK than there are in the US, giving significantly more latitude to the pilot to go where he wants and when. However, this also allows the pilot to get himself into a lot more trouble if he doesn't watch where he's going.
The radio communication is the part that makes me laugh the most. First of all, for military aircraft there are dedicated military controllers on the UHF frequencies. So, after taking off instead of talking to "London Center", for example, I actually call "London Mil". This is REALLY nice, as the radar service is tailored to the fact that we're a military aircraft and the controller generally knows what kinds of things we want to do and places we want to go. It's really the change in flying vocabulary that will take some getting used to. Instead of asking the controller for "Radar vectors to the TACAN runway 25 low approach, climbout for a PAR" I have to ask for "Diverse to the TAC 25 overshoot, climbout Talk Down". On ATIS they give the altimeter setting in milibars instead of inches of Hg, which means that I have to reference a little chart before setting the kollsman window. Even better is that most of the altimeter settings here are given in QFE (that is, zero altitude at the runway surface) instead of QNH, which is the standard in the USA. Even when to set QNE is different -- passing 3,000', everything above it is a Flight Level, instead of 18K in the US. This leads to some strange sounding radio calls referencing "Flight Level zero-four."
So, yesterday was finally the day when I was to take to the skies from RAF Lakenheath to go get myself acquainted with flying in the UK. As it turns out, yesterday was also a typical fall day in the UK -- gray skies and low ceilings with a light drizzle. My goal was to takeoff, go out and see some of the island, then fly an instrument approach at another airfield, and come back to Lakenheath for an instrument approach and see the VFR pattern ("visual circuit"). As we planned the flight, it seemed that everywhere we wanted to go -- Scotland, Wales, Lake District -- all had weather that was too poor to get the necessary flying in to complete the requirements of the flight.
Eventually we decided to book a low-fly area down off the southeast coast of England -- across the Cliffs of Dover. The plan was to fly VFR along the coast, then pop up into the LAK ATA (which is similar to a MOA) out off the east coast of East Anglia. Then we'd drop in to RAF Coningsby for two instrument approaches, then back to Lakenheath. Unfortunately for me, the flight out over the Channel meant that I'd have to wear the anti-exposure flight suit (e.g. "poopy suit"), which is very uncomfortable.
Start up and taxi out were uneventful, although I was paying close attention to the local procedures since they were all new to me. It wasn't until I lined up for takeoff that it struck me that I was in a
slightly different F-15E. The jets at Lakenheath are all powered by the Pratt F-100-PW-229 engine, while all my previous time was in earlier block F-15Es that were powered by the Pratt -220 engine. The 229 is a much more powerful engine, and the kick in the pants as I lit the afterburners ("reheat") on takeoff was quite cool. I rotated at 150 knots about 1,700 feet down the runway and was almost immediately airborne, despite a full fuel load and a weight of about 45,000 pounds. My instructor in the back seat (I have to fly with one since it's my first time here...) reminded me to un-plug the burners right after lift off, otherwise I'd over-speed the landing gear passing 250 knots. Once cleaned up, I was at 350 knots and in a sweeping right turn on the "Rock One" instrument departure. I snagged a radar lock on my flight leader before he popped into the clouds, and settled in to 2 mile radar trail. After checking in with Lakenheath Departure, we were switched off to London Mil who leveled us off at 10,000' (flight level one zero, ahem), still solidly in the weather. What was amazing to me was that we were under "Radar Advisory Service", which is a half-step above VFR flight following and a half step below being under radar control, while completely IMC! Strange stuff. After a turn to the south and a descent to 6,000 we were clear of the clouds and I rejoined on my flight lead. We told the London Mil controller that we were "Happy to continue" (which translates as "cancel IFR" the best I can surmise) and we switched over to the Wattisham Approach controller to drop down into the low-flying structure.
Unlike in the United States, where there are rigidly controlled Military Training Routes which allow military aircraft to fly fast and low (breaking the 250-knots below 10,000' rule), the UK has huge low flying AREAS, where so long as you reserve your place in the area, you can essentially fly anywhere you want at up to 450 knots. There are many areas to avoid (like not flying directly over towns), but it allows an amazing amount of freedom for military flyers.
So, we dropped down to 500' and 350 knots just to the southeast of London outside of the controlled airspace. Since this was an "orientation" for me, we kept it pretty slow (yes, 350 knots is "slow" in the Strike Eagle!) and were just having a good time seeing the English countryside. We paralleled the coastline about 20 miles inland while heading southwest. The weather was getting progressively worse as we moved west, and the rain started getting heavier and heavier. Finally, we decided to turn south and go "feet wet". As we crossed the beachline, we were able to see some neat chalk drawings on the cliffs. Turning left, we headed northeast up the coast, passing the historic cities of Hastings and Battle.
It was the next sight that really was incredible -- the Cliffs of Dover. I first caught sight of them about 20 miles out at my 11 o'clock. From 500 feet at 350 knots, we were approaching quickly. I looked off to my 2 o'clock and I could just barely make out the coast of France about 20 miles away. It was then, from the cockpit of my fighter, that I got the first inkling of what it must have been like to be here,
in this very spot 66 years ago. I didn't have a lot of time to linger on the thought...I had to get a couple snapshots of the cliffs! I passed my digital camera to my back-seater -- not a lot of time to take pictures while at 500' and 350 KGS! I looked over my shoulder for a "hero shot" with the cliffs in the background, then it was back to the business of flying.
I won't bore you all with the details of the rest of the flight (a couple instrument approaches and a landing in the rain with a nice, big crosswind), but I thought the WIXers would be interested in seeing the photos.
What an unbelievable first flight in the UK!
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