Lower than a snakes belly...

[BAMAWV]

For SC and any aviation buffs:


By Dave O'Malley

Along the sunny Gulf Coast of Mississippi runs a VLA route (low level, high-speed flying) frequented by American military fliers for decades. Back in the early nineties, on a dock on Davis Bayou, with a cold St. Pauli Girl beer in my hand, I would sit with my face towards the southern sun and my feet dangling over the receding tidal waters brimming with shrimp and watch as pairs of A-7 Corsairs from the Oklahoma Air National Guard or RF-4Fs from Meridian Mississippi would thunder along the very edge of the horizon following this timeworn route. The “Sluffs” and “Rhinos” came from the Air Guard deployment camp at nearby Gulfport, where they would spend a week practicing being "deployed” at a base far from their home.

These weekend warrior guardsman as well as regular force fighters would follow the barrier islands from west to east – Chandlier Island, Ship Island, Cat Island, Horn Island. All uninhabited, all bereft of antennae, chimneys and tall trees. My best friend, Greg Williams, whose dock I was sitting on, was one of those Mississippi Air Guardsmen who had flown this route many times. Living across Biloxi Bay from these islands, he knew them like the back of his hand.

In those early days, he would take a lone Phantom and a back seater, and push himself down low over the Gulf side beaches, ripping from one island to the next heading east from Gulfport. As he came to the eastern end of Horn, the eastern most island, he would bank hard left and run like a scalded dog, low and north, to the wide estuary where the Pascagoula River dumped its brown water into the blue sound.

About a mile inland, Highway 90 crosses over the bayous and the snaking Pascagoula on a slender bridge. A few miles farther north, the four lanes I-10 also leap over the two miles of marshland. For years, ass-kicking redneck pilots from Mississippi would approach the Highway 90 bridge from below, climbing to cross the bridge at extreme low level. Complaints from startled citizens in cars and trucks, who had nearly been blown from the road deck, caused the rules to change. All inbound fighters would be required to be at 1,500 feet as they crossed the bridges.

Williams, a long serving and proud recce pilot, and the only Voodoo-qualified, college-educated, shrimp boat captain from Bayou Labatrie, Alabama to Boca Chica, Texas, had thousands of hours flying RF-101s and RF-4F Phantoms down where the crawdads live. Flying low was his passion. His favourite thing to do, when flying in the mountains out west, was to run up the face of a mountain, roll inverted over the top, pull down the other side, roll wings level and toboggan the far side. He was used to it, he loved it, but he admitted once to me that he lived so long on the edge, that from time to time, he toppled over it.

One day in the late eighties, Major Williams and his back seater Major Bernie Cousins streaked at fifty feet down the Gulf side of Horn Island, scattering pelicans and egrets - “lower than a snakes belly in a wagon rut”. Nearing the island's slender, curving eastern end, Williams rolled hard left, then level again, heading for the mouth of the Pascagoula. To his right he could see the massive Litton Shipyards, to his left, the small town of Gauthier, Mississippi shimmered in the summer heat. Approaching Pascagoula Bay, he climbed from 50 to 1,500 feet to clear the Highway 90 bridge at the authorized altitude. At 1,500 feet he streaked like an arrow north to I-10.

At the moment the I-10 bridge passed beneath his nose, Williams rolled inverted and snatched the stick back hard to dive for the deck. Flying aggressively for his entire military career, Williams realized immediately that he had pulled too hard and had "buried" the nose of the massive Southern Grey Rhino far past the right line for recovery. It was one of those “oh, shit” moments in a pilots flying career when he realizes that he has made a possible fatal mistake.

It was time to employ all his skill and all his physical strength to overcome his error. Instinctively, Williams released the stick, rolled 180 degrees and pulled as hard as he possibly could on the pole. There was nothing else to do but hold on and ride the Phantom out of the mess. Cousins, in the back, having no way to prepare for the maneuver, blacked out immediately under the massive g-load. Pulling for all he was worth, Williams experienced tunnel vision as he grayed out. He never really saw anything on his periphery, describing the effect of tunnel vision as looking through a toilet paper tube.

At zero feet, the sagging Phantom blew swamp water, mudbugs* and sea grass out from behind as she staggered upward in the humid air and climbed for the heavens. He had overstressed the jet and his own body and very nearly killed himself and his back seater. When I spoke to him about it the other day,he said, "You know, I got complacent and I am not proud of that, it was one time I almost lost it.” It takes a good pilot to admit it, and learn. To this day, Williams says that if you look carefully, you will find two deep parallel grooves in the muddy bottom where he dragged his burner cans though that bayou.

Williams' story of joy, error, terror and redemption illustrates all that is found in low level flight in any aircraft – the extreme sensation of speed, a breathtaking sense of your own powerful abilities, the risks of complacency and deadly danger waiting only feet away for the pilot who makes a fatal mistake.

There are two types of flying that are for the skilled and the experienced only - aerobatics and low level. A show of aerobatics is a beautiful thing indeed, poetry in motion. If aerobatics are ballet, then low level flying is slam dancing - violent, aggressive and heart stopping.  Firewall the throttles of a Phantom and drag a cranked wingtip through the mesquite at the bottom of some gulch in the high Colorado desert and you have a YouTube video gone viral.

[BAMAWV]

Here is another:

"Sgt. Scratch was born in Saskatchewan, July 7, 1919, and enlisted in the RCAF in Edmonton, as R60973 AC2 on July 20, 1940. He earned his wings as a Sergeant Pilot and flew with that rank for a long time. He flew Liberators from Gander, Newfoundland, as a co-pilot on anti-submarine patrols. Scratch was good at his job and was eventually raised to commissioned rank.

As a Flying Officer and with many hours to his credit, Scratch wanted to fly as aircrfaft commander, however, RCAF officials considered that, as he was slight in build, and had suffered ankle injuries in the past, he would not have the strength to control a Liberator in an emergency.

Sgt. Scratch wanted more action but was unsuccessful in getting an overseas posting. He became very depressed. One evening, June 19. 1944, in the mess, he entered into a debate about one man being able to take off, fly, and land, a Liberator. Scratch left the mess, went down to the hangar, fired up a Liberator, and took off. He shot up the American base at Argentia, and the base at Gander. When some fighters approached him to order him to land, they found him occupying, and rotating the mid-upper gun turret, with the aircraft on autopilot. The guns were fully armed and operational. When he returned to base he was placed under arrest, later court marshalled, and dishonorably discharged.

Mr. Scratch returned to Edmonton, Alberta, and went directly to the RCAF recruiting office where he was accepted back into the RCAF as a Sergeant Pilot. He was posted to No. 5 OTU, Boundary Bay. 5 OTU was training aircrew on Liberators for service against Japan. The British Commonwealth Air Training Plan was winding down and many of the pilots were senior aircrew from Training Command. Again Sgt. Scratch found himself flying second pilot to officers with far less experience than himself. The training started on B-25 Mitchell aircraft and advanced to Liberators. When his experience and flying skills were not recognized, Sgt. Scratch again became frustrated.

On December 5, 1944, Sgt. Scratch attempted to take off, unauthorized, in a Liberator, Due to the fact that there was no official flying that night, the field was in darkness and the control tower un-manned, Scratch mistook a roadway for the runway and crashed into a wooden bridge wiping out the undercarriage. Undaunted, he returned to the hangar and signed out a B-25 Mitchell and took off.

Scratch flew down to Seattle, Washington, area and beat up the Seattle airport causing many aborted take offs. The Americans sent up fighter aircraft to bring the Mitchell down however, Scratch returned to Canada, disrupting and grounding flights at the Vancouver airport. He then flew around the Hotel Vancouver, well below the roof level and down Granville Street.

The following is an eye witness report by Norman Green. “7:00 hrs. December 6, 1944, while it was still dark, I was in the mess hall when it was shaken, and dishes fell to the floor as a result of an aeroplane flying low overhead. The same pass shook WDs out of their bunks.
 
As usual that morning at 8:00 hrs., 1200 airmen and airwomen, all ranks (I among them), formed up on the tarmac in front of the control tower for CO’s inspection. Just as the parade was about to be called to attention a B-25 Mitchell bomber came across the field at zero altitude, and pulled up sharply in a steep climb over the heads of the assembled airmen, just clearing the tower. Within seconds, 1,200 men and women were flat on the ground. The Mitchell then made several 25 ft. passes over the field. Group Captain Bradshaw dismissed the parade and ordered everyone to quarters.

Over the next two hours we witnessed an almost unbelievable demonstration of flying, much of it with the B-25’s wings vertical to the ground, below roof top level, defying gravity. We were continually diving into ditches to avoid being hit by a wingtip coming down a station road. He flew it straight and level, vertically with the wing tip only six feet above the ground without losing altitude, defying all logic, and the law of physics.”

After an hour of this, three P-40 Kittyhawks from Pat Bay Station arrived on the scene, fully armed, with orders to shoot the B25 down if it left the area of the station. They tried to get on his tail but could not stay with him in his tight turns below rooftop level. After two hours of this, Sgt. Scratch flew over a corner of the field and circled one spot vertically, with the Kittyhawks joining in like may pole dancers.

Sgt Scratch then climbed to 2,000 feet and wagged his wings as he crossed the field, boxed in by the fighters. When they were clear of the station, the Kittyhawks signaled Sgt. Scratch to land. He nodded his head, gave them the thumbs down sign, rolled over, pulled back on his controls, and, aiming at an uninhabited spot on Tillbury Island in the Fraser River, dived into it. The shattered red taillight lens was later located dead centre between the points of impact of the engines.”

All in all, a remarkable story, but further on in the forum where this account was published, someone named JDK put into word very eloquently what my thoughts were about this psychopath: “I've always rather liked the saying that 'the superior pilot is one who uses his superior judgment to avoid using his superior skill'. Unless there's bits we don't know, Sgt Scratch was a disgrace with a few remarkable skills. As a military airman, wrecking several aircraft (and worse) simply because he wanted to do another job than allocated in wartime was utterly selfish and short-sighted. Flying skill to the extent of suicide while wasting government equipment and hazarding the lives of your fellow airmen hardly sounds like 'a superb pilot' to me.

Makes a good bar tale though. And his ghost walks the corridors to this day...”

I have no idea about copright infringement. I rec'd these two (with 30 pics) by EM with no bibliography  

[SUPERCOACH]

'the superior pilot is one who uses his superior judgment to avoid using his superior skill

^^^THIS^^^

Those guys are a disgrace.

[BAMAWV]

'the superior pilot is one who uses his superior judgment to avoid using his superior skill

^^^THIS^^^

Those guys are a disgrace.

So you didn't enjoy the stories?

[SUPERCOACH]

The stories were good, but the guys flying the planes were self-centered idiots.

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