Free Viper Pilot: A Memoir of Air Combat by Dan Hampton Page A

information, like countermeasure usage, countertactics, or combat search-and-rescue in the event a jet goes down.
    The type of attack is painstakingly detailed. This is, after all, what it’s all about. Weapons with their plethora of settings and variations are discussed. As always, contingencies and how to deal with them at 500 knots, when people are shooting at you, are a major point of discussion. Everything bad that could happen can’t be addressed, of course, but the main idea is to have plans that will adapt and work when the shit hits the fan. For instance, suppose a SAM targets you during your attack, or a MiG appears. How is it dealt with? And how do you then re-attack the target? What if the weather over the target area is too bad for your primary chosen attack? Again, lots of variables.
     
    W HILE THE C OLD W AR WAS ENDING, WE ONLY DEPLOYED from our home bases for training. These were never very long, and usually to nice places. In Europe, we had Sardinia for air-to-air training, and England or Spain were our primary deployments for air-to-ground training. Requirements—called “currencies”—are endless in the flying world. You had to drop so many bombs, shoot missiles, land so many times at night, etc. . . . so many per month, every month, or you became non-current. We had to drop a required amount of bombs, within various accuracy parameters, to maintain our Mission Qualified status. When the weather in Germany was bad (about six months out of the year), then we went elsewhere.
    A fighter pilot’s first trip to Spain’s Zaragoza Air Base was a chance to participate in a small squadron deployment, which was good practice, and also to go fly in the sun for thirty days with your buddies. Much better than winter in Germany. Zaragoza—or Zab, as we called it—began several thousand years ago as a Roman settlement for army veterans. Goths, Arabs, the Inquisition, and Napoleon had all harassed this place long before we got there. It’s a beautiful city, where bright flowers soften the beige medieval fortifications and Moorish architecture still reigns supreme.
    We would usually fly at least once a day; a beautiful, low level along the Spanish coast or through the mountains to the Bardenas bombing range. Wingmen became better wingmen, flight leaders better leaders, and upgrade training was conducted for those who deserved it. Evenings were spent at the Officer’s Club, drinking the local sweet sangria, singing songs, and cooking out on huge open grills. The smells of honeysuckle, charcoal smoke, and fresh fruit are forever etched in my memory. Spain.
    It was superb . . .
    Every few nights, when the flying schedule permitted, we’d take little taxicabs downtown to eat or see the sights. One of the initiation rights for an unworldly American pilot on his first trip to Zab was the fabled Green Bean Tour. It worked like this. The new guy was assigned an “instructor” to take him through the narrow, dark streets behind the big cathedral in downtown Zaragoza. These little streets were called the Tubes and were lined with carts, street vendors, and hole-in-the-wall snack shops. I use the word snack only because you could physically eat the stuff.
    Actually, that was the game. The new guy had to eat whatever the instructor told him to eat. Between courses, he also had to drink the local red wine, called Tinto, from a leather bouda bag. The rest of the squadron came along to assist in this.
    The idea was to survive this haute cuisine gauntlet, and the Tinto, without puking. To my knowledge, no one ever did. At the end of the Tubes was a small stone plaza, where the squadron commander and the higher-ranking officers waited. Having seen this just a few times over the years, they usually opted for a quiet drink together while we promoted goodwill for America among the locals. Well, not really, but they did love our money.
    I did fine for most of it. I mean, to the point where I thought I was going to make it to