It was a dark and stormy night… I realize all of our Naval Aviator stories start out that way, but this really was a dark and stormy night. As an F-14 Radar Intercept Officer (RIO) with Fleet and combat experience, the Skipper manned our aircraft with experience in either the pilot cockpit or the RIO cockpit, so on this flight, I was the one with “experience.” After the brief, we were in the Parachute Riggers (PR) shop getting on all our flight gear. I was going flying with one of our wet behind the ears pilots, who not only was going on one of his first flights in the Fleet, but also one of his first flights off of the aircraft carrier on deployment and into combat. Talk about having to “grow up” fast!
After all the firehose of information for his very first flight into combat (we were flying on a mission in support of Operation ALLIED FORCE into Kosovo), and as we were getting our flight gear on in the PR shop, I proceeded to check out my Night Vision Goggles (NVGs), which mean sign for the valuable item and ensure they worked and were focused for me. As I was checking my NVGs, I looked over at the pilot, who was looking at me quizzically, and asked him “have you ever flown with these?” Usually, there is a ground school course you take to learn the “academics” of NVGs, and then there are a few flights to become comfortable with them. His answer of course was “nope.” Oh geez, I thought, then I told him “I’ll tell you about them while we pre-flight and start up.”
For our flight, we were scheduled to refuel airborne in order to accomplish our mission. While no airborne refueling is easy, we were briefed that it would be a “soft” basket, which he had seen in training before arriving to the Fleet. As we run a radar intercept in bad weather on the tanker, we break out of the clouds within a couple of miles of the tanker. Once I gain sight, I think “oh, no!” It was the “Iron Maiden” or the “wrecking ball” aka the KC-135. I asked new guy “have you ever tanked off of one of these?” To which he replies “what is it?” Are you kidding me!!
All of this was before going “feet dry” and into combat in the skies over Kosovo and then landing aboard one of the mightiest war machine ever built, our aircraft carrier. This speaks to the nerves of steel of our Naval Aviator warriors. Not the ideal way to prepare, but our warriors are trained to handle adversity, change, and chaos, and handle it well! I have all the respect in the world for our Naval Aviators! Just because someone makes a job look easy, doesn’t mean it is.

- Monty A.