First Iraq Deployment

A story from Chris Kidd.

Night Vision Goggles (NVGs) are indiscernible from magic.

My introduction to this wizardry was on 14 Squadron, my first frontline Tornado GR4 squadron.

I was doing well as a first tourist and had been given too much leeway. I found the NVG (Night Vision Google) workshop straightforward; the low level at 250 feet, manually flown using NVGs, NVG circuits, and air-to-air refuelling all came relatively easy.

Rocking up to an airliner at night, formatting on it, then grabbing some gas before heading back to low level for a ‘fight’ with a couple of F3s was truly exhilarating for 25-year-old me.

The problem was that I was getting complacent, and I didn’t have the experience to get myself out of trouble if it all went wrong, which, of course, it did when we went on ops.

Being on ops meant working with coalition partners, and that meant operating in slightly different ways. For example, US tankers don’t always tell you when they are turning …

The Problem with Complacency

I was number 2 in a four-ship. My leader was plugged in behind a single hose, US KC10, and I was on the left wing with numbers 3 and 4 outside me. The tanker reached the end of the towline and turned left towards me.

The problem was that I wasn’t paying attention, as I “knew what I was doing”. I mean, I must have had about fifteen hours on NVGs. What else was there to know?

When I looked back at the tanker, all I saw was a planform of an airliner turning towards me, all top wing and fuselage. Due to the lack of depth of perception of the night vision goggles, it took me a while to work out what was happening.

So, instead of smoothly regaining my formation position and allowing Nos. 3 and 4 to formate on me, I panicked, rolled away through self-preservation, and pulled hard towards my wingmen.

Of course, they weren’t expecting that and bunted hard to get out of the way; there were jets all over the place.

After landing, we had our traditional ‘no holds barred’ sortie debrief; I immediately put my hand up and declared a safety point. Of course, everyone knew what I had done, so it’s not like I could hide it even if I had wanted to; I was also still white as a sheet from the experience.

Pilots Are Always Learning

My experienced flight lead was understanding and encouragingly drew out the learning points rather than tearing me apart for making what was, notwithstanding my ego, a genuine error.

Why is this important?

I didn’t deliberately set out to nearly cause an accident and learnt many lessons from that night, including just culture:

  • Know your limitations.

  • Don’t get complacent.

  • High performers should be encouraged and pushed, but they will sometimes fail and need to be supported to try again.

  • That’s what we do at Astral Aviation Consulting.

We help organisations develop a culture encouraging teams to grow, learn, achieve, and perform.

All while supported by our high-performing team’s extensive experience and expertise.

Get in touch for all your aviation consultancy needs.

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