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American Morning
America's New War: Power of the F-15
Aired September 26, 2001 - 09:49 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
PAULA ZAHN, CNN ANCHOR: You're looking at a picture of our own Miles O'Brien, about ready to take off from the Otis Air National Guard Base in Cape Cod, Massachusetts. He's the guy in the back. Of course, the person flying the plane has been trained in all the various technologies that this plane has to offer.
(CROSSTALK)
Let's see if we can listen in.
MILES O'BRIEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: My pilot, with two thousand hours of experience behind him, 13 years flying the F-15. We're going through a series of checklists. I think you probably hear that roaring sound right now. I hope you can hear me as I talk (UNINTELLIGIBLE).
We have gone through most of the preflight stuff, the missiles have been armed, and we should be airborne shortly, headed down to the area they call the "CAP," the Combat Air Patrol Zone, where a series of planes from Air National Guard and Air Force bases up and down the East Coast will be converging, flying a tight circle, continuing their vigilance. We'll have an opportunity to refuel while we're there. And we will see just how this homeland defense works.
We'll keep you posted as the flight goes on.
(AUDIO DIFFICULTIES)
ZAHN: ... many more seconds we have before takeoff.
We're going to pause here for a moment. With any luck at all, maybe we're not all that far away from Miles taking off. So let's standby this -- in fact, in my mind, one of the most exciting things to watch, watching an F-15 or F-16 takes off. You'll see the amount of thrust you see coming from this plane with any other plane. So let's standby.
O'BRIEN: OK, good to go.
ZAHN: We should note while we wait for Miles that Otis -- the Otis Air National Guard Base is where planes were actually scrambled from on September 11th, but couldn't catch that plane that ultimately hit the Pentagon.
In a moment here we should see Miles and his pilot getting ready to takeoff.
O'BRIEN: All right, check one, two, three, four, five. How do you hear me?
ZAHN: Miles O'Brien, we hear you loud and clear.
One of the most exciting things about this kind of plane is that if you watch closely, it has the ability to almost do a vertical takeoff, or at least to the naked eye it appears as such.
(CROSSTALK)
ZAHN: And if my memory serves me correctly from my last flight on an F-16, you can go from about zero to 400 miles per hour in about sixth -second period, well within the limits of the airplane.
O'BRIEN: We should have incredible visibility, be able to see down the coastline as we fly across the shoreline of Connecticut and down in toward the New York area. We -- we're flying at a -- standby one second.
ZAHN: We're going to be patient here, because this is well worth listening to, as you hear a pilot go through his checklist.
O'BRIEN: All right, we're going to be flying line about 350 knots, which is practically idle for this F-15 model B, which can, if need be, can fly twice the speed of sound. It can fly up to 65 thousand feet.
Now the Air National Guard here, the Massachusetts Air National Guard has responsible for a swathe of airspace about 500 hundred thousand square miles. But they in a line up here. We'll be joined by F-16 fighters from Burlington, Vermont and let me check one more, there's a few others. Standby, one.
ZAHN: And as you can see at the bottom part of screen...
O'BRIEN: We'll also be joined by some F-16 from Atlantic City, New Jersey. So this effort is definitely a lot larger than one Air National Guard base and one fighter wing. This particular wing with 18 F-15s; been a very busy place for the last couple of weeks since the attack.
I'm going to have to standby for one second.
ZAHN: I would like to call your attention to the information on the bottom of the screen, because this is an important point, that F- 15s can actually accelerate while they are climbing.
O'BRIEN: ... spot in the runway, where the crew of four or five has meet with us; they're going to pull all the safety pins out of the various armaments onboard this F-15: some of them radar-guided, some of them heat-seeking. Those pins are pulled out before the plane takes off, takes them out of safe mode and puts them in a mode where they can be used if need be. ZAHN: Well, I know Miles can't hear me, but he has to prepare himself for the thrust upon takeoff. If you're sitting in back of an F-15 or F-16, you -- the initial feeling you feel is being slammed up against the back of your seat upon takeoff. And we're getting the camera positioned right now as the pilot does the final tests...
(CROSSTALK)
ZAHN: ... as the F-15 readies for takeoff.
O'BRIEN: All right, (UNINTELLIGIBLE) the air.
ZAHN: In my mind, there's nothing more exhilarating than having the opportunity to fly and...
(CROSSTALK)
O'BRIEN: All right, (UNINTELLIGIBLE). Are they going to take it live as we takeoff, is that what you are saying?
ZAHN: Well, Miles can't hear me, but that's what we are saying, we're going to try to capture shots of you taking off.
O'BRIEN: OK. The pilot, who has a handle of the name "Flame," so I'll just leave it at that for security reasons for not calling him anything else.
Maybe I could just ask you quickly for what you are doing right now, what checklist you're going through.
OK. The afterburner takeoff is important. In this case because we're fully-loaded aircraft here we've got extra fuel tanks through (UNINTELLIGIBLE) and beneath us in addition to all the weaponry. And in order to get enough speed to get airborne they'll have to light those afterburners, which should give us a bit of a kick as we taxi out into runway 32 here at Otis Air National Guard Base at Cape Cod.
ZAHN: As we await miles taking off...
O'BRIEN: We're waiting now for clearance for our flight plan.
ZAHN: And as await that, it's interesting to note that I don't know what the pilot is going to do with Miles, but I remember during my ride we at one point of the journey pulled about seven Gs. Upon takeoff, depending on the speed of this takeoff he could potentially pull two to three Gs, which basically, if you're riding this plane, feels like there's tremendous pressure on every single part of your body.
O'BRIEN: OK, at this time I just (UNINTELLIGIBLE) the instructions (UNINTELLIGIBLE).
ZAHN: OK. We've now got clearance for takeoff. Let's watch.
The one thing I will say is Miles is a very lucky man that the weather is clear today. There is nothing more disoriented than taking off in an F-15 or F-16 in clouds, which was my experience, because then you'd completely lose any sense of a horizon, and it not only is confusing, but also can make you quite physically ill.
Of course, the pilots are trained to deal with G-forces and the power of the climb of these aircraft.
(CROSSTALK)
O'BRIEN: ... bombs, the missiles have been armed. We're checking -- taxiing out on to the threshold of the runway.
ZAHN: If you missed the earlier part of Miles' report, we should mention that he obviously had to take some kind of training before he got up in one of the very expensive jets. And one of the first things you're taught is how to deal with the G-force, and there's a way you actually fight the pressure of your suit by exhaling as hard as you can and then pushing every muscle in your body as hard as you can to fight the G-force.
It's not very comfortable, I will tell you, but the pilots are used to it.
We're getting an update -- Miles is able to talk with pilot, and we can't hear their conversations, but they continue to go through the checklist in advance of the takeoff.
Once, again, you may have missed this part of the report, Miles is joining in this flight to get a better understanding of how the Air National Guard might ultimately be involved in homeland security; that, of course, is a new cabinet post created by President Bush last night that governor -- not last night, excuse me, last week -- that Governor Ridge will lead. It's not clear at the moment what his powers will be as he tries to bring together the efforts of anywhere from 45 to 60 different law enforcement agencies. It's a big job, but clearly there seems to be a consensus in Washington that it is something that is needed, and as Senator John Warner said -- excuse me, Senator John McCain said yesterday, if Mr. Ridge is granted the powers he needs, then in fact it could be a very effective post, that's Mr. McCain's opinion.
We continue to wait for Miles O'Brien to take off with his very well-trained pilots in this F-15 from the Otis Air National Guard Base in Cape Cod on a crystal clear day. And I have just been told that the National Guard has given us a 30 second warning to take off. So we will all stand by together and watch this.
O'BRIEN: All right, we're on the runway and we are now cleared for takeoff. We should be moving very quickly, very soon.
ZAHN: We're going to need to pay a lot of attention here because these planes take off so fast. If you blink, you're going to miss it. I don't know what kind of show the pilot is going to put on for us today, but these planes -- here we go, he's pulling out now.
O'BRIEN: ... off the throttles, and we are up and over a beautiful view of Cape Cod. ZAHN: The one thing this picture cannot capture is the incredible power of these aircraft. Obviously, pilots are trained to fly this plane more aggressively then the takeoff we just saw, but for Miles sake I'm glad that that was a rather gentle acceleration there, for his stomach's sake. But this plane has amazing capabilities. And I have seen takeoffs where they almost appear to be a vertical takeoff.
Miles mentioned a little bit early on this plane has the capability to climb to 65 thousand feet and is capable of traveling twice the sound barrier, which is something that is not often done in this country because of all these noise abatement laws.
But we're going to continue to track the progress of Miles' trip, as he tries to get a better understanding of, once again, how the Air National Guard might get involved with our homeland defense team.
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