Snow Storm
Valerie Burton is a character in my work-in-progress novel “Angels Descended”. This short story is a piece I wrote to explain how she managed to arrive at a fictional cabin in the Cascade Mountains east of Seattle Washington in the middle of a snow storm. Part of Valerie’s income is in the form of monthly payments from a fairly substantial trust fund, set up by her great-grandfather, between the first and second World Wars. One of the conditions for receiving money from the fund, is a term of Military Service. After Valerie finished Law School, she went into the Air Force, having done ROTC in college, and during her 3 years of active duty, she flew Search and Rescue Helicopters. Some of that time was spent in the Middle East during Operations Desert Shield and Desert Storm. I took a few liberties with the helicopter and combat operations since I’ve never taken part in anything like that, except in video games. And in this piece I decided to use an assumption that some factions of Kurds wouldn’t be against “rescuing” downed airmen with the expectation of being paid for the service.
Abbreviations:
CAP – Combat Air Patrol
AGL – Above Ground Level
AWACS – Airborne Weapons and Control System
0/0 – 0’ forward visibility, cloud level at 0’ altitude
Viper – the nickname given to the F-16 by its pilots, after the original Battlestar Galactica Vipers.
Snow Storm
February 5th, 1991, Northwest Saudi Arabia.
“Scorpion one-five, this is Star-base, we have trade,” came the call over the secure guard channel, from Star-base, the AWACS plane assigned to Scorpion one-five’s area of operation
“Star-base, Scorpion one-five, say trade,” returned the co-pilot of the search and rescue helicopter, call sign “Scorpion one-five “.
“Turn left 90 in 4 km, maintain current altitude. We have an F-16 pilot crossing the border region. Pilot likely to require extraction. Pick up will be hot, repeat pick up will be hot, weapons free repeat weapons free.”
The helicopter flight crew quickly exchanged glances before the copilot said anything. They had done this before many times, but opposing forces didn’t make their job any easier. “Read you 5 by 5, expect a hot pick up.”
“Scorpion one-five, we are vectoring a flight of A-10’s for close air support, call signs Hog one and two on guard two. The F-16 is call sign Shorty on guard one.”
“Copy all Star-base, Scorpion one-five out.”
Keying the intercom, the co-pilot, a young lieutenant on his first rotation with search and rescue said, “I’ll run the numbers on fuel and have a loiter time for you in a few seconds Captain.”
“Good. Let’s get the doors opened and manned too,” Valerie Burton, Captain United States Air Force, answered. She switched over to her crew chief’s channel and continued, “Chief, we are three minutes from a pickup, Star-base is cautioning us to expect a hot LZ, man the door guns, you are weapons free.
Behind the cockpit was the spacious cargo bay of the MH-53J Pave Low III helicopter. Each side of the bay had a door with a chain gun and a row of seats terminating at the base of the large rear ramp. “Roger weapons free, Darts.” answered the chief, the only one on the crew that could get away with calling Valerie by her call sign of Darts. He was also the only member of the crew that knew how she came by it, and he wasn’t sharing with anyone, despite the bribery attempts the crew had made since they deployed four months ago. He walked to the end of the cargo bay, as the helicopter started to turn to a new heading and attached his safety harness to a pad eye on the floor near the rear door ramp. The two airmen that made up the rest of the helo’s crew slid the side doors open and pulled the Mini-guns into position. Once the guns were secured they too hooked the ends of their harnesses to pad eyes. Once he saw that his crew was in position, he pressed the button on the bulkhead marked Open Ramp.
“Guns check.” He called over the intercom as the rear door halves separated, with half lowering to form a ramp and the other section rising up above head level.
“Left gun is hot, chief,” the first airman answered, along with a quick burst of the fire from the gun. The airman on the right door repeated the process.
“Flight deck, the cargo bay is secure for rescue operations, guns are hot. Recommend clockwise orbit over target,” reported the chief. He purposely called to orbit to Darts’ side of the helicopter, as both the co-pilot and the right side gunner had less experience than their left side counter-parts.
Back on the flight deck, Star-base was relaying more information. “Scorpion one-five, Hogs One and Two have you in sight, and will set up CAP 2 miles out.”
“Roger that Star-base, we have visuals on Hogs one and two. Say position of Shorty.”
“Scorpion one-five, Shorty is on your nose at 12 miles. He reports loss of hydraulics, and will begin a climb to flight level 5, AGL. Expect ejection at a range of 5 miles.”
“Roger Star-base,” the co-pilot answered. He reached down and turned a dial on the console, and turned it until he had selected guard one, the frequency the f-16 pilot was on.
“Shorty, this is Scorpion one-five, say condition.” He radioed. For a few seconds there was only static, he repeated the call. Darts had the controls, and he was scanning the horizon for with a pair of low power binoculars looking for the familiar shaped of a Viper. Keying the intercom, he read off the fuel state to Darts. “We have enough fuel for about 25 minutes of loiter, with a safe margin for when we get home.”
Finally, an answer from Shorty came through, “Scorpion one-five, this Shorty, I have you on radar. I am climbing through 4500 feet, AGL. Controls are getting mushy, throttle is a bit erratic, getting ready to punch out.”
“Copy that Shorty, we are closing on your position, I have you in sight.” he answered. He lowered his binoculars a bit and scanned the ground ahead, looking for any movement. A mile or so east of the probably extraction zone he spotted a pair of battered pick up trucks. To Burton he said, “I think I’ve spotted a reception committee, I am going to have the hogs take a pass over the area for a closer look.”
As he made the call to the A-10’s, Valerie began to slow the helicopter in preparation to pick up the flier. Over the intercom she called back to the chief, “Chief, toss a smoke so we can gage the wind.”
“Roger that, tossing a purple smoke,” came the reply.
The helo came to a stop 500 feet over the rocky scrub covered terrain. Burton pushed down on the rudder pedal to turn the aircraft so she could see which way the smoke was blowing at ground level. Valerie noted the wind was taking the smoke away from their position, which was better for them and she didn’t have to worry about catching Shorty or his parachute in the rotor blades.
Valerie could see the F-16 slowly climbing, it wasn’t much more than a mile off the front right of the nose of the helicopter. To Shorty she said, “Shorty, we are in position, I have you in sight, eject at will.”
“Roger that, see you on the ground,” came the answer, followed almost immediately by the call of, “Eject, eject, eject.”
From her view in the front of the helicopter, Valerie saw the canopy blow clear of the stricken aircraft. Only an instant later the ejection seat rocketed clear of the cockpit, with Shorty strapped securely to it. Now without a pilot, the F-16 began a slow right roll as it pitched down towards the ground. Switching to the intercom, she spoke to the co-pilot, “What is the situation with the trucks on the ground?”
His answer wasn’t the one she was hoping for. “Both trucks are heading this direction, Hog lead reported seeing 8 to 10 men all armed, probably Kurds spread between the two vehicles.”
She sighed. “Okay. Let them know that we want those trucks kept away from the extraction zone.”
Out of the front of the helicopter she could see the Shorty hanging from his parachute, he was waving towards them. “Star-base, this is Scorpion one-five, we have a good chute on Shorty, repeat, we have a good chute. Moving in now for extraction.”
“Roger that, scorpion one-five,” came the reply from Star-base.
Valerie increased power and headed towards Shorty’s descending parachute. She took care to stay up wind of his position, no point in risking a collision. She estimated he would on the ground about the same time the two trucks of armed bandits arrived, which she hoped wasn’t going to be bad news. There was a flash off the right, followed by a column of oily smoke rising from the rocks below. Shorty’s fighter plane had crashed.
Off to her left, Burton could see the dust churned up by the approaching trucks, they couldn’t be more than 500 meters away now. The two A-10’s, of Hog Flight, were making low passes over the trucks in an attempt to keep them clear of the descending flier. The lead plane fired a short burst of 30mm cannon shells to further advertise that the two truck loads of bandits were unwelcome.
From her position in the left seat, Valerie couldn’t see the lone figure several hundred meters away on the helicopter’s right side climb up on top of a bus sized boulder. On his shoulder was a small missile tube. The call from the airman on the right door gun came just as the bandit launched the SAM towards them.
“SAM of the right side!” he punctuated his words with a long burst from his door gun.
Instinct took over as Valerie heard the call. She pushed down on the collective, sending the helicopter down as fast as she dared.
As the big helicopter hurtled towards ground, she saw the smoke trail from the missile arc over head. It hadn’t locked on. As she yanked the collective back up, Valerie increased the power, in an attempt to halt their decent. Through her headset Valerie could hear the co-pilot tasking the A-10’s to remove the threat near the extraction site.
Scorpion One-Five slowly regained some of the altitude it had just lost. Burton frantically scanned left and right looking for Shorty’s parachute. She pressed the left rudder pedal as she pushed the nose over to begin a slow left turn to begin the search. It was only a few seconds later that she got a call over the intercom
“Pilot, Left door. I see smoke about 300 yards straight out.”
Adding a bit more rudder to turn the helicopter more quickly, she spotted the purple smoke. Valerie flew direction and began descending.
“Scorpion One-Five, this is Hog One. The missile threat has been eliminated and both trucks are standing off. You are clear to make the pick-up”
“Copy that Hog One,” she replied.
As Valerie got closer to the marker smoke she could see Shorty unbuckling his harness while trying to not get dragged away by the parachute, which the breeze was keeping inflated. From her view from the helicopter it appeared that Shorty was working one handed. Stopping their descent, she began a long orbit around the downed flyer, careful not to cross his position as she didn’t want the blast from the rotor blades blowing him away. Over the intercom she could hear the crew chief and the airman from the right door gun preparing the winch that the airman would ride down to the ground to get Shorty.
On the ground below, Colonel Richard “Shorty” Collins had worked his way free of the parachute harness. It was a difficult task, as he had banged his right wrist hard when landing and the pain was blinding if he tried to use his fingers. When he slipped his feet out of the leg loops, the stiff breeze blew the canopy off across the barren field trailing the harness along behind. From the west he could see the rescue helicopter slowly approaching, with one of its crew hanging below the fuselage on the winch cable. Further out and to the south Collins could see two A-10s that were taking turns buzzing a pair of trucks.
The helicopter directly overhead now, and the airman was winching towards him. As he pushed himself to his feet with his good arm, he thought, “Hopefully the rest of the ride home would be much better will be a bit smoother than the first part.”
Present Day, Seattle.
The snow was coming down hard now, the roads of Seattle’s suburbs completely white. Traffic was moving at a crawl along I-5, the weather making the evening commute that much more tedious. Valerie Burton was stuck in the thick of it, and she needed to be 85 miles away as quickly as possible. She glanced over at the clock on the face of the stereo: 4:55. Already the sky was black above the falling snow. There was no way she was going to make to see Tom tonight with traffic as bad as it was. Valerie gripped the steering wheel a little bit tighter as the car crawled along. Even at the snail’s pace that she was traveling at, it was only a couple of minutes to her exit, and only 10 minutes to home from there.
To no one in particular she said, “Come on Val, think. There has to be away to get to the mountains tonight.” Then, as Valerie steered the car down the exit ramp, the serious look on her face was replaced by a sly smile. A thought had struck her, all she needed was wings. With that she pressed the phone button on the hub of the steering wheel, and the radio went silent.
“Rick Collins.” She said to the hidden microphone, and was rewarded with the tones of her phone dialing. Would he answer? It was almost 8 pm on a Friday night in Washington, D.C. On the fourth ring a man’s voice answered.
“This is General Collins.”
“Rick? This is Valerie Burton calling.” She said.
“Valerie, wow, it’s been months. How are you?” exclaimed General Richard Collins, the Air Force Chief of Staff.
“I’m in a bit of bind Rick, it’s snowing here in Seattle and I need to get up into the Cascades this evening.” Valerie explained.
Thousands of miles away, Collins was sitting at his desk in the Pentagon and on the corner of his desk was a picture of him, looking very battered, standing in front of a large helicopter, surrounded by its crew. A brass plate on the bottom was inscribed with the words “Scorpion 1-5 Car Service, One Flat Rate Pick-up, Any Place Any Time.” And the date, 02-05-91. “I think I might be able to help you out.” He chuckled.
“Thank you so much,” Valerie said. Then she explained exactly what she needed.
2 hours later, on a cleared hill side near her Edmond’s Condo, she waited in amidst the swirling snow. Rick had said a ride would arrive at 7 pm sharp, two minutes to go by her watch. Out of nowhere a bright light crossed the shore from Puget Sound and headed towards her.
“Right on time,” she said to herself. Then she heard the unmistakable sound of jet driven rotor blades sweep up the hillside. Thirty seconds later, a very familiar looking, huge green helicopter swung around and settled on the ground not fifty yards from where she was standing. Valerie picked up her bag and ran around the right side of the bird and up the open ramp.
At the top of the ramp, a crewman handed her a headset to put on, took her bag and motioned her towards the flight deck. With one hand on guide cable mounted to the outer wall of the cargo bay she walked towards the flight deck door. Beneath her feet she felt the deck shift as the power increased and the helicopter slowly rose back into the air. The sound of the jet turbines, even though the headphones, was much louder than she remembered. She climbed through the door to the flight deck, and sat in the only free seat, the second flight engineer’s station. Quickly, she located the communications jack on the instrument panel next to her and plugged in her headset.
“Welcome aboard Darts, General Collins sends his compliments.” the aviator in the left seat said, as he reaching back with a hand out stretched. She leaned forward and shook it.
“Thanks for coming out to get me, Major,” Valerie said, smiling at the use of her old call-sign and then asked, “Did the General fill you in about where we need to go?”
“Yes, ma’am he did. We should be able to drop you on the doorstep in about 40 minutes, give or take a minute or two if the weather gets worse.” The major smiled with his next comment, “but I don’t envision any issues, the General gave us permission to fly at 0/0 tonight.”
“Sounds like we will have a fun flight, I always enjoyed using Terrain Following Radar when l flew these helicopters.”
The co-pilot had the controls and was taking them north east well under the typical 500 feet above the ground. The ride was a little rougher than Valerie remembered, but it always felt different when she wasn’t the one flying.
The co-pilot was talking to Paine Field, only a few miles away to the north.
“Paine Field, this is Air Force transport, Scorpion one-five, requesting permission to transit under inbound traffic.”
Valerie looked at the Major, and he smiled and said, “General Collins thought you might like one more ride in your old bird. It just happened to be available.”
“Copy that, Paine Field, will maintain present course and altitude until passing the middle marker, then climb to Flight level 3. Scorpion One-Five out.” Was the co-pilot’s reply to the Control tower.
“I didn’t even know the old girl was still in service, I only flew her for a few weeks after giving the General his ride, then I rotated back home.” Val said to the Major. “I haven’t even flown in a helicopter since the end of that summer.” It was good to be back on board one though, she thought to herself. She looked out through the windshield into the maelstrom of snow flakes, illuminated by the aircraft’s twin landing lights. Judging by the choppiness of the ride, the Terrain following radar was doing most of the flying, probably the safest way to go, on a night like tonight. She sat back her seat and settled in to watch the snow.
Valerie could hear a voice calling, “Darts?…Darts?” groggily, she looked around.
“Yes, Major? Sorry, I must have drifted off for a few moments.” Val answered, stifling a yawn.
“We are only a few miles out now, I don’t know if we will be able to touch down or not, heavy birds and soft ground usually aren’t a great combination.” explained the Major.
“Not to worry, I can manage dropping a couple of feet to the ground. It will be just like the good old days.” Valerie said, grinning.
The view ahead, through the windshield was an amazing sight. A lake, pitch black in the early night, was surrounded by a ring of tiny points of lights, each one a cabin in an isolated clearing, seemingly alone in the wilderness.
The major was speaking again over the intercom, “Alright, everyone, lets look sharp on this one, we don’t want to get stuck in the mud on the beach.”
The ride got bumpier as the helicopter descended towards the beach on the far side of the lake. As they neared the shore, they started to turn to bring the path of the helicopter along the shore and away from the trees further in land. The front door to the cabin closest to them, showed a figure silhouetted in the flickering firelight coming from within. Valerie’s heart began to race, Tom was going to be so surprised when he saw it was her.
An airman tapped her on the shoulder, and mouthed “come with me, ma’am” as his headset wasn’t plugged in.
“Goodbye, Major, thanks for the lift, fly safe going home.” Valerie said to the aircraft’s commander.
“Our pleasure, Darts. The general is good to us rotor-heads, so we are happy to do him a favor now and then,” the major answered.
Valerie walked to the open door and looked out into the swirling snow. The pilot had lowered the helicopter so it was barely off the ground. Smiling to the airman, she stepped off the door sill and dropped few feet to the ground. The airman was crouched in the doorway with her bags in his hands. Before she turned to take the bags, she could see Tom walking down the front stairs from the cabin’s front door towards them. As she took the bags and stepped back from under the spinning blades of the helicopter, the airman flashed her thumbs up and a quick salute. She saw him saying all clear into his headsets microphone. Valerie could feel the down blast from the huge 6 bladed rotor increase as the helicopter lifted off. Grinning, Valerie started up the path towards Tom.