Twice in my flying career I nearly ran my jet out of gas.
Both experiences were as painful as they were permanently instructional, and Lt Col Brugh helped me with both of them.
My second act of gas buffoonery was in a Strike Eagle, flying in Area 12 way out over the ocean in the Whiskey MOAs off of Cape Lookout, North Carolina - near where the 'Big Rock' deep sea tournament guys fish the Gulf Stream.
I was pulling hard, and we were down low, at the floor, Afterburners blazing and burning a ton of gas for a full 10 seconds well after we heard the clear "BINGO FUEL" warning from Bitchin' Betty in the helmet telling us to go home.
I was in a dogfight in a left turn trying to fly my gun pipper into a shooting position behind my Operations Officer and instructor, "AB" Botine, and kill him. I wanted to show him I was better than he was. I was not. On my first F-15E IN-1 Instructor Upgrade ride, I had target fixation.
The amount of fuel a Strike Eagle can burn through in 10 seconds of full Afterburner is astonishing, and I re-learned a very tough lesson about gas that day - the hard way. It was my first mission in the training syllabus to become an Instructor in the 336th Fighter Squadron "Rocketeers."
The Jet Stream on March 1st 2001 was whipping unusually fast - and much further south than normal over North Carolina that afternoon in the winter season. It was giving us a completely unexpected (to me) 90-knot headwind after I led our lengthy climb up from the 5000' floor towards the beach up to 23,000 feet on the way home to Goldsboro.
My continued post-"BINGO" flight in Afterburner and that enormous headwind got us in a descent for Seymour Johnson with much less gas in the tanks than AB's jet had, and way less than I was comfortable with.
By the time I realized how strong the winds were and what they were doing to our gas level, it was too late to consider landing on the Marine runway at Cherry Point. I was one hair away from declaring "Emergency Fuel" with approach control as I started downhill- I remained ready to say so, out loud, to the controller all the way down, had any routing delay occurred. Kinston's runway was just a bit closer and it was firmly on my mind. AB was attentive to it all as my simulated "student."
Fortunately for me, we were using the west-landing Runway 26, which allowed me to eek our Strike Eagle two-ship directly straight in with an Idle/230knots/clean configuration and down together over Wilber's Barbecue for an easy formation landing. What a relief.
I had delayed our gear extension to save an extra quart of gas and I used every remaining bit of my remaining scant airmanship & finesse to get our F-15Es on the ground together with the "FUEL LOW" light on in my cockpit, but without incident. Although I never quite crossed my "Emergency Fuel" mental threshold on that descent, I was always one drop of fuel away from it.
Through it all, I held a memory of a mentor from years earlier in my mind. Lt Col Brugh's face was staring at me throughout the whole recovery, floating there in front of my cockpit in my heads-up display all the way down.
I 'fessed up fully in the debrief about what had happened, because it had been an uncomfortable situation. The lessons I then received in turn from AB afterwards were spirited and....thorough. I never flew past BINGO fuel ever again in the F-15E, and I added an extra fuel pad to my mission on every other sortie after that, just because of that day's painful learning.
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Years before, in the mid-90s at Columbus Air Force Base Mississippi in a white T-38, I was a young 25-year old Lieutenant, and I did a similar thing - but much worse.
Columbus T-38 Training Airspace
I was wrong.
"Stellar plan", I thought to smugly myself at the time. And maybe it would've worked ok, except for the fact that a two-ship of T-38s was holding short for takeoff on the center runway we needed to land on.
Ready to land, gear down, and just outside a short 1-mile final for runway 13, I became horrified as I heard the Tower call us:
"Orion 11, Cancel landing clearance. Plan to fly a restricted low approach above 500' and plan closed traffic for Live Oak's pattern, 13 Left."
"WHAT THE ...HECK? WE WERE JUST CLEARED TO LAND!" I fussed to myself.
Tower instructed further, clearing Snake 21 flight "On to Hold" to prepare them for takeoff:
That. Never. Happened. "What?!!"
I had never heard the Columbus Tower do such an unexpected thing like that to anyone before on short final to the Center Runway to launch another formation out. "Live Oak" was the callsign of the T-38 controller for the outside runway I had just worked hard to avoid, 13 Left. And that runway they were sending me over to was the last place I wanted to go.
I had no idea why that odd series of events was unfolding in front of me at the time, but I did know that I was undeniably down to Emergency Fuel, I was going to land my two-ship with less than 400 pounds of gas (on fumes) already, and I needed that other two-ship on the ground in the hammerhead to stay put - and stay off my runway.
It would have taken at least 150 pounds of fuel (or probably more) for us to go around and fly up into that busy pattern full of student jets, and try to get on the ground immediately afterwards. We could have impacted several others, and for sure - it would have made us land ours in an even more tense gas situation.
Sketchy odds; I realized I didn't have a real choice. I had put myself into a corner.
"TOWER - KEEP THAT TWO-SHIP OFF THE RUNWAY ORION 11 NEEDS TO LAND NOW."
The waiting formation of white jets was sitting still, immobile at the hold-short line, already stopped in place and all ears on the frequency were hearing my insistent words to the Tower. Thankfully, Tower cleared us to land, and I breathed a huge sigh of relief as both our T-38s touched down together on that long Center runway at Columbus.
We taxied back into the chocks with 350 pounds left in the tanks and I felt very lucky to be on the ground safe. I pretended to be cool, but the truth was, my left hand was shaky as I pulled the throttles to 'Cutoff' and heard the whirring J-85 engines wind down. I was covered in sweat from the Mississippi heat, and from the Tower surprise & the stress I had just inflicted on myself.
I almost learned the wrong lesson.
I'm positive I would have pushed my gas limits just like that, again, had it not been for Lt Col Brugh.
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A couple of hours later, after an awkward instructor debrief with the guys in my formation back in Orion Flight, I had quickly forgotten all about that low-fuel sortie. I was doing my normal FAIP instructor paperwork. We were talking with the students in Orion flight, handling gradebook checks, fixing binders, and I was dealing with my daily instructor admin tasks in the 50th Flying Training Squadron. I was having a pretty good day, because I was still young and naive (and dumb) enough as a new Instructor Lieutenant to be able to shuck off the monumental lesson I should have just learned.
"JJ!!" It was Lt Col Brugh.
Lt Col Mark Brugh was the pilot I wanted to be one day. This was a man of almost Superman reputation in our flying squadron. Tall and thin, he had flown F-15Cs (Air-to-Air fighters) impeccably well, recently arrived at Columbus as a leader, and he was famous in our squadron for having accumulated five "Exceptionally Qualified" checkride ratings. In context, our squadron awarded maybe one or two of those EQ checkride grades across the whole squadron in a year's time - so an "EQ" score was a very rare thing. This guy had FIVE EQs. In Fighters. In EAGLEs. All I wanted to do in life was fly an F-15 Eagle, and this guy was a recognized expert in that jet. And he flew the T-38 better than anyone I knew in our squadron. In addition to that, he was one of the most professional, understated, exceedingly competent, and humble officers I had ever met. Zero swagger; not a whiff of attitude. Just all goodness. All talent. All work ethic. A pure professional. As far as I was concerned, Lt Col Brugh was the walking example of everything I wanted to be as an officer, pilot, and leader.
I was passing the 50th Flying Training Squadron Duty Desk in the middle of the long hallway, headed down towards the T-37 squadron to hit the snack bar for a Dr Pepper and a cup of cheap Ramen noodles for a mid-afternoon lunch. The smell of sweaty summer G-suits in the beige hallway lockers was hanging heavy in the squadron air when I saw Lt Col Brugh at the double-doors off in the distance, entering the squadron towards me. He did not look happy when he saw my face. In fact, he looked really intense. At ME.
He intercepted me.
"JJ - Step in here."
I was beginning to feel very, very bad. We moved together into a short side hallway by the Falcon Flight room, not inside the larger open training room and not in the IP office, but in that dim, empty transitional corridor just off the main hall. Everyone in Falcon flight was out flying at the time, so we were all alone in that little space. And I knew I was busted. Brugh still had some pink creases on his face from the helmet and oxygen mask he'd been wearing, having landed well after me. He was holding a coke.
"JJ, were you leading Orion 11 flight today?" He was speaking very softly, almost whisper-talking- but with an intense and deeply serious voice, and he was inches from my face. I could smell his breath. "Yes Sir." Definitely busted. I had no idea HE was in the two-ship I had halted.
"I am so busted," I thought to myself, withering.
"How much gas did you land with, JJ?" "...just over 350 pounds, sir."
"JJ, you handled that mission poorly today. That was our two-ship out there in the hammerhead when you touched down and we saw and heard how that whole situation went down."
He stared at me without blinking for what seemed like two minutes, inches away.
[That pause still has a permanent impression on me....I can still see his face even now.]
"Don't EVER hesitate declare 'Emergency Fuel' when you find you are at a critical fuel state in the jet. Declare 'Emergency Fuel,' get yourself proper traffic priority, and get yourself down."
"Do You Understand Me?" Again, the whisper-talking. Only I could hear his careful words.
I could begin to see that he was way more disappointed in me than he was angry at me. He was actually taking care of me. But at that moment, it was a very bad experience.
"Yes Sir." I felt just awful. I felt so dumb. And I knew he was right.
Of course he was right.
"There are very few unforgivable sins our business, JJ. But running your jet and your wingman's jet out of gas is at the very top of that list. Never do that again. Flight Discipline." he whispered.
"Yes Sir."
Lt Col Brugh never mentioned my flying failure to me ever again, and in contrast to that excruciating moment of painful personal accountability, I always heard a steady flow of positive, encouraging words from him to me and many other IPs in the squadron over the months we flew together.
He was generally quiet, but effusive with public praise when it was deserved. And he was a great leader. But occasionally, I'd see him pull someone aside in the hallway for ...a Whispering session.
Oh, I knew what was going down.
And I was glad it wasn't me.
Lt Col Brugh taught me a whole lot about fuel management that day. But much more importantly, he taught me the essence of a key leadership principle: "Praise In Public, Admonish In Private." Lt Col Brugh helped us all become much better than we were.
He made me a much safer and a much finer T-38 Instructor Pilot that day than I ever would have been otherwise, and I'm certain he figured positively into the outcome of my first F-15E Instructor upgrade mission much later on in the Rockets. And he helped shape the way I flew for the rest of my Strike Eagle flying days, many years after that quiet hallway conversation.
I have tried to emulate him in many ways ever since, because he was just such a fine example.
And, on occasion, when I've had the opportunity to help someone else learn an important, but harsh lesson, I have tried to do it his way.
In private...
