Chapter 13: SNAFU at Clark

The next day I called Pingtung Base Operations to see if they had any aircraft going to Clark in the near future.

The Captain I spoke to checked his schedules, and then said he was sorry but he showed nothing scheduled for Clark for the next week. As I hung up and was trying to think of where to try next, the phone rang. Picking up the receiver, I absently said, "Waaay?" (a sound approximating the Chinese word for "Hello").

Col. Chung chuckled and said, "Sorry to laugh, Major, but that's the worst accent I've ever heard! But the reason I called is that I just heard you were looking for transportation to Clark. I just wanted to let you know we're planning to take a C-119 down there next week to pick up some spare parts. If that fits into your schedule, you are more than welcome to ride along."

I thanked him, and then asked him to let me know when his schedule firmed up. When I told Mae that I'd been offered a flight to Clark by Col. Chung, she commented acidly, "I think he still feels obligated to you for saving his ass from that MiG!"

Puzzled by her reaction, I asked, "Are you bitter about my leaving you behind while I go down to Luzon and get things organized?"

"No, that has nothing to do with it. I just don't like the man," she replied.

I kissed her softly, then said, "It shouldn't take more than week or two to get things squared away, then you and Wan Chu can catch a China Air flight out of Tainan and I'll pick you up in Manila."

That pacified her somewhat. "I'm sorry," she replied. "It's just that the last three years, when you were in England and I didn't know where you were, or even if I'd ever see you again, were terrible for me. As an unwed mother, alone with no emotional support except for my parents, I guess I still feel a little clingy when it comes to you going away again."

I hugged her to me and kissed the top of her head reassuringly. Looking down, I saw little Wan Chu clinging to the hem of her dress, looking up at me with a questioning expression on his tiny face. I reached down, tousling his hair, which earned me a hesitant smile.

Things settled down a bit after that, and when the day finally came to leave, they both accompanied me to the airstrip to see me off. Holding Wan Chu in one arm and pulling Mae to me with the other, I kissed them both as Col.

Chung sat waiting for me at the controls of the idling Box Car. Handing my son to my wife, I kissed them both again, then climbed up into the cargo bay and closed the crew door. Moving up to the flight deck I found that he was the only crewman onboard. I slipped into the empty co-pilot's seat and slid the side window open, waving again as Col. Chung pulled away from the parking ramp and taxied slowly out to the runway. On our take-off roll, I could see them both still standing on the ramp, their figures tiny in the distance. I only hoped all went well at Clark and that we'd be together again within a few weeks.

Arriving at Clark, I thanked Col. Chung for the ride and found my way to the 512th Fighter Squadron's administrative area. As I left the flight line, I noticed the Chinese Box Car queuing up at the end of the runway for takeoff. Either he hadn't picked up very many parts, or that story was just a ploy to offer me a flight to Clark without losing face. I tended to believe the latter.

Signing in, I was told that the majority of the squadron's F-100Ds, as well as most of their pilots and maintenance personnel were deployed TDY to Chai-Yi AB, Taiwan, in an Air Defense roll. Only four of their F-100's were standing alert here at Clark, along with a small maintenance detachment whose personnel preformed routine maintenance on these aircraft, as well as performing the periodic maintenance on all the Taiwan-deployed birds as well; those craft rotated through Clark as their 100 hour periodic inspections came due.

A T/Sgt at the detachment's headquarters told me that their detachment commander, Major James Johnson, was at the club for a late breakfast. As I was hungry myself, I commandeered a ride over to the O'club and had the Master-at- Arms point out Major Johnson to me.

As I approached his table, he looked up and asked, "Can I help you, Major?"

"Perhaps you can, Major," I replied with a smile. Handing him a copy of my orders, he scanned them, then looked up at me and said, "Damn, I had no idea you were coming in and I'm not sure just what our next move is. What's your date of rank?" It turned out that I outranked him by six months.

"It would be rather awkward for me to have a pilot in my detachment who outranks me. Would you like to stay here or be transferred up to Chai-Yi?" he asked.

Explaining my situation, being recently married and high on the list for base housing, I said that I would really like to remain at Clark, at least for awhile.

After he thought about the situation for a moment, he said, "This decision is way above my pay grade, Major. Let me check with our commander up at Chai-Yi. I'll suggest he assign you as commander of this detachment as I would be more than willing to go on up to Taiwan where I could get more flying time."

"That sounds like a win-win solution to me, Major," I replied with a grin, as the waitress arrived to take my order.

As I was eating a hearty breakfast of bacon, eggs, and hash browns, I noticed Jim looking at me with a puzzled expression.

"What is it?" I asked.

"I was just thinking of a rumor I heard about a USAF MAAG Major named Donaldson, who shot down a MiG 15 over the Straights of Taiwan three or four years ago," he replied.

"That would be me," I replied with a grin. "Major Chung, the F-104 wing operations officer, and I were up on an orientation flight when we got jumped by the MiG. I managed to break contact but, unfortunately for the MiG pilot, he became so focused on shooting down Chung, he forgot about me and I nailed his ass with a Sidewinder. This was just before I was transferred to England, to fly F-100Ds out of Lakenheath."

"You're married to a British girl then," he surmised.

"No, I'm married to a Chinese lady I met during my MAAG assignment, but who I lost track of when I was transferred to Lakenheath. On my way over here, I stopped by Taiwan and we hooked up again," I replied.

"Oh, so you're married to a Chinese girl then," he said.

"Yes, Mae is of Chinese decent, but she was born and educated in the States, holds dual U.S. and R.O.C citizenship, has a private pilot's license, a PhD in Aeronautical Engineering, and her father is an ambassador in the Republic of China's Diplomatic Corps. She's not your average Taipei bar girl," I chuckled.

"Jeez, I guess not! I'm still working on my B.A. degree from the University of Maryland," he replied, a look of admiration on his face.

After I'd finished eating, we returned to the detachment in his pick-up. He suggested I take his truck to complete my in-processing while he contacted our commander at Chai Yi to straighten out our assignments.

During my in-processing, I stopped by the Housing Office and found that I was indeed near the top of the housing list. In fact, I was due to be assigned a unit the following week when the current resident was scheduled to ship out. I wrote down the address of the unit and drove by it.

Instead of the usual cookie-cutter duplex family housing unit I expected, it turned out to be an isolated, white single-story bungalow with a gently sloping red-tile roof and a large, well kept lawn, situated on at least a half- acre plot. Several huge, gnarled, Banyan trees shaded the front, with mature Mango trees towering above the roofline at the rear. I thought Mae would be quite pleased with these accommodations. Checking the name on the sign in front, I noted the current resident was a Brigadier General D. Lawson. My God, General's quarters! Mae's father must have some serious clout with the Base Commander, I thought.

After being assigned a temporary room in the BOQ until our housing unit became available, I dropped off my luggage.

Returning to the Detachment, I found that Jim had checked with our commander at Chai-Yi and it had been determined that I was to assume the duties of detachment commander and that he would be transferred up to Taiwan as a flight commander and line-pilot. He also said that he could stay here at Clark for a week or so to indoctrinate me in my new duties.

As we toured my new fiefdom, I learned that we had about fifty maintenance troops, trained in all areas pertinent to repairing, inspecting and certifying F-100 aircraft. My own skills would not be wasted however. As part of my duties, I would be Chief Test Pilot, flight testing all repaired aircraft to assure they were fit to return to service. This allowed me to stay current in the aircraft, as well as protecting my flight status so that I could still draw my flight pay. We also had a full range of maintenance shops including engine, sheet metal, airframe, communications, avionics, electrical and weapons shops.

That afternoon Jim had an F-100F to test hop and invited me along for a local area indoctrination flight. I checked the Form 781, Maintenance Log and noted the bird had been sent down to us as a precautionary measure because it had experienced intermittent hydraulic pressure fluctuations in flight. As we taxied out with me in the front cockpit and held short of the runway threshold, Major Johnson suggested from the rear cockpit, that I make the takeoff.

Double-clicking the mic, I received permission from the tower and nudged the throttle forward, slowly swinging out onto the active runway. Pressing down hard on the brakes, I ran the engine up to 80%, keeping a watchful eye on the main hydraulic system pressure gauge. It seemed to be holding steady.

After a final check of the remaining instruments and noting everything was in the green, I released the brakes and, as we started our roll, slapped it into 'burner. At 300 knots indicated airspeed, I eased the stick back and took her up to 10,000 feet. Once leveled off, I pulled it out of burner and performed a series of porpoising maneuvers to stress the hydraulics, noting that the pressure gauge held steady. About ready to sign off on the maintenance, I decided on one final test. Throwing it into a violent aileron snap-roll, I noticed a quick but definite drop in the pressure gauge. Keying my mic, I said, "Did you see that?"

"Yeah, she's still showing a fluctuation. Let's take her back to the barn," Johnson replied grimly.

Returning to Clark, we landed and taxied back to our area. As we parked, the crew chief hung the boarding ladder on the canopy rail, climbed up and asked, "How did it go sir?"

"It's still broke, chief. Get the head of the Hydraulic shop out here. I want a talk with him!" Johnson ordered.

When the shop chief, a grizzled E-8 (Senior Master Sgt.) in grease-stained fatigues arrived, Capt. Johnson explained what we had seen. "Everything was normal until Major Donaldson decided to make one final check. When he performed a high-speed snap-roll, the pressure dropped momentarily before it recovered."

The chief said, "There could only be one thing causing something like that, sir. Let me take a look."

Walking over to the trailing edge of the left wing, he examined the bottom of the aileron closely, running his finger along its leading edge. Then, shaking his head and moving around to the right wing, he went through the same routine. This time he held up a finger coated with a thin film of green fluid and announced, "I found the problem, sir!"

Returning to the ladder, he explained, "That actuator bench-checked ok, but performing a snap roll at high speed must have stressed it enough to force some hydraulic fluid out through the seal. I'll have it changed out and it will be ready for another test hop this afternoon, sir."

True to his word, the maintenance was completed by 1400, and at 1430 I took it up again, this time with the E-8 in the rear seat. I wrung it out thoroughly and could not detect any hint of a fluctuation in hydraulic pressure despite several energetic attempts. As I taxied back to the hardstand thirty minutes later, with the chief looking a little green around the gills, I congratulated him on a job well done.

Later that afternoon I posted a new policy on the detachment bulletin board. Starting immediately, all two-seat aircraft test hops would carry a maintenance man in the rear seat; the passenger to be selected at random from a list of all mechanics signing off any work performed on that aircraft during its inspection. It was the same policy we'd had at Lakenheath. Once the word got out, repeat write-ups became extremely rare.

Before Jim left to rejoin our squadron on Taiwan, I decided to take one of our 'D' models and fly up to Chai-Yi to meet my new commander and get acquainted with my outfit. The next day, after filing a flight plan to Chai-Yi and return, with a short stopover at Pingtung, I took off at 0800, landing at Chai-Yi forty minutes later. As I walked into Major William's office, I recognized him immediately. He'd been one of the pilots I'd relieved when I'd arrived at Lakenheath.

"You look very familiar, Major Donaldson. I know we've met before, I just can't seem to remember where," he commented after I reported in.

"Try Lakenheath, a little over three years ago. We were both Captains and you were processing out as I was processing in," I grinned.

"Ah, that's it, I remember now!" he exclaimed, as he rose to shake my hand. "Let's move this meeting to the O'club where we catch up on what we've been doing since then without the interruptions we'll get here."

As we settled into a booth at the club, he said, "Well, I see we've both gotten promoted since we last met. How did you like your tour at the 'Heath?"