Judgment �� "UNSAT" - human factors in decision-making

Judgment. The ability to analyze a new situation, compare it to past similar experiences and make a decision. Everyone is born with it; throughout our lives we cultivate it; and from the first day of flying training, you are graded on it. Early in your training, you find out that to supplement your lapses in judgment, the Air Force has come up with a nice little set of rules to help you. "Follow the rules and you'll stay out of trouble," was what I heard over and over.

Nowhere was that more true than when I finished pilot training and went to fighter lead in. Entering the arena of mock combat, I first encountered the Rules of Engagement or ROE. "Judgment" at this point largely meant following the ROE. The strictest compliance was expected and failure to comply meant harsh punishment.

But judgment is not static -- it changes. In my career that followed, I observed that the "new guys" generally seemed to be the most faithful observers of the minutiae in our myriad rules and regulations. This is because they rely on the rules to guide their judgment. The heavy emphasis on this in our training makes it only natural. I know it worked that way for me. I also noticed that as pilots gain experience and confidence in their abilities, there may be occasions where they either accidentally - or deliberately -- exceed the margins specified in the ROE. Personal judgment is now actively involved. "The Mission" and perhaps moments of fleeting personal glory take precedence over "following the rules." Oh, the rules are still there and some are painstakingly followed, but some of them are selectively complied with or room for interpretation is allowed. "Don't screw up" is the new motto.

From my perspective, by the time a guy has been around the block more than a few times, the rules become a dominant force in judgment again. For the old cranium, "been there; done that" is so patently obvious he does not need to bend the rules to bask in momentary fame. And, at this point, with leadership responsibilities and a couple of thousand "lessons learned," he can really say to himself "I don't push the ROE anymore."

This preamble sets the stage for a four-ship flight of F-4Gs I led on Sept. 25, 1995. I was a fairly new major, had been flying the airplane for nearly 9 continuous years, had 3,000+ hours in the Rhino including 700+ as an Instructor Pilot (IP) and had flown 239 sorties over Iraq. I felt on-top of my game. My judgment had followed the evolution I described above pretty consistently. I could quote chapter and verse of any regulation early in my career, and midway I had done some wild stuff (ask anybody who flew with me as a captain!), but by this point, I was satisfied with devising new tactics, employing within the ROE and seeing it work to our advantage.

It was a beautiful day for our flight, call sign Vegas 01. We planned to take off from Nellis, two-by-two formation takeoffs, and go 15 minutes out to a west Military Operations Area (MOA). The crews were overall very experienced. The lowest-time pilot had 900 hours, the other two had 1,500+ and the backseaters had 500 to 1,500+ hours. With an 8:40 a.m. takeoff and beautiful clear skies, it was a great day to go out and do air combat training -- "the sport of kings." With the efficiency I expected from the guys between sets, I hoped to get at least four engagements.

The brief was thorough and, as I always did, I looked each guy in the eyes to make sure no one had gone into a "briefing-room coma" as I went over the ROE. Takeoff and departure to the MOA were normal. After the obligatory "G" check and system checks, we split elements. The MOA was oriented north-south. I took my element to the south-point; number three went north.

Number three was the "low" time pilot. I had decided to be a nice guy for the first engagement. I took the south point to give number three the better axis for tallyho, as well as the better altitude blocks. Number two and I would be 15,000 to 19,000 feet. My element's tactics would be non-conventional. Attacks would be prosecuted individually -- wingman support not required. In the event we were targeted, we would defend individually to visual limits. If the defending maneuver worked, you could re commit. Otherwise, drag. We would try to split the blocks to the maximum altitude differential.

At "Fight's on," we turned north. I was on the left or west side. With a 30-mile setup, I knew we should hear "10 miles" just over a minute out of our points. We had a weak radar that day and 30 seconds into the fight, number two called "Gadget bent," which meant radar degraded. Lovely.

Moments later, he called "Defending Alamo." He turned 90 degrees left to put them at his 3 o'clock. I was at the top of the block, so he passed under and behind me. I did not have any contacts, but we were not targeted yet either, so we continued.

Well, not so fast. Now we had two spikes on the nose, so number three's element had glommed onto me. I saw my wingman 2 miles west of me, going west, so I turned to follow him. I ended up in a 3-mile trail on him, going down hill, as we chaffed and tried to get rid of whoever in the other element was shooting an AIM-7 at us from our 3 o'clock.

Number two was approaching the western border of our MOA when he called out "Tallyho, two bandits, my 4 o'clock, 4 miles." Since he could not drag from this position because of the airspace, I saw him pitch back and up into the threat. I had lost my spike, but still did not have a tally, so we kept going west.

Number two was doing a great job of trying to talk my eyes onto the bandits. Right after number two got a radar shot on the leader (at close to minimum range), I saw his target. He was just over 3 miles from me at my 4 o'clock, about 2,000 feet above us. I did not think he saw me. I figured he must be concentrating on number two, who was at his 12 o'clock for 3 miles. If I snapped back into him, I would be at his 10 o'clock. I hoped to get two unobserved shots on him and remove him from the game. I still had only tally-one. However, this one was in our block, so I did a pitchback into him, figuring to fight him within our block.

Unfortunately for me, as I rolled out from the pitch, I saw him switch his nose from number two to me. He was inside of 2 miles and I always practiced disciplined InfraRed CounterMeasures (IRCM). I yanked the throttles to idle and tried to set up for a quick heat shot, knowing I would be slow at the merge.

It seemed the planets just were not in alignment for me that day. Just as I got the pipper on him (yes, in the good old days you had to point your jet at the bad guy to get a heat shot -- we did not have luxuries like off-boresight AIM-9s), I felt like we were inside 10,000 feet slant-range and I would be pushing it to try to get the shot and be off by 9,000 feet. I decided to forego the shot and concentrated on denying him the opportunity. I maintained my IRCM, knowing that it would take a miracle for him to get a valid tone, as he looked down at the desert floor with my jet in idle.

And I was right. I did not hear "Fox-2," so my IRCM worked. Now I just needed to clear the 500-foot bubble, blow out northeast and try it again. Since we were beak-to-beak and I was going about 10 degrees uphill, I figured "Nose high, goes high, clear to the right, and never cross flight paths" -- standard ROE.

So that is what I did. I eased the jet slightly to the right. However, to my amazement, his nose followed me. Well, he goofed. I thought, "I'll debrief whoever this is between engagements. No time to ponder that now." I shifted my nose to the left. He followed me again!! I was getting a little concerned. I threw the throttles in blower, not really caring about IRCM at this point. It looked like the path of least conflict was up and right, so that is what I went for. As I pulled up with the little amount of "G" I had left (we were down to 220 knots, which in a Rhino is nothing), I saw with absolute horror and astonishment he was following me again!! "Fox-2 on the F-4 climbing through 17,000, headed north east!" number three proudly transmitted over the radio.

The next words out of me were a pleading utterance of profanity. I had the nose jacked up and I was max performing the jet; pulling darn near the stall. We were out of airspeed -- we were below 180 knots. What else could I do? He had disappeared under my nose when I made the last pull up. Then it became all too clear why we kept accidentally crossing flight paths - number three was bound and determined he was going to get a shot on me!!

For the next 8 seconds, I struggled with the jet, absolutely convinced that the next -- and last -- thing I would ever see would be the nose of number three's jet, just left of my canopy, before the rest of his jet slammed into us. My backseater could not see what I could see. He was shouting "Unload, unload!!" because he knew I was pulling too hard and the Phantom would depart in the blink of an eye. I did not have the presence of mind - or the heart - to tell him in a few moments we would be dead, and I could not stop number three from doing it.

To my relief and disbelief, what I saw instead was number three blitzing past us, about 100 120 feet left of us; level. "Knock-it-off, knock it-off, knock-it-off!!" Vegas 01, knock-it-off!!" Anyone who heard that transmission had no doubt about the rage in my voice. The flight went through the standard knock-it-off drill, then I said "That was about 100 feet!" The final straw was when number three replied with "We're OK- we're good to go." Well, maybe he was, but I had had enough of him for one day, and I did not care to try it again. I thought about sending him home alone, but I did not want to find out if someone else would pull a similar stunt. I decided he should stay so I could keep an eye on him. We flew limited engagements for the rest of the day.

No one spoke in maintenance debrief, which is usually a great place to tell jokes. No one spoke when we piled into our briefing room. Once I closed and locked the door, the ensuing debrief lasted for 2 hours -- which is pretty amazing, considering we only flew one full-up engagement. Two things I will never forget from that debrief: from the time of my horrific realization (marked on the tape by my profanity) until my angry knock-it-off call, was 8 seconds. Eight seconds I was convinced I was going to die. The other is that number three pulled off from his boresight heat shot at 4,500 feet.

I dominated the conversation that followed, but I had a lot of mutual support. It was effectively seven against one in that room. We hammered home, and I mean hammered, the point to number three that he had almost killed four people that morning. We wanted to make sure he never pulled a bonehead stunt like that again. I tackled it from two axes. The first was the personal pride standpoint. We made him feel about as low as you can and guaranteed he would get that and worse if he tried something like that again. Going from "Hero" to "Zero" and getting the opposite result from what he intended would hopefully prevent a repeat performance. We also covered the technical aspects. We reviewed the cues and techniques he could have used to recognize the situation so if he were presented with it again, he could avoid it.

So who gets the "UNSAT" in judgment? Well obviously, number three. He violated the 9,000 foot head-on rule twice: once for not coming off at 9,000, the other for taking a shot well inside 9,000; he violated the 500-foot bubble; and finally, he never even recognized there was a problem and even defended his actions when it was pointed out to him.

But it was not until much later that I realized that there were a few more "UNSATs" to be handed out -- to me. While my judgment had matured, I had not considered that number three or the others might be at some other stage. I knew number three was a new flight lead, so I gave him a few bones, but I had not imagined that the psychobabble qweep we usually call "human factors" might actually exist in reality. I had not considered how his self-esteem, which had been bruised by a slow upgrade and a non-promotion, would make him desperate for a chance to make his mark. What greater opportunity for him to get his fangs through the floorboards than to shoot down a squadron IP who had been "down town"; a guy who had shot him on more occasions than he cared to remember? I earned my "UNSAT" because I did not recognize fundamental human motivations. Oh, there are other things. I wish I had unloaded rather than pulled. I could have kept him in sight and more than doubled my nose rate. I wish I had called "knock-it-off" sooner. And I wish I could have controlled my anger -- it did not help any.

And while I believe we took care of the problem (number three never did anything this stupid again), I failed in judgment a second time when I kept it all within the flight. I should have talked to the Director of Operations (DO) or Assistant DO at a minimum. While those of us in Vegas flight knew what had happened, no one else outside of our flight was given the opportunity to learn from our mistakes. I should not have been satisfied that I had fixed number three's problem. After all, he obviously had not been impressed by my briefing or coverage of the ROE before the flight. The squadron leadership could have put him on "super double-secret probation" until they became convinced he was redeemed. It would have been safer for every one, including number three.

Finally, I concluded that even though I had matured and now followed the ROE to the letter, my smug self-assurance should not have given me a false sense of security. In my more reckless youth, any danger to myself was generally self-induced. Now I felt that since I had mended my ways, my adherence to the ROE would keep me out of trouble. I realized -- almost too late -- that blind compliance with the ROE and being a good stick is not enough. The other guy can still hurt you. No matter how long you have been around or how mature your judgment is, your judgment can still be "UNSAT."

COPYRIGHT 2001 U.S. Department of the Air Force
COPYRIGHT 2004 Gale Group