Ad: This forum contains affiliate links to products on Amazon and eBay. More information in Terms and rules
The day started like any other. Woke up, took a shower, went to work, talked the squadron into a lunch push... standard stuff. I do like a lunch push... but I digress.
Later on, while looking for a place to take a nap due to my food coma, I run into the scheduler. For those of you who don't know, the scheduler makes sure the squadron gets everything done that needs to. Sometimes things change or people fall out and they have to find a back up. In my case, he wanted to go fly and needed me to take his place as one of two survivors for a CSAR mission. CSAR is short for Combat Search And Rescue. The A-10 is adept at this mission, which involves finding and rescuing downed pilots. They will team up with a helicopter or two and get the good guy before the bad guys do. Naturally, I accepted.
As much as I would like to go out in my back yard and be the survivor, we have to drive about an hour south to a place where airplanes and helicopters are permitted to operate and land at extremely low altitudes. For us, this is Truman Reservoir. It's a Corps of Engineers lake, which allows us to do about anything we want within 300 feet of the shore.
So Mishap Pilot A (Yossarian), and I get there and start setting up for the exercise. We get out the radios, the signaling equipment and listen up for the fighters. They show up and things are going well. After awhile, the A-10s come in real low and one of the helicopters lands simulating a pickup.
One of the ways to get them to find your location is to pop a smoke flare. It's a pretty cool contraption. On one end you have the day end which puts out bright red smoke, and the other you have the night end that puts out a red flare, not unlike what you saw in the movie The Rock when Nicholas Cage comes out waving the flares to get the fighters to not drop the bombs. It's funny I bring up this movie, but I'll get back to that.
We use the day ends to signal our location, while leaving the night ends unused. After the exercise, it's traditional for the fighters to get a panel check from those on the ground. This is usually a spirited low pass which is fun to see from the ground.
Right before the pass, Yossarian and I get the bright idea to set off the night ends of the flares in a dramatic reenactment of the famous Rock scene. So as the jets begin to make this pass we pop the flares. Now picture the two of us, standing next to each other, holding a flare in opposite hands waving them back in forth. As you can imagine... it was quite the spectacle, however this pales in comparison to the scene for the next thirty minutes.
The first lesson I learned today, is these flares, which are spitting out flame, become very hot. When you are holding this flare with your bare hand, you tend to lose your desire to hold it. The use of gloves are highly recommended. At this point I learned my second lesson.
When you are going to light flares and hold them in your hand which you might drop, it would be better to be standing next to the lake rather than 10 yards away in the foot high dry grass with the consistency of hay.
After the flare blisters my right index finger and let out a girlish scream... I dropped the flare. During the second I take to thank God my finger is still usable, I notice the ignited flare has come in contact with the foot high grass as an A-10 goes whizzing by at 400 knots. The God awful panic that ensues will forever be etched in my mind.
As the flare continues to burn, the grass surounding the flares becomes engulfed in flames. At this point, Yossarian and I partake in what must look like some Native American rain dance as we shuffle around frantically trying to stomp out the fire while chanting: "We're so #$%@ing stupid!"
Yossarian then pulls out the space blanket, included in the survival vest, and attempts to smother the flames. In the moment I'm thinking, "that ain't gonna work", the blanket, in the blink of an eye, dissappears into a fine mist, rivaling the best magic acts in Vegas. I then take the survival vest and try to beat out the flames. The vest, made out of nylon (highly flamable), only adds to the problem. Fortunately, I'm able to extinguish the molten nylon before all is lost, however this ordeal leaves me with one less eyebrow, no hair on my right forearm and singed cowlick that wasn't there before. I even considered taking off my flight suit(flame resistant nomex) and use it to beat out the flames. Due to a previous life changing episode, I don't wear underwear... so I decided it was probably not a good idea to expose certain vital parts, not to mention the fact that if I couldn't use the flight suit afterwards, the fire department would be witness to what some might call a 6'7" Adonis in brown t-shirt and flight boots. I know, I know... the image is burned into your minds.
Now the fire is taking on the characteristics of an inferno. Yossarian and I are now running up and down the beach looking for anything that will hold water. I couldn't find anything and try throwing wet logs on the fire. This did nothing. Yossarian comes running up do me, out of breath and hands me a Folgers coffee can and says, "here, (heavy breathing) you (heavy breathing) take it (heavy breathing) you're gonna (heavy breathing) have to do it(heavy breathing). I'm out of breath. I take the 10 ounce coffee can, run to the lake, fill it with water, run back to fire and dispense the load. Like spitting in the ocean, the net effect was nothing.
Fortunately, Yossarian, for one reason or another, notices the $3k GPS, Quickdraw radio (probably more than a car), and the rest of the equipment are dangerously close to the fire. He moves them to a safe position, but not before the GPS antennae's rubber insulation is melted off. Not the electrician approved method, but effective nonetheless. With the fire totally out of control, I tell Yossarian, still recovering from his water pail run, to take my cell phone and call 911. So I reach into my right pantleg pocket and realize my phone is missing. Later, I find it, charred and melted, next to the spent flares. To my amazement, it still works. It, like my finger, just smells funny.
I now tell Yossarian to take the truck and go to a phone before we burn the whole park. He faithfully returns in about 10 minutes with a gentlemen and a leaf blower. Now granted, I have my suspicions, but the guy swears by the thing. As it turns out, the damn thing worked like a charm. He has the whole fire out in about 10 minutes. Who'd have thunk?
The fire department shows up about 20 minutes later and survey the situation. They spray a little water here and there, but nothing to get excited about. Apparently they were gonna burn off this whole area anyway. We just did it a little ahead of schedule.
In hindsight, if we had worn gloves and positioned ourselves over dirt next to the lake, none of this would have happened... but then again, that wouldn't be a very good story.