The news that a flying radar station had spotted a number of potentially
hostile aircraft did not exactly thrill Stephane Morency.
Flying above the waters of the Adriatic Sea, Morency was sitting in a C-130
Hercules. Its mission was to enforce the weapons embargo the United Nations
had imposed against all parties of the Bosnian civil war by searching for
suspicious vessels that might have been trying to break the naval blockade.
And although a blockade does not qualify as a true combat situation, it
can quickly turn into one since both sides like to play political games and
assume postures that reaffirm their supposed and perceived rights.
So the appearance of MiG fighter jets was just another calculated move
by the Yugoslav government in the grand game of Balkan diplomacy. But it was
a move the other side could not and did not ignore.
Morency certainly did not because he and the rest of the flight crew were
flying in a plane totally incapable of defending itself against a modern fighter
jet, let alone against several. An aircraft carrier was nearby, and could
have sent F-18 Hornets to the rescue.
But the captain of the Hercules was not willing to find out how long that
might take, and the plane headed back to its base on Sicily. It was the first
time Morency experienced anything close to real combat.
"It was kind of a weird feeling," he says.
He would experience it several more times during his time in Europe. Thanks
to modern electronic warfare equipment, the crew knew the Yugoslav air defense
forces were pointing surface-to-air missiles at them.
"So we [knew] that they were following us, and if we had gotten close,
they could have shot at us," Morency says. "That's not the best feeling
in the world."
Phil Rowe can relate to that. He is a retired colonel in the United States
Air Force. A master navigator, Rowe was a navigator for more than two decades.
And during that time, he flew 168 combat missions in Vietnam as part of a
RF-4 Phantom fighter-bomber crew. He also served as a navigator with Strategic
Air Command, flying on a B-52.
This put Rowe on the immediate frontline of the Cold War. His duty would
have been to guide his plane deep into the territory of the former Soviet
Union to drop off nuclear weapons in the case of war.
This was an immense responsibility. He says he experienced several periods
of stress and anxiety, especially during moments of high international tension.
And even when everything was relatively calm, the job had its unique pressures.
"The stress of meeting 100 percent of the Strategic Air Command standards
was significant as well," he says. "Testing was frequent and the consequences
of failure could be career-terminating."
Rowe began his career in the early 1950s. He first wanted to become a pilot,
but couldn't pass the eye test. "When [they] offered navigator training
instead, I jumped at the opportunity. I knew full well that it would lead
to a commission and a similar opportunity to fly."
But flight navigators often have to deal with the perception they are not
real pilots. "One of the biggest challenges of being a navigator, aside from
the technical demands of the job, was accepting the reality that it is and
always will be a pilot's air force," Rowe says.
"Pilots are often in charge, given the most important and responsible jobs.
There are exceptions and I was one but some navigators grate under the perception
of being second-class officers and crewmen."
They also face limited job prospects. In the past, it was not difficult
to find air navigators in cockpits of commercial and military planes. They
and their skills were once considered indispensable.
And Fred Noonan gave them a special place in the history books when he
served as the navigator on Emily Earhart's famed and ill-fated try to
fly around the world. It ended in tragedy and mystery over the South Pacific
in 1937.
But those were the old days. Modern navigation computers now keep planes
on course.
They have become so sophisticated over the years that they can pinpoint
the exact latitude and longitude of an airport gate, and guide the plane towards
it. The only real mistake air navigators can make today is punch in the wrong
coordinates, jokes navigator Bob Hawgood.
This reality has nearly eliminated the need for flight navigators in commercial
airplane cockpits. "I knew that it was not going be a job forever because
I already knew what was up the pike," says Hawgood. He worked as a navigator
for two commercial airlines during the 1960s and 1970s.
Today, the military is the only significant employer of flight navigators.
They are still responsible for guiding planes from one point to another. But
technology has changed their jobs so much that they spend little time actually
navigating the plane.
"You know where you are in the air, so you just have to focus more on the
mission," says Captain Nathalie Frigon. She is a tactical specialist. She
decides when it is time to use weapons or drop large food parcels during humanitarian
relief efforts.
So in a sense, flight navigators, and not pilots, are in charge.