CHECKRIDE by Paul Spangler
	One fine Spring day at Ft. Huachuca in 1985, I was sitting in my office with my feet up on the desk just admiring the view of the mountains behind the post. The only thing I had to do for the entire day was to decide just which unit within the Intel Center and School that I would go terrorize next (I was the School IG at the time.) The phone rang, interrupted my contemplations, and my secretary said that it was the CG's secretary and that I had better be in his office five minutes ago. Usually when summoned thusly by the two banger that is my rater AND my senior rater all rolled in one, some assorted nitnoy shit was hitting the fan and I could look forward to yet another lengthy, messy, but usually interesting, IG investigation. WRONG!!!! (We pause for this background info....) The Intel school, the school at Rucker, INSCOM, and DA had all been at odds as to just who was in charge of SEMA (Special Electronic Mission Aircraft) aircraft anyway. All of those entities thought they were the HMFICs of SEMA. Rucker had sent people (Tommy Steiner was one) from combat developments and BG Rudy Osteovich had made several trips to Huachuca to try to sort out what belonged to which place. (Back to the story) MG Weinstein, the CG, had been my senior rater while I was assigned to the 66th MI Group in Europe before I came to Huachuca; and when he took over the school about three months after I had gotten there, decided that it was, in his words, a worthy payback for all the times I had tried to kill him while I was flying him around on his visits to Germany for him to appoint me to be his school's IG. So I was that for the next 2 1/2 years. To make a loooonnnnngggg story short, I was being reassigned to Combat Developments at the Avn Center & School to be the liasion/project officer for SEMA at Rucker. Weinstein and MG Don Parker had worked it out--according to MG Weinstein's version of the story anyway. Shit, I couldn't even SPELL combat developments, much less try to figure out how to navigate in those lofty circles. To make it appealing, they had found/manufactured a FW flying slot in CD for me and I would get a "commander's evaluation" checkout / refresher / instrument renewal in the OV-1 before I left Huachuca. Fast forward to the final checkride.......(for you doubters, of course I did well in the previous flights in the syllabus.) The OV-1s at Huachuca, unlike the trainer versions at Rucker, were full-up mission birds and were heavy aircraft when loaded with full internal fuel and drop tanks. Taking off from an airfield about 5300' MSL in the summer didn't help either. The two IPs/SIPs that flew me throughout the refresher had announced "to the world" that this was going to be their only opportunity in their careers to fuck with an IG properly.....Of course, being my usual modest self, I didn't give them any shit back. Fun time.... Final instrument ride was a zoo!!!!! Started off with a couple of numbnuts ILS/GCAs followed by some aerobatics. Then under the hood for unusual attitude recoveries ( you can get in some really wierd attitudes in a fully aerobatic aircraft and a sadistic IP) THINGS STARTED HAPPENING....... Partial panel under the hood Simulated engine failure(critical engine naturally) Simulated hydraulic failure. (If you think doing a running landing in a Huey with no hydraulics is fun, try it in a Hawk--No flaps, No speed breaks, No wheel breaks, and nosewheel steering is pitiful) You have to reverse the props after a high speed touchdown, and then jockey the prop levers to align yourself down the runway and slow down with the reverse thrust.) The IP then announces that the INS has just failed and that we would have to do an ADF approach...... Well by this time, my legs are hurting ( it is a BITCH to keep the Hawk straight and level with a single engine with the gear down and a lot of power on the good engine. Not only do you push for all you're worth with the leg the corresponds to the working engine, you hook the toe of your other boot under the other rudder pedal and pull to keep it from rolling. Lots of torque on those big paddle bladed props.) We are more or less in the proper area code on this approach and we are falling out of the sky like a huge brick when, due to my RLO training, I make an on-the-spot decision and announce to the IP that he now has the controls...... "Whaaaaat?" he inquited politely. I didn't say anything. "Are you flying the aircraft? he asked. I didn't say anything. "Do you have the controls? he asked, a couple of octaves higher. I didn't say anything. "OK, I got it," he said. "Just what is going on anyway? I said--"I can't hear you, I ejected five minutes ago." "You should have ejected also, this aircraft is a piece of shit." He cracked up and when we got on the ground, went to the club to impress others with tales about just who had scared the other one the most. Paul D. Spangler Bristol, Virginia