A-10s over Kosovo (illustrations removed)

The five boldface steps that I had long before committed to memory:

1. THROTTLES – OFF

2. APU [auxiliary power unit] – START

3. FLIGHT CONTROLS – MAN

[manual] REVERSION

4. LEFT ENGINE – MOTOR

5. LEFT ENGINE – START

Thinking that I still had a little time before needing to make an ejection decision, I started to rapidly repeat these steps in my mind. We had decided to fly without antiexposure suits because they would have made our eight-hour missions miserable. However, now the thought of ejecting at high altitude, in the weather, over the Adriatic, and without an antiexposure suit was not very appealing either. I knew that I had to attempt the restart—I did not know that the procedure, which had not yet been successfully used, was intended for use in good weather and at lower altitudes.

Passing 29,000 feet, I executed the first step, pulling the throttles back, forcing them over the hump, and into the cutoff position. I knew that I was now committed, and it was not a heart-warming feeling. As soon as the throttles were in the off position, the cockpit rapidly depressurized, and frost began forming on the inside of the canopy. Unfortunately, I was still far above the normal operating envelope for starting APU. I remembered that the aircraft flight manual (Dash-1) guaranteed that the APU would start only at or below 15,000 feet, but it might start as high as 20,000 feet. I waited for the aircraft to descend at least 9,000 more feet.

With both engines shut down, there was no hydraulic pressure to power the normal operation of the flight controls. The control stick locked, so I had no ability to roll or turn the aircraft. I bypassed the next boldface step and selected flight controls manual reversion.

The manual system is designed to give the A-10 a limited flight-control capability to improve its combat survivability in the event the aircraft is shot up and loses hydraulic pressure. It uses a cable-and-pulley system to move small electrical trim tabs which act as flight controls. The amount of control that these tabs can provide is a function of airspeed. Since the control surfaces are only a few inches wide, greater airspeed allows the tabs to provide more control. The Dash-1 gives numerous warnings when using this system. It warns against low power settings and directs that airspeed be maintained between 200 and 300 KIAS so that the trim tabs will develop enough control authority to control large pitch changes. It now dawned on me that it was impossible to keep the power above idle during a double-engine flameout. I also realized that the aircraft was already slower than recommended, due to its having no thrust, high altitude, and a heavy combat load. Nevertheless, I had no choice other than putting the aircraft into manual reversion to regain even limited control.

As I executed manual reversion, I experienced the meaning of the words contained in the fine print of another Dash-1 warning, which said that when transitioning to manual reversion, the aircraft may pitch up or down with excessive positive or negative G forces. As I flipped the switch, the aircraft pitched violently down, threw me up, and pinned me on the canopy—“Mr. Toad’s wild ride” had begun. The standby ADI now indicated a banked, nose-low attitude, and the vertical velocity indicator (VVI) was pegged at 6,000 feet-per-minute down. I pulled myself back into the seat with the stick and then continued to pull back on it for all I was worth in an attempt to break the dive. Unable to stop the descent, I slid to the front of the ejection seat and hooked my feet on the brake pedals to get better leverage. Pulling with both arms and trimming the elevator tab to its limit failed to break the dive—I began to panic.

The altimeter was now unwinding extremely fast, and panic crept into my voice as I let Buster know what was happening. He responded with an irritatingly relaxed voice, telling me to just calm down and go through the boldface. He declared an emergency with Magic, the NAEW, and let them know I was looking for a place to make an emergency landing. For the time being, all I could do was try to gain and maintain aircraft control, and avoid entering an unusual attitude. I attempted to keep my wings level by staring at the turn-and-slip indicator. I tried to keep the DC-powered turn needle and the slip indicator’s ball centered. That ball—suspended in a curved, liquidfilled tube below the turn-needle—measures aerodynamic slip and is very reliable because it’s powered only by physics. I flew the aircraft with reference only to the turn-and-slip, airspeed, and VVIs—and waited until I reached an altitude where I would be able to start the APU.