No time to duck

I didn’t mention to the boss that I would be flying, believing it was easier to ask for forgiveness than permission. I had been promoted well past my level of experience, and judgment was running even further behind. Enthusiasm reigned.

From Hanover County Airport (OFP) just north of Richmond, it was a straight and uncomplicated route, tracking the James River down to the Tidewater area. In the couple hundred hours I had accumulated since earning my ticket in 1979, I’d been busy. A Mooney is good for going places, as well as short trips to Miss Crockets for crab cakes and oyster fritters. I had one long over-ocean journey to Nevis, well down the Caribbean to visit my dad, plus trips all over the Eastern United States. I had not yet gotten serious about earning an instrument rating but felt comfortable flying into the busy airspace around the Tidewater area. I was fully aware of the beehive of civil and military flying down there.

After passing Williamsburg, I contacted Norfolk Approach announcing my altitude of 3,000 feet and intention to land at Norfolk. Radio traffic was busy. It was common to hear the GA pilots exchanging needs and acknowledgements, but it was also routine to hear only the ATC side of conversations with military aircraft. This left us GA guys not entirely clued in on where the government airplanes were located, but we trusted ATC to keep us separated. There was so much of the indecipherable one-sided military radio traffic that we tended to just ignore it.

I recall ATC chatting with a “Blue Flight Four.” “Blue Flight, climb and maintain 2,000 feet,” but it was none of my business.

Being a well-trained newbie, I had a sectional in my lap. I looked down to get my bearings toward Norfolk and noted that Langley Air Force Base (LFI) should be to my left. I rotated my head casually to port and spotted Runway 9/27 exactly aligned with my left wing. The immediate attention getter, however, was the belly of an F–16 flying overhead my cockpit, no more than 10 feet above. I could see only the belly, including rivets, Phillips screw heads, and inspection panels. Without turning my head, my attention refocused downward to the nose of another F–16, bore-sighted on my left window. It was rolling inverted and pulling toward the ground 3,000 feet below. Catching a motion to my right, I snapped my eyes out the front windscreen and watched a third gray blur pass 20 feet in front of my propeller, climbing steeply.

It was over in less than two or three seconds. I reported to ATC: “A flight of three or four has just gone over, under, and around me!”

He barked: “Blue Flight Four, say altitude!” Silence.

“Mooney N28X, say altitude!”

“Two-eight-X-ray is three thousand.”

“Mooney reports at three thousand, and I confirm that altitude. Say again your altitude!”

Pregnant pause.

“OK, Blue Flight, don’t do it again.”

There really was no time for shock or confusion. It happened, and it was over. I’ve reflected on this moment for many years and have become much more focused on unexpected but possible sources of threats, and usable emergency landing spots. My one remaining irritation is that I expected the leader of that flight to call and offer to buy me a beer. Forty years later…Silence.

Don Peterson is a flight instructor and A&P/IA with more than 40 years of flying experience.