Reconnaissance Technical Squadron

Washington ANG guide air strikes, turns tide during major battle

Photo by Staff Sgt. Ryan Matson

U.S. Air Force Senior Airman Michael McAffrey from Tacoma, Wash., a joint terminal air controller with the 116th Air Support Operations Squadron, Washington Air National Guard, give Afghan children bottles of water after completing a mission in Khanda Village, Laghman province, Afghanistan, June 18. Soldiers of the Reconnaissance Platoon, 1st Battalion, 133rd Infantry Regiment, Task Force Ironman, 2nd Infantry Brigade Combat Team, 34th Mountain Division, TF Red Bulls, credited the efforts of McAffrey, as well as the other JTACs from the 116th ASOS, as being the difference in the Battle of Do Ab, May 25, and with saving many of the soldier’s lives that day.

“If they hadn’t been there dropping bombs, I don’t know that we would have gotten out of that valley,” U.S. Army Sgt. Edward Kane, an infantry team leader from Portland, Ore., with the Reconnaissance Platoon, Headquarters and Headquarters Company, 1st Battalion, 133rd Inf. Regt., TF Ironman, said. “The enemy was getting closer, and their shots were getting more accurate.” Delaney and McCaffrey boarded the two CH-47 Chinook helicopters with the platoon. When the helicopters touched down in the narrow canyon floor next to a rushing river, the airmen said knew they were tactically in one of the worst possible spots to be ambushed from. The soldiers and airmen were in a valley surrounded by steep canyon walls. It was, however, the only suitable landing zone in the narrow canyon. “The Army laid down suppressive fire on all the enemy locations, while Delaney and McCaffrey hastily requested more firepower,” recalled U.S. Air Force Master Sgt. Rob Lee from Tacoma, Wash., another 116th ASOS JTAC who was working the headquarters’ radios. Lee relayed their urgent requests and quickly got Navy and Air Force strike aircraft overhead to support his pinned-down teammates. For six hours, they, along with their Afghan National Army counterparts, fought off the enemy. Meanwhile, the enemy continued to swarm around them in the mountains above, slowly drawing nearer to their positions in the animal pens. The soldiers did not know it at the time, but the enemy had heavily fortified fighting positions: trenches dug into solid rocks that were chest-high. “We loaded a bunch of emergency helicopter resupply ‘speedballs’ full of more ammo, water and food for the guys,” said U.S. Air Force Master Sgt. Dave Glisson from Tacoma, Wash.

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No reconnaissance aircraft in history has operated in more hostile airspace or with such complete impunity than the SR-71 Blackbird. It is the fastest aircraft propelled by air-breathing engines. The Blackbird’s performance and operational achievements placed it at the pinnacle of aviation technology developments during the Cold War. The airplane was conceived when tensions with communist Eastern Europe reached levels approaching a full-blown crisis in the mid-1950s. U.S. military commanders desperately needed accurate assessments of Soviet worldwide military deployments, particularly near the Iron Curtain. Lockheed Aircraft Corporation’s subsonic U-2 (see NASM collection) reconnaissance aircraft was an able platform but the U. S. Air Force recognized that this relatively slow aircraft was already vulnerable to Soviet interceptors. They also understood that the rapid development of surface-to-air missile systems could put U-2 pilots at grave risk. The danger proved reality when a U-2 was shot down by a surface to air missile over the Soviet Union in 1960.

Lockheed’s first proposal for a new high speed, high altitude, reconnaissance aircraft, to be capable of avoiding interceptors and missiles, centered on a design propelled by liquid hydrogen. This proved to be impracticable because of considerable fuel consumption. Lockheed then reconfigured the design for conventional fuels. This was feasible and the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), already flying the Lockheed U-2, issued a production contract for an aircraft designated the A-12. Lockheed’s clandestine ‘Skunk Works’ division (headed by the gifted design engineer Clarence L. "Kelly" Johnson) designed the A-12 to cruise at Mach 3.2 and fly well above 18,288 m (60,000 feet). To meet these challenging requirements, Lockheed engineers overcame many daunting technical challenges. Flying more than three times the speed of sound generates 316° C (600° F) temperatures on external aircraft surfaces, which are enough to melt conventional aluminum airframes. The design team chose to make the jet’s external skin of titanium alloy to which shielded the internal aluminum airframe. Two conventional, but very powerful, afterburning turbine engines propelled this remarkable aircraft. These power plants had to operate across a huge speed envelope in flight, from a takeoff speed of 334 kph (207 mph) to more than 3,540 kph (2,200 mph). To prevent supersonic shock waves from moving inside the engine intake causing flameouts, Johnson’s team had to design a complex air intake and bypass system for the engines.

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