Toward Flying the Friendlier Skies

Somewhere over Eastern Europe, a Romanian fighter pilot is at the stick of his MIG-29, secure in the knowledge that if an American F-111 shows up on the horizon, it won’t be taking aim at him.

It could even be a friend.

Not just the plane, but the pilot too.

Friend, as in buddy or old chum. One of the guys he met on his recent junket to Edwards Air Force Base in the Antelope Valley.

That’s right, Romanian pilots--the same who so recently were in the vanguard of the Warsaw Pact--are now on such good terms with the American fighter jocks they used to be matched against that they’re practically sharing playbooks.

It’s all part of the rejiggering of the post-Soviet world. As political alliances shift, so do target coordinates, command-and-control structures and, less formally, the channels of soldierly camaraderie.

One of these days, some of the former East Bloc countries may belong to NATO. And even if it’s not all that clear whom they would be poised to fight, it’s obvious that they’ll need some familiarity with their own team.

Thus was born the Joint Contact Team Program, a kind of foreign exchange for students of the art of war involving the United States and countries that used to be part of the Warsaw Pact.

It’s run by the National Security Council, the Department of Defense and the State Department. Its purpose, according to a media advisory, is “to enhance mutual understanding between the U.S. and former Eastern Bloc nations and provide insight into how our military operates within a civilian controlled and democratic society.”

The exchanges have been going on since 1991, said Josie Reno of the Air Force Security Assistance Center at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Ohio.

Over the past 18 months, about 35 military missions have come to the United States from former Warsaw Pact countries including the Czech Republic, Belarus, Ukraine, Kazakhstan and Russia, Reno said.

“It’s supposed to lead to a better security environment worldwide and ultimately give us access and influence that we’ve never had,” Reno said.

The most recent contingent at Edwards consisted of 10 Romanian and five Polish flight officers. Reporters were invited to observe their visit to Edwards’ Test Pilot School one morning.

It may not be that easy to distinguish a Polish MIG pilot from a Romanian one, but in their Class A uniforms, which they wore throughout the weeklong stay, the two groups differed like Yankees and Confederates.

The Poles wore simple gray, modestly enhanced with medals. The Romanians’ blue jackets were adorned with gold epaulets, gold braid cuffs and large silver medals dangling on their chests, lending them the martial splendor of 19th century hussars.

All the visitors stood, sat and walked with straight-backed punctiliousness, unlike the easy manner of their American hosts, who wore their work clothes--camouflage fatigues.

The first stop for the media was a large lecture room. About a dozen reporters and photographers took seats along the walls as an American officer lectured the four Poles on the high standards for American test pilots while a translator repeated his words.

He told them the average trainee has 8.5 years in the service and 1,418 hours of flying time, and 33% have advanced degrees.

Soon the journalists were ushered away to a more animated encounter. The Romanians were getting some playing time on a Genesis 2000 flight simulator.

The machine resembled a video arcade game, with a TV screen on which appeared a desert horizon and a few crosshatch squiggles. There was a stick on the pilot’s right and a couple of pedals below.

A young Romanian who had been translating for his comrades in passable English volunteered for the first flight.

“You’re good to go,” said 1st Lt. Anthony Haeffner, an American, showing him the stick. The horizon began to roll up and down, and soon the flight was terminated by a reverberating “Boom,” as in “you’re dead.”

Haeffner made some adjustments.

“I think you’ll do better this time,” he said.

As the plane wobbled skyward, Haeffner reached to the instrument panel and flicked a switch.

“That was flap overpull. They are up now, so you can go as fast as you want.”

Evidently the pilot either didn’t understand or didn’t know how to accelerate.

“You’re in a stall,” Haeffner observed.

“Boom.”

Just before lunch, the two groups of visiting officers were brought together for what was undoubtedly an even more challenging lesson in military practice in a civilian-controlled and democratic society: the news conference.

Reverting somewhat to pre-democratic diffidence, the pilots sat mutely as the two senior officers answered all questions, even those directed toward the lower ranks.

The Romanians went first, with the English-speaking pilot translating for his commander, who stood before his seated men as the designated spokesman, clearly designated by himself.

The translator, Laurendiu Simionescu, apologized for his poor English, but quickly displayed a stunning grasp of the American idiom with his introduction of Col. Carnu Iancu as the “deputy chief of Romanian Technical Department of Air Force and Air Defense stuff.”

“Stuff?” a reporter asked.

“Yes, stuff,” he repeated emphatically.

Uncomprehending glances passed around the press corps until one reporter at last saw the light.

“You mean ‘staff’?”

“Yes, stuff,” he said.

The questions started innocuously enough, covering the things they had seen and done and how American military stuff, like simulators, compared to theirs.

One thing, interjected the humiliated translator, is that speed is registered in miles per hour, rather than kilometers.

When asked if his pilots had ever imagined they would be visiting an American air base, Iancu pushed his chest out slightly while effusively relating his two prior visits to American air bases in Europe.

But on whether his presence presaged Romanian interest in NATO, Iancu took the Fifth, or whatever its equivalent is in Romania.

“The expansion of NATO is a political decision at a very high level,” he said brusquely. “We are here because of a military-to-military program.”

The Polish commander, appearing more experienced with democratic institutions, took a lot more liberty with the same question.

“Our ultimate goal is to shift our standards and norms in testing aircraft from our present standards to standards which are NATO,” said Col. Zbignew Uchman, who identified himself as head of the Aviation Division, Research and Development, Ministry of Defense.

“We are trying to get prepared if we ever join the Western alliance.”

He mentioned the need to adopt Western training and engineering standards, points that were over the reporters’ heads.

“The basic obstacle in our transition to the NATO standard is the English language,” he summed up.

Everybody understood.