Heard Above the Noise: A Story of Courage and Trusting My Instincts
When my voice was unwanted, unappreciated, and unwelcome, I learned to trust myself and pick the right battle, even though it was a big one.
My seat on the aircraft was directly above the main landing gear. That gave me a unique ability to feel the eight, massive wheels, particularly as they rotated at speed and retracted into the wheel-well before they stopped spinning.
Every time we took off, aircrew expected to see, hear, and feel certain things. If we sat in the same seat long enough, we developed an uncommon expertise. After 15 years in the Air Force, I did not appreciate that. Neither did anyone on my crew, our ground maintenance team, nor my squadron commander.
Sometimes, you have to value your experience, your expertise, or “Trust your Gut.”
Echoes of the Past: How Fear Shaped My Senses
At first, I blamed my nerves. Several months earlier, on one of my previous deployments, I experienced initial buffet. In a previous article on PTSD, I described it as:
I enjoyed ‘elephants dancing on our wings’ during unplanned “initial buffet”... then spent the next 9 months white-knuckling every take-off, landing, and airborne refueling around the planet. (In the debrief, the aircraft commander called our 3,000 feet of rapid, un-commanded descent, “a little nose tickle.”)
- My Watch Has Ended. Invisible Wounds of Modern Warfare. - jofty
Leading up to this deployment, I was still white-knuckling occasional takeoffs and landings, but I had managed a few flights without any need to really focus on staying calm.
On this trip we only had one aircraft. We flew it a lot. Like driving the same car every day, we got to know its quirks.
If you rode a typical yellow school bus, you may have learned not to sit above the wheels. Maybe you preferred to sit in the back row. Either way, if you rode it every day, you could probably picture the world going by with your eyes closed, listening to music, and just feeling the bus move.
If you were in the back row, you felt all the good bounces and could possibly feel a tire blow before the bus driver even noticed.
I sat directly over the main landing gear. I knew what it felt like.
The Rumble That Wouldn’t Quit: Spotting Trouble
When we slipped the surly bonds of earth, all eight big, heavy, rubber wheels spun about 150mph. Immediately after takeoff I could feel the gear leave the ground and hang slack. Someone from the flight deck saying “Positive climb, gear up” came next, then followed the familiar steady rumble of those massive gyros pulling into the belly of our massive metal tube.
I could call the cadence to the second.
There were some common anomalies. Odd sensations caused by weather, combat profiles, or new co-pilots... you learn to recognize and ignore those.
But the gear was always … always the same.
Gear up…
rumble… rumble… rumble…
Gear stops moving…
griiiiiind…
Doors start to close…
visualize the slipstream cleaning up as the doors quickly retract.
Doors closed and latched.
On this deployment, the gear didn’t feel right. It was different. I could not ignore an odd side-to-side wobble that was unique and unnerving.
At first, I figured it was lingering nerves from my previous incident. No-one else seemed to notice it, so for the first several flights I tried to calm myself down and remember it was probably just me.
After a while I realized it wasn’t “just me.” I couldn’t quell the nerves because we had a structural problem with our aircraft.
Fighting to Be Heard: Facing the Chain of Command
Moving past self-doubt and external dismissal.
First, I tried ground maintenance; they didn’t like my debrief. They informed me the aircraft shakes during takeoff and landing. No shit, Sherlock.
After it happened on the next flight, I mentioned it to leadership on the crew… none of them felt it.
So, I mentioned it in our post-mission debrief with the entire crew and some squadron leadership present. Nobody cared; the plane bounces funny when it takes off. Yeah, got it. Thanks, guys. :/
Everyone telling me everything was fine when I knew it wasn’t … that was a tough place to be in. On this issue, at my place within the highly structured bureaucracy, my perspective was unappreciated, unwanted, and unwelcome. My expertise had no value. … and I feared our plane was falling apart.
I wasn’t used to this. For the majority of my career, if I said something was broken, I was taken seriously. We were maintenance. Fixing things is what we did. If we couldn’t fix it, we told someone else what was broken. Because the landing gear wasn’t in my job description, I was dutifully ignored by the very people who should have listened to me.
It was frustrating to feel my expertise brushed aside. I started doubting myself, again. Maybe it was just my nerves from the earlier incident. Still, that rumble in the gear kept gnawing at me, and I couldn’t let it go.
Sticking to my guns, I expressed my concern to the enlisted crew leader on our aircraft before our next flight. He didn’t sit in my seat at takeoff, so he still couldn’t feel what I was feeling… but he believed I was serious and backed me up in debrief that day.
A few moments later …
I found myself in the squadron commander’s office with our pilot, a couple senior members of my crew, and our top two ground maintenance personnel. I had one (likely final) chance to express my concern.
The commander explained that to test my theory further they would need to cancel at least two operational missions. Furthermore, it would require some creative paperwork gymnastics to get the pre-flight go/no-go paperwork properly approved to do this in-theater and abnormally crewed.
The final decision was his, but he made it clear to everyone in the room my recommendation would be strongly considered.
I wanted to be seen. Was I ready?
My voice was finally wanted, appreciated, and as welcome as it ever would be.
Was I certain my expertise was speaking and not my still very real fear of flying? This was a true “put up or shut up” moment.
“Yes, Sir. I think a flight test is the best idea.”
Proof in the Sky: The Test Flight
A couple days later, we flew the shortest sortie of my career, and my one and only “test flight.”
As part of our “paperwork gymnastics” we received approval for two of our ground maintainers to fly with us. This was highly unusual, and we ended up getting waivers for several standard operating procedures. One of those was the need for seatbelts during critical phases of flight, like takeoff and landing. ;p
When we took off, one of our maintainers laid down on the floor next to my seat. He was face-down and spread eagle so he could feel every movement of the gear and the aircraft. He had his face pressed against a tiny window in the floor so he could also see every bit of that landing gear, and its fateful wobble.
Moments later he said “Yup! We’ve got a problem.”
After a quick chat with the entire crew, we prepared to perform a touch and go. The second maintenance guy took his turn on the floor looking out the tiny window.
As we bounced off the runway and took off the second time we heard: “Yup! The truck looks like a banana.”
(Landing gear trucks and struts are supposed to be straight.1)
After that, we came back around for a full stop.
Following a thorough debrief, everyone around me had an obviously changed demeanor, but I frankly don’t remember so much as a single ‘thank you.’
The aircraft was removed from the schedule for a few days for repair. When we went back to our mission, we had to fly a little extra to make up for the repair time. :)
Soaring with Confidence: Lessons in Trusting Yourself and Speaking Up
I don’t know exactly what would have happened if the problem continued. Worst case: a section of the gear would collapse during landing.
Perhaps worse yet would be if the vibrations sheared a wheel loose after takeoff and sent projectiles flying to the ground. Then we’d have potential collateral damage on the ground and still have to land without our full gear.
Maybe we’d have gotten lucky, and the gear would have survived until a more thorough, scheduled inspection.
At the end of the day, the jet got fixed, no-one got hurt, and we continued our deployment and accomplished our mission. The incident never came up again and did not have any noticeable impact on my career.
Two phrases I heard repeatedly come to mind:
“Whatever your career can handle.”
and
“Push only as far as your professional threshold allows.”
You’ve heard it’s important to “pick your battles.” Take those quotes a grain of salt. Your mileage may vary. 8^)
The moral of the story is that I picked a battle, even though it was hard, and it proved to be the right battle to pick.
Even as part of a crew, in an environment where my expertise should have been considered, I felt invisible… my voice unwanted, unappreciated, and unwelcome.
Trusting myself (and my expertise) gave me the strength to push through institutional barriers and solve a problem that threatened our entire crew, and our mission.
Sometimes, when it is vital enough, speaking out, even in a tightly controlled structure, may be the best choice. If you’re the expert, even if that means you’re simply the only person who can see a threat, trust yourself.
Speak up.
That test flight didn’t just fix our gear; it taught me a lesson.
I learned that even in a system built to drown out voices, one persistent whisper can cut through. If you’ve ever felt unseen, know this: your voice matters, and it’s worth the fight to be heard.
I hope this story provides some inspiration, especially if you’ve felt your voice was small when it shouldn’t be.
Thank you, dear reader, for stopping by. I truly appreciate the time you spent with my words.
I hope you have a pleasant week, and I look forward to seeing you next Saturday.
Take care,
- jofty 8^)
Somewhere in this story, before the test flight, ground maintenance put the aircraft up on jacks and didn’t see anything wrong. “Swinging the gear” is a significant process. It takes the jet off the flight schedule for at least a full day and requires a few dozen man-hours.
Whatever the weird problem was, it only showed up when the wheels were spinning at full speed. That’s not something they typically test on the ground.