Flying $57 million worth of gleaming trouble

Last summer, Southeast Missouri State University graduate Lt. Corey Pritchard earned a place in aviation history. He became the first aviator to land the Navy's new Super Hornet fighter on its initial aircraft carrier deployment. Pritchard now is one of 17 pilots assigned to a squadron of 12 E-model Super Hornets in the Arabian Sea. The 1996 Southeast graduate is aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln, an aircraft carrier supporting Operation Enduring Freedom.

This is his first deployment. He flies once or twice most days for two to six hours at a time. The flying alone can be grueling.

Communicating by e-mail, Pritchard says, "It is hard to explain what seven or eight times the force of gravity feels like, but it is very physically draining, especially when fighting against someone else whose goal is to shoot you, or doing it at 200 feet and 500 knots of airspeed fighting your way into a target you are going to bomb. That is also the thrill of the job."

Pritchard flies $57 million worth of gleaming trouble, the latest evolution in the Navy's line of Hornets. The F/A18-E Super Hornet can be armed with Sidewinder, Sparrow, Harpoon, Harm, SLAM and AIM missiles in addition to standard offensive and defensive weapons.

The Boeing jet has many advantages over previous Hornets, Pritchard says. It can carry more fuel and more weapons. It also can land with more weapons. "For us that means larger weapons loadouts on every mission, and more ordinance available airborne for longer is very important with the current threats we are dealing with," he says.

The Super Hornet also can fly at high angles of attack and at airspeeds lower than 90 knots (about 100 mph) if necessary, an ability Pritchard says is "amazing for a tactical fighter."

It requires only 8 to 12 hours of maintenance per hour of flight time compared to 50 hours per hour of flight time for the F-14 Tomcat, the Navy's carrier-based strike fighter.

Refueling others

The jet also is the only fighter in the world that can refuel other planes. A tanker that carries missiles and bombs is a big threat.

Getting the first Super Hornet slot out of flight school primarily was lucky timing, Pritchard claims. He had good grades and says, "I believe that having an engineering- physics background and flight experience certainly gave me an edge. ..."

The 32-year-old Pritchard first became infatuated with flying in high school and had his pilot's license when he came to Southeast. He received his instrument license at the Cape Girardeau Regional Airport.

For security reasons, Pritchard could not disclose his hometown.

He attended Purdue University in Indiana before transferring to Southeast. "My grades were not the best when I applied to SEMO, and they gave me the chance to prove I could be a good student," he says. "That meant a lot to me."

He chose Southeast because it has an engineering physics department, which sounded to him like an interesting combination for a major. Cape Girardeau also was a short drive from St. Louis, where he was doing his civilian flying.

Bryan Miller, who now lives in McClure, Ill., was a student at Southeast at the same time as Pritchard and they became friends. He said Pritchard admitted to partying too much at Purdue but knew he wanted to fly jets for a living by the time he transferred into the engineering program at Southeast.

"I would say that Corey's attitude was a major indicator of how well he would do in flight school ..." Miller said "By the time he graduated, he had developed a serious work ethic that would allow him to get into flight school and do outstandingly well there."

Miller also was interested in planes but more in the technical and aerodynamics of flight. In January he will enter the doctoral program in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering at the University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana.

Preparing to fly

The physics department provided Pritchard with a close-knit group of people and difficult courses, he said. "I have no doubt that environment prepared me well for the challenges of flight school and flying in the fleet."

He didn't realize he was getting the Super Hornet's first "trap" until Boeing representatives met him in the ready room on the ship one day. This one wasn't any more or less nerve-wracking than any other landing.

"Much of your reputation in naval aviation is made around the ship," Pritchard says, "so everyone works hard to perform well. Plus it is not always a very forgiving environment if you make a big mistake. The overriding goal of every landing is to get aboard safely. If you can look good doing it, even better."

The people on the flight deck who get the jets in the air and back safely are the ones who astonish Pritchard. They work 12-hour shifts "with the lives of all of us pilots in their hands," he says. "... I'm amazed by them every time I'm up on the flight deck, keeping in mind they work in what is considered to be one of the three most dangerous working environments in the world."

Besides flying, he also serves as schedules officer, flight officer and is one of three landing signals officers in his squadron.

When he isn't flying, life aboard an aircraft carrier isn't particularly exciting, he says. "It is all one big routine, kind of like 'Groundhog Day' sometimes."

The 5,000 people onboard study, watch movies, work out, play games and read in their off hours.

This is the current life of a man who didn't think he had a chance to get into flight school because he had knee surgery and because he was older than the usual candidate. But he was encouraged by two friends who were test pilots for McDonnell Douglas in St. Louis. He reported to officer candidate school five months after graduating from Southeast with a bachelor's in engineering physics.

Dr. John Tansil taught two of the physics courses Pritchard took at Southeast. Pritchard also worked for him grading papers. In the summer of 2001, an FBI agent came to the professor's office. He was interviewing Pritchard's previous employers for a security clearance. At the time, Tansil didn't know Pritchard was going to be flying a hot-shot jet.

He recalls that Pritchard took a mechanics class from him. "In mechanics class you learn about motion and accelerated reference frames," Tansil said, laughing at the obtuse terminology.

"It means what it feels like when you're on a roller coaster or go to an amusement park and get on those screwy rides. Now he's on one of the screwiest rides of all time."

sblackwell@semissourian.com

335-6611, extension 182