★ The mission of the 48th TFW was primarily nuclear strike, backed up by conventional air-to-ground and air-to-air. That meant that the pilots primarily trained in the delivery of nuclear weapons and sat alert in the European version of the SIOP (the Single Integrated Operations Plan for conducting a one-day nuclear war), just as SAC pilots did in bombers back in the States. In order to qualify in nuclear weapons delivery, they had to drop a certain number of practice bombs every six months and certify on their target. They also had to describe to a board how the weapon worked, talk through their mission, and know command and control cold—that is, they had to know who could release them to go on the mission, what procedures had to be followed in order to arm the bomb, what kind of code words they could expect, and so on.

Each training period, pilots also flew a few air-to-air and air-to-ground conventional-weapons training sorties, but they were only required to be familiar in those events—they didn’t have to qualify by achieving a specific bomb score average.

★ This is how a typical nuclear delivery training sortie might go—a two-ship air-to-ground:

The lead and the wingman brief two hours before takeoff, check the weather and notices, suit up, and step to the jets about twenty minutes before start engine, which is twenty minutes before takeoff time (which is predicated on range time). After preflighting the jet and starting and checking out the systems, the two taxi to the arming area at the end of the runway. There the weapons troops take out the safety pins on the practice bomb dispenser and arm the guns by rotating a live round into the chamber and connecting the electrical plug that provides current to the bullet primer. From there the two taxi onto the runway and close the canopies. After a head nod, the brakes are released. After a second head nod, they light the afterburners and take off. A third head nod is the signal for gear up, followed by flaps up. They then turn out of traffic on the air traffic control frequency and fly a departure route, climbing to 1,000 feet on top (that is, in the clear on top of the overcast).

Since the lead planned a low level in France, they now head for the let-down point. In the meantime, the lead moves his wingman out to about 4,000 to 6,000 feet, meaning that the lead is not looking into the sun and he can clear his wingman’s six o’clock (his tail) without himself having to squint into the light. After he reaches the let-down point, he rocks his wings, which signals the wingman to join up on his wing. The wingman lines up the light on the lead’s wingtip with the star on the lead’s fuselage in order to maintain forward and aft reference, and down the two go into the weather.