Caveman held up his middle finger.
“He was grateful that I was able to nurse him back to life. Until he came over the flight deck and tried to cross to the other side. The rotor wasn’t turning this time. But the engine was. And he must have gotten too close because…” He shook his head for effect. Mock sadness.
Juan said, “He got sucked up in the engine intake?”
Plug nodded. “I could see it happening and pulled back the engine power control lever into the off position. But it was too late. A poof of white feathers, and he was gone. We scraped up his remains and had a short ceremony. I mean very short. Okay, we pretty much just threw pieces of that damn bird overboard as we found it. But I will tell you this — every bar we hit at every port stop for the rest of the deployment, I swear to you that we toasted that damn bird and his unwavering dedication to duty. He was fearless…” Plug feigned wiping a tear away from his eye.
Juan said, “And the callsign?”
“Well, you know the soft cushiony engine plugs that we put in the intake and exhaust ports to keep them clean of debris, right?”
“Of course.”
“Well, the guys on my last deployment kept making jokes about how I used the bird as the engine plug. So, there it is. Plug.”
Juan slapped his knee and nodded. Big smile. “Ah. I finally get it. Good story.”
Plug said, “Yup. How’d you get Spike as your call sign?”
Juan shrugged. “The senior pilots thought that my hair was spikey.”
“Huh. Well… that’s a good story, too.”
The door opened and the air boss walked in. “Good evening, gentlemen.”
The pilots paused the game and sat up a little straighter. “Evening, ma’am.”
She looked at the screen and then at the three 2Ps and one HAC. “Plug, did you get done with the maintenance plan for next month?”
“Uh…”
“The one that I asked you to have on my desk tonight?”
He put the video game controller down on the table. “I was about to get started.”
She looked at her watch. “Please have it on my desk within the next hour.”
“Will do.” He got up and walked towards the hangar.
Victoria turned to the junior pilots. “You guys don’t have anything more productive to do than play games?”
The three 2Ps stared at her, each looking slightly scared of what she was about to say. “Which one of you am I flying with tomorrow?”
Caveman raised his hand sheepishly.
“You have all your emergency procedures memorized?” The 2Ps were required to know all of the helicopter emergency procedures verbatim.
Caveman nodded.
Victoria looked at each of them in the eye. “You know, if you three were studying right now, and you made a mistake on your emergency procedures, or couldn’t draw out the electrical system from memory, or couldn’t name all nineteen functions of the automatic flight control system by heart tomorrow when I ask you… I could be okay with that. But if you can’t do one of those things — and I will ask you tomorrow — if you can’t do one of those things and you’ve been playing video games while you have enlisted men performing maintenance on your aircraft — well, that would piss me off.”
After a moment of silence, all three of the junior officers quickly got up, turned off the video game, and went back to their stateroom to crack open the books.
Once in their room, with the door closed, Juan whispered, “What’s up boss’s ass tonight?”
Caveman said, “That’s just her, man. She’s intense. But I think it’s gotten worse since workups last year. After the accident.”
Victoria Manning gripped the galley table as the ship rolled to a very unpleasant angle. Sea spray and rain pelted the tiny black porthole to her right. They’d been at sea for two weeks on the USS Farragut, an Arleigh Burke — class destroyer.
The bad weather had begun as a tropical storm down near Cuba. The warm waters of the Caribbean and a lack of wind shear had fueled the system into a massive hurricane, which was now moving northeast over Georgia, and out to sea.
While the path of the storm was predicted to miss the two carrier strike groups that were training in the Atlantic, the winds and low pressure system still made for some of the most horrendous seas that Victoria had ever encountered in her eleven years of naval service.
The phone rang in the wardroom. She picked it up, saying, “Air Boss.”
“Boss, can you come down to the hangar? We’ve got news on the bird.”
She could tell by the sound of his voice that it wasn’t good.
“Sure, I’ll be right down,” she said and hung up the phone. She began the balancing act of marching down the ship’s passageway as it rolled from side to side.
Aside from the weather, the helicopter’s maintenance had been the other disaster of their time at sea. Helicopter squadrons worked year-round to get their thirty-five-million-dollar helicopters in top condition for their underway periods.
There were thousands of complex parts in each of these aircraft. It was up to the twenty-somethings turning the wrenches and checking the electronics every day to keep each aircraft flyable. But in an isolated and harsh saltwater environment, with so many moving parts and almost no way to get spares, things often went wrong.
The USS Farragut had a single helicopter on board for this training period. They would deploy with two helicopters — one in each hangar — in a few months. The ship had been at sea for two weeks now. The weather had made it impossible to fly during at least seven of those days. And a plague of maintenance issues had kept them grounded for another five. It was embarrassing.
She arrived back in the hangar. The glum faces of her maintenance chief and maintenance officer stared back at her.
The maintenance officer, a lieutenant, said, “Boss, it ain’t looking good. We had to replace the AFCS computer.”
“So we’ll need a maintenance flight?”
“Afraid so.”
She left out a defeated sigh. Maintenance flights were not just flights. They were long diagnostic checks that took place both on deck and in the air. These events had to be completed before any other type of mission was permitted. It was as if they had just replaced a piano and now would have to spend the next few days tuning it before they were allowed to play any songs. Meanwhile, the ship’s captain and the admiral’s staff would have their arms crossed, asking for status updates every hour until they were ready.
The ship took another roll, and the three of them each grabbed hold of something sturdy, bending their knees and trying to stay upright. If she didn’t feel so sick from the never-ending motion, it would be fun. But the constant rolls of the ship got old after a few hours of heavy seas. After a few days, it became torture.
She thought about the problem. The automatic flight control system provided stability to the aircraft when flying. Without it, it would be very hard to hold a steady hover or maintain altitude with precision. Some of their missions required them to hold a steady hover only a few feet above the water. On nights like this, the fifteen-foot swells would cause the flight deck to pitch and roll violently. Because of the clouds, there was no visible horizon to hint at which way was up. Flying in this weather would be hard enough. Flying without an AFCS computer at night would be near suicidal. That’s why it was forbidden by the manuals.
Victoria said, “Okay, let’s plan to start the maintenance turns tomorrow. Hopefully the weather improves. Are you going to order a backup in case this computer doesn’t work?”