Done with punching in freqs into the radios, Ford was ready to manually fly the jet. It had been hours since he did so, and he was excited to wiggle the sticks a bit to land. “Wu, I’m going to dump the autopilot and take her down manually. Expect a rapid penetration descent, right down to the ship. Ready?”
“Born… ready, Ford. Do it.” Ford passed over the drinking water bottle he spotted below them in the center console. Wu took a long drink, licking his lips that looked to be excessively dry.
“Here’s my plan. We are exceptionally low on fuel, so we should stay as high as long as possible and do the slam dunk approach. I’m sure these engines are also more efficient at higher altitudes. Normally, ah, we triple the distance, so we’re up here at around 50,000 feet, starting the descent down at 150 miles would give us a nice 3 degree descent angle. Fifty times three is 150. The longer we wait, the steeper the descent angle…but still doable and a good way to save gas. We could also take a nice steep descent, gear down, boards out. Out here, we are definitely in a non-radar environment now, so no chance of any kind of radar detection,” Ford shared.
Ford pulled the jet to idle on the throttles and dumped the nose. Devil Dragon immediately built up massive airspeed, as Ford secretly wanted to see how fast he could get her. This was game time, though, not air show time, so he skipped the fast airspeed dream and controlled the airspeed with pitch using the stick. It wasn’t time to see what Devil Dragon was all about. Ford looked out his window to the right, and just a bit surprised, saw a Hornet on his wing.
Ford waved with his hand, and received a wave back. He then moved the center stick from left to right, giving a universal and friendly wave to the Hornet crews, just so there was no misunderstanding to other aircraft behind him that he couldn’t see. Ford scrolled through the Devil Dragon air to air radar, completely oblivious to him for at least the last hour, and now saw two Hornets in formation with him.
“Wu, we have a Hornet off our wing, and your radar shows another at our six o’clock. We should start to slow up and get dirty… so I can feel the jet for landing. Fuel state is sketchy, at best. What do you think?”
Wu was barely conscious, but was able to open his eyes to look at the fuel gauge. “Yes, you’ll make it, Ford,” coughing. “We’ll make it… one pass with these tanks….”
Wonderful… one pass? This may be the most difficult landing in aviation history, and I get one pass. Just wonderful. Okay, then. We’re doing it, Ford thought to himself.
Ford glanced down at the airspeed indicator and looked for the needle to line-up in the green, telling him his speed was okay for the landing gear to safely come down. “Gear and flaps, down,” Ford announced, putting the gear down himself. Normally the flying pilot would not do it himself, but in Wu’s medical condition, Ford reached his hand up and yanked the handle down. “Flaps, 50 percent,” as Ford reached his hand over to in-between the seats to move the flaps lever to 50 percent. As soon as he saw the airspeed for 100 percent flaps, he moved the lever all the way. “Flaps at 100 percent, Wu. I got it.”
They were down at 3,000 feet now, flying at a smooth 180 knots at six miles for a straight in.
“I’m on short final, Wu. Piece of cake. We got this.”
Wu had his eyes open, looking for the ship. “It’s so small… so tiny. We’re… landing on that?”
“THERE HE IS!” Emily yelled with excitement, jumping up and down twice, pointing at the aft end of the flight deck. The black speck on the horizon grew larger and larger with time, even though the ship was pulling away from them and facing into the wind. “That sound. That sound is unbelievable. They are loud, no? A roar, like a… deep thunder. Bloody fun!”
“You bet that’s them. Yes!” Mark yelled, high fiving Robert, who was standing right next to him.
“Well, no shit. Live long enough, you see plenty. Here they come,” Muddy said under his breath quietly, but just enough for the DIA team to hear them. “Air Boss, CO here, what do you have?” Muddy said into his two-way, walkie-talkie handheld radio.
“That’s your bird, sir. Deck is cleared. All remaining aircraft are hidden behind the island or down tucked in the hangar deck. Min crew on the deck for safety. JOKER 43, flight of two, is with them. Had positive hand waves between flight crews. JOKER reported a wing wave as well. Flight of 2 F-22’s behind them with shoot down capability out of Kadena.”
“Right. Thanks, Froggie. Continue.”
Ford was massaging the throttles and was impressed with the quick response time of the engines, compared to the afterburning turbofan engines he had always flown with. His engines usually took a few long seconds to provide thrust, while the Devil Dragon’s thrust was near immediate.
“Wu, we gotta run some numbers. Get me some speeds and weight.”
Wu was markedly weak and could barely look at the charts on his left, but it didn’t require much energy to look at the open checklist page. He sighed, slowly looked down, and traced what he thought was the proper airspeed and weight.
“Just land at 145 knots, 125,000 pounds.”
“God almighty. We are super heavy. Much heavier than I thought. Are you sure? That’s our real weight?”
“No, I’m not sure. Ford… this isn’t some little toy fighter you used to fly. This is a big… big boy bomber. Yes… that’s our weight,” Wu replied. Wu’s health had deteriorated rapidly since Ford arrived, and his breathing seemed to get worse with each passing moment.
Ford ran through his B-1 flight characteristics and experience rather than his Hornet background, remembering this jet had mass. With mass came thinking ahead of the jet a bit more, only because the larger size meant a one or two second delay once a control input was entered. Certainly it would require a combination of both jet aircraft skill sets to get on the deck of the ship safely. He would have to land something larger than an F-18 in size, heavier on the weight, with close to no fuel, and only a minimal amount of wing clearance on the right wing due to the ship’s vertical steel island. No damn tailhook, Ford said under his breath. It was just starting to sink in now that in addition to a difficult landing, he had no tailhook. Ford was feeling the brunt of the mission now, and he had his work cut out for him.
“Wu, you haven’t said much in a bit. Your breathing, and your bleeding, must be a tremendous burden. Almost there. Not much longer, Wu,” Ford reassured him. Wu moved his hand, but there was no reply.
Ford checked the instruments again, then moved his scan outside. He looked out front and had not only a clear view of the entire ship, but a straight shot at the meatball and the laser. The flight deck was near empty, a rare sight to see. The Long Range Laser Lineup System on the left side of the flight deck landing area was something new, and helpful to all flight crews, especially today. The small size of the landing area required a precise lineup control by all approaching aircraft, and Devil Dragon was no different. The nature of the angled deck on the Lincoln presented a unique challenge to the Devil Dragon, because the landing area was constantly moving from left to right relative to the nose of the aircraft. The Long Range Laser Lineup System used color-coded lasers to provide visual lineup information to approaching aircraft. The Lincoln’s low intensity lasers were projected aft of the ship and were visible out to 10 miles at night, and five miles in the day. Ford could see them easily at a mile out, saying the code word “Bullseye” under his breath.