Car quals are always goat-ropes, Jake thought, something going wrong sooner or later, so there is at least a fifty-fifty chance I’ll have to divert ashore once tonight. And if my luck is in, maybe spend the night in the Alameda BOQ, call Callie…
No matter how long you’ve been ashore, after a half hour back aboard one of these gray tubs you’re tired, hungry and horny. No way to cure the horniness, but a night ashore in a real bed would work wonders on the other syndromes, with real food and a long, hot shower and Callie’s voice on the phone—
His reverie was interrupted by Flap Le Beau’s voice on the intercom system, the ICS. “Don’t do nothin’ cute tonight, huh? My internal table ain’t so stable when we’re out here flyin’ through black goo.”
“You and Muhammed Ali. How about laying off the monologue. When I want comedy I watch TV.”
“Golden silence to practice your pilot gig. You got it. Just fly like an angel flitting toward paradise.”
“You do the radio frequency changes and I’ll do the transmissions, okay?”
“Fine.”
“Takeoff checklist,” Jake said, and Flap began reading off the items. Jake checked each item and gave the appropriate response.
And soon they were taxiing toward the cat. Automatically Jake leaned forward and tugged hard on the VDI, the televisionlike display in the center of the instrument panel that functioned as the primary attitude reference. It was tight, just as it should be.
“Flashlight on the backup gyro, please,” Jake said to Flap, who already had it in his hand. If both generators dropped off the line, the little gyro would continue to provide good attitude information for about thirty seconds, long enough for Jake to deploy the ram-air turbine, called the RAT, an emergency wind-driven generator.
Of course a double generator failure was rare, and if it happened on a launch with a discernible horizon there wouldn’t be a problem. Yet on a coal black night…and all nights at sea were coal black. Jake Grafton well knew that emergencies were quirky — they only happened at the worst possible time, the time when you least expected one and could least afford it. Then you would have to entertain two or three.
The A-7 on the cat in front of Jake was having a problem with the nose-tow apparatus. A small conference was convening around the nose wheel, but nothing obvious seemed to be happening.
Jake looked again at the sky. Darkening fast.
Automatically he reviewed what he would do if he got a cold cat shot — if the catapult failed to give him sufficient end speed to fly. From there he moved into engine failure. He fingered the emergency jettison button, caressed the throttles and felt behind him for the RAT handle. Every motion would have to be quick and sure — no fumbling, no trying to remember exactly what he had to do — he must just do it instinctively and correctly.
They were still screwing with the A-7. Come on, guys!
He felt frustrated, entitled to a pinky. These guys had better get with the program or this shot will be like being blasted blindfolded into a coal bin at midnight.
“Gettin’ pretty dark,” Flap commented, to Jake’s disgust. The pilot squirmed in his seat as he eyed the meeting of the board under the Corsair’s nose.
“Why did you stay in the Navy anyway?”
What a cracker this Le Beau is! “I eat this shit with a spoon,” Grafton replied testily.
“Yeah, I can see you’re loving this. Me, I’m too stupid to make it on the outside. It’s the Marines or starve. But you seem smarter than me, so I wondered.”
“Put a cork in it, will ya?”
Jake smacked the instrument panel with his fist and addressed the dozen men milling around the Corsair: “For Christ’s sake, let’s shoot it or get it off the cat. We gonna dick around till the dawn’s early light?”
And here came Bosun Muldowski, striding down the deck, gesturing angrily. “Off the cat. Get it off.”
And it happened. The Corsair came off the cat and Jake eased the Intruder on. Into the hold-back, the thump as the shuttle was moved forward hydraulically, off the brakes and full power, cat grip up, cycle the controls, check the flaps and slats, now the engine gauges…
Time to go.
Jake flipped on the external lights, the nighttime equivalent of the salute to the cat officer. He placed his head back into the rest, just in time to catch Flap giving Muldowski the bird.
Wham!
As the G’s slammed them back into their seats Jake roared into the ICS: “Yeeeeoooow,” and then they were airborne. A pinky! All right! Not very pink, but pink enough.
Engines pulling, all warning lights out, eight degrees nose up — his eyes took it all in automatically as he reached for the gear handle and slapped it up.
With the gear coming, the bird accelerating nicely, the pilot keyed the radio transmitter: “War Ace Five One One airborne.”
“Roger, Five One One,” the departure controller said from his seat in front of a large radar screen in Air Ops, deep in the bowels of the ship. “Climb straight ahead to six thousand, then hold on the One Three Five radial at sixteen miles. Your push at One Seven after the hour.”
“Five Eleven, straight up to Six, then hold on the One Three Five at Sixteen.” Jake moved his left thumb from the radio transmit button to the ICS key and opened his mouth. He wanted to say something snotty to Flap about the gesture to the bosun, but the bombardier beat him to the switch.
“Hey, I damn near ejected on the cat stroke. What in hell was that squall you gave back there?”
“You damn fool! I came within a gnat’s eyelash of punching out. I coulda drowned! If I got run over by the boat you wouldn’t be so damn happy. Yelling on the ICS like a wildcat with a hot poker up your ass — that’s the stupidest thing I ever…”
Jake Grafton waited until the flaps and slats were safely in, then he reached over and jerked the plug on Flap’s mask.
Silence. Blessed silence.
Damn you, Tiny Dick Donovan. Damn you all to hell.
The night quickly enveloped them. The world ended at the canopy glass. Oh, the wing-tip lights gave a faint illumination, but Jake would have had to turn his head to see them on the tips of the swept wings, and he wasn’t doing much head turning just now. Now he was flying instruments, making the TACAN needle go where it was supposed to, holding the rate-of-climb needle motionless, making the compass behave, keeping his wings level. All this required intense concentration. After five minutes of it he decided enough was enough and reached for the autopilot switch. It refused to engage.
Maybe the circuit breaker’s popped. He felt the panel between him and the bombardier. Nope. All breakers in.
He punched the altitude-hold button three more times and swore softly to himself.
Okay, so I hand fly this monument to Marine maintenance, this miraculous Marine Corps flying pig.
He hit the holding fix, sixteen miles on the One Three Five radial, and did a teardrop entry. Established inbound he pulled the throttles back until he was showing only two thousand pounds of fuel flow per hour on each engine. This fuel flow would soon give him 220 knots indicated, he knew from experience, the plane’s maximum conserve airspeed. Would as soon as the speed bled off.
Hit the fix, start the clock, turn left. Go around and around with the tailhook up, because this first one is a touch-and-go, a practice bolter.
The second time he approached the fix the symbology on the VDI came alive and gave him heading commands from the plane’s onboard computer. Flap. He glanced over. The BN had his head against the black hood that shielded the radar scope and was twiddling knobs. Sure enough, the mileage readout corresponded with the TACAN DME, or distance measuring equipment.