The engines began winding up. Another small jolt as the hydraulic arm shoved the cat pistons into tension, taking all the slack out of the hold-back bar. Now just the shear-bolt was holding them back.
Full power, wipe out the controls, check the gauges, cat grip up…“You ready?” he asked Flap.
“I’m really really ready.”
He could feel the vibration as the engines sucked air and blasted it out the exhausts against the jet blast deflector, feel rather than hear the ear-splitting roar. He swept his eyes across the annunciator panel — all warning lights out. The exterior light master switch was on the end of the cat grip, right beside his left thumb. He flicked it on.
The cat officer took a last look at the island, looked up the cat at the void, then swept his yellow wand down in a fencer’s lunge until he touched the deck, then he came up to a point.
The catapult fired. The G’s slammed him back…and both fire warning lights illuminated.
They were big red lights, one on each side of the bombsight on the top of the instrument panel. Labeled L FIRE and R FIRE, both lights shone into his eyes like spotlights as the acceleration pressed him deeper into the seat back.
Oh, God, he thought, trying to take it in as the adrenaline whacked him in the heart.
His eyes went to the engine instruments, white tapes arranged vertically in front of his left knee. They looked—
The acceleration stopped and the plane was off the cat, the nose coming up. A glance at the airspeed — not decaying. Angle-of-attack gauge agreed. He grabbed the stick and slapped the gear handle up. Wings level, check the nose…
His left hand rose automatically toward the emergency jettison button above the gear handle. If he pushed it and held it down for one second the five drop tanks, each containing two thousand pounds of fuel, would be jettisoned from the aircraft. She would instantly be five tons lighter and could then fly on one engine. He was sorely tempted but he didn’t push it. His hand came back to the throttles.
Which engine was it?
Both lights were screaming at him!
Which fucking engine?
Engine tapes still okay…airspeed okay…eight degrees nose up. He was squinting against the glare of the red fire lights. He had let the left wing sag so he picked it up. Climbing through two hundred feet, 160 knots…
Both fire lights—the book said to pull the affected engine to idle, but he had both lights on!
Fire!
Was he on fire? If he was it was time to eject. Jettison this fucking airplane. Swim for it. He looked in the mirrors. Black. Nothing to see.
He became aware that Flap was on the radio. “… both fire lights…declaring an emergency…Boss, can you see any fire?”
The reply was clear in his ears. “Off the bow, you look fine. You say you have both fire lights on?”
Jake cut in on Flap. “Both of them. We’d like a dump charley.”
“Your signal dump. It’ll be about eight more minutes until we have a ready deck. We’ll call you.”
“Roger.”
His heart was slowing. She didn’t seem to be on fire. Thank you, thank you, thank you.
Accelerating through 185 knots, he raised the flaps and slats, then toggled the switches for the wing and main dump valves. They were carrying 26,000 pounds of fuel and the max he could take aboard the ship was 6,000. He needed to dump ten tons of fuel into the atmosphere.
And as he reached for the switch that would isolate a portion of the combined hydraulic system, he looked at the hydraulic gauges. For the first time. He had forgotten to look at the hydraulic gauges before. Now, squinting against the glare of the fire lights, he saw the needle on the right combined system pump flickering.
Uh-oh. A fire could be melting hydraulic lines. Hydraulic fluid itself was nonflammable, but the lines could melt.
“We have hydraulic problems,” he told Flap.
“How come those fire lights are so bright?” Flap asked. “I can barely see the gauges.”
“Dunno.” Jake was too busy to cuss out that comfortable, anonymous bureaucrat who had specified the wattage of the bulbs in the fire warning lights. They were certainly impossible to miss. You are about to die, they screamed.
“Maybe you better stop dumping the main tank.”
Flap was right. Jake secured the main tank dump. Still 8,500 pounds there.
By now he had the plane at 2,500 feet headed downwind, on the reciprocal of the launch bearing, steady at 250 knots. When he pulled the power back the fire lights stayed on.
Did they have a fire? Modern jet aircraft utilized every cubic inch of space inside the fuselage for fuel, engines, pumps, switches, hydraulic lines, electronic gear, wires, etc., and the spars and stringers that held the whole thing together. A fire anywhere within the plane had to be burning something critical. And if it got to the fuel tanks…well, the explosion would be spectacular.
Jake again checked the rearview mirrors for a glow. Nothing.
“Get out the checklist,” he told Flap as he turned off the cabin pressurization system. Unfortunately the ducts carrying bleed air from the engines had failed on a half-dozen occasions in the past: the resulting fires had cost the Navy men and airplanes. Jake had no desire to add his name to that list. If there was a leak downstream of the valve that controlled cabin pressurization, closing the valve should isolate it.
“Got it right here. You ready?”
“Yeah.”
Flap read the comments and recommended procedure over the ICS. One of the comments read, If a fire warning light stays illuminated, secure the affected engine.
He only had two engines and both fire lights were lit. So much for that advice.
The right combined hydraulic system gauge read zero. The needle on the left one was sagging, twitching. And a hydraulic leak was a secondary indication of fire! But did he have one?
“Marine airplanes are shit,” he groused to Flap, who shot back:
“Yeah, the Navy gives us all the crap they don’t want.”
Flap got busy on the radio and reported the hydraulic failure. Soon he was talking to Approach. The controller put them in an orbit ten miles aft of the ship. Jake slowed to 220 knots and checked the fuel quantity remaining in the wings. Still a few thousand. In the glow of the left wing-tip light he could just make out the stream from the dump pipe gushing away into the slipstream.
Well, he had it under control. Other than the nuisance glare of the fire lights, everything would be fairly normal. He would blow the gear down, lower the flaps electrically and just motor down the glide slope. He could hack it.
He released the left side of his oxygen mask. He sniffed carefully, then swabbed the sweat from his face. His heart rate was pretty much back to normal and the adrenaline was wearing off. There was no fire — he was fairly confident of that.
Wing fuel read zero. OK. He would leave the dump open a moment or two longer to purge the tank, then secure it. He reached down and punched the button to make the needle on the fuel gauge register main tank fuel. And stared, unable to believe his eyes. Only 3,500 pounds.
Holy…!
Yes, the main dump switch was off. But the valve never closed! All the fuel in the main tank had dumped, right down to the top of the standpipe, which prevented the last 3,600 pounds from going overboard. And he had already burned a hundred pounds of that 3,600.
He slapped on the mask and spoke to the controller. “Uh, Approach, War Ace Five Two One has another problem out here. The main dump valve didn’t close. We’re down to Three Point Five. How soon can you give us a charley?”