Kevin Miller - Raven One

“Yes, sir, my gunner saw it from the de-arming hole. His eyes were big.”

“Yeah,” Johnson chuckled. “I’ll bet he could see Betty’s eyes a mile away when she was abeam on downwind! After she trapped, she came into the ready room in her gear muttering ‘Holy shit! Ho-ly shit !’”

Wilson laughed, having been there before.

Johnson continued. “You know, it always amazes me… Here we are in the middle of friggin’ nowhere, flying in these varsity conditions, which is pretty dangerous when you think about it. Yet, we go to the ready room, watch the PLAT and crack up laughing as our friends risk their lives! No one else on earth has any idea this little drama is happening. And only about 50–60 people aboard are intimately involved in it right now. That means only about one percent of the crew has a clue about how screwed up this is.”

Wilson smiled and nodded. “Yes, sir.”

“And we howl laughing and critique the finest pilots in the world doing their best under tremendous stress with very little margin for error.” The Big Unit shook his head. “And before long, it will be our turn again.”

“I promise I won’t laugh at you, sir,” Wilson said with a straight face.

“Bull shit !” Johnson whispered and smiled. “We heard the Raven ready room howl from a hund’erd frames away when Betty boltered!”

“I swear I wasn’t there, sir!”

A loud roar filled the space and made further conversation difficult. A Hornet in tension was at full power on Catapult 3 above them. Two white cones of fire leapt from the tailpipes and licked at the jet blast deflector, the brilliant light washing out the camera. The sound inside Air Ops became a deep, vibrant, continuous boom. They watched the pilot select external lights— ON— and the pulsing aircraft glow illuminated the deck around him. That was the signal he was ready. Wilson watched the LED display on the clock: 17:59:49… 50… 51…. The Hornet remained stuck to the deck, burning fuel at a prodigious rate. A familiar pop and zipper sound started the Hornet down the track, its afterburner exhaust tearing at the deck. Wilson kept his eyes on the PLAT as the Hornet got to the end and went airborne. Another THUNK of the Cat 3 water brake shook the ship’s frames down to the keel.

Ding ding, ding ding . The sound of four bells played over the 1MC loudspeaker, signifying 1800 hours. Valley Forge prided itself on “launching on the bells.”

Another Hornet roared off Cat 2. Olive’s husky voice sounded over the departure frequency. “Four-one-two airborne.” Wilson watched her aircraft on the PLAT, and with a positive rate of climb, she deselected burner to save fuel to remain aloft for the planned 90 minutes. The skipper launched off the waist one minute later, and Wilson recorded their times in a log book. Seven more jets to go. Wilson had to steady himself as he wrote. The ship was still moving appreciably in the heavy seas.

The marshal frequency radio crackled over the loudspeaker as the first returning aircraft began its approach: “ Marshal, Spartan one-zero-three commencing out of angels six, state seven-point-eight.”

“Roger, one-zero-three, check-in approach on button fifteen.”

“One-zero-three, switching fifteen.”

The recovery commenced. Each minute, as one aircraft, with the hook down for landing, pulled power and pushed the nose over, another pilot or aircrew entered a precision realm of absolute concentration. Airspeed, heading, and rate of descent were monitored to maintain position in an exact sequence as the aircraft lined up behind the ship. More than anything else, the fuel state of each aircraft dominated everyone’s thinking.

The instrument scan, the voice calls, the procedures were rote, all trained into each pilot to become second nature, even to Sponge Bob at the beginning of this, his first deployment. Also common to all the aircrew was a level of tension that, at times, bordered on fear. Wilson knew tonight was going to be one of those bordering-on-fear nights; everyone faced low overcast with sporadic rain, a pitching deck, and unfamiliar divert fields that were over 200 miles away.

At sea, away from the cultural lighting of shore, an overcast sky at night blocks out even the moral support starlight can offer. With no discernible horizon, the sea and the sky become a whole. Black. Inside-of-a-basketball black. Nights like these bring out the inner demons harbored within each pilot. Cold cat shots. Ramp strikes. Total electrical failures.

Those who bolter or receive low state wave-offs are given vectors to a tanker located overhead in the gloom. Those pilots, sometimes near a state of desperation, must try to find it without becoming disoriented, without losing control of the aircraft, and without letting a moment’s inattention cause them to collide with the tanker.

Pilots who experience brake failure on deck must make a frantic pull of the ejection handle before the aircraft goes over the side. The seat blasts them out of the cockpit and then blasts them again into a parachute. They have no more than a second after the disorientation of the opening shock ( OOMPH! ) to get their wits about them and to prepare for water entry.

Inflate! Pull at the toggles. Raft! Reach for the release.

Immersed in frigid seawater, they struggle to get free of the chute, conscious of the great ship parting the waves mere feet away. As the wake breaks over their heads, they get tossed about, get sucked under, gag constantly and spit out mouthful after mouthful of salt water. They must feel for their raft in the blackness, as icy cold numbs their fingers. Above all else, they hope the plane guard helo sees them and puts a swimmer in the water now. Please, God, help me!

It gets worse. If a pilot can’t get aboard or tank, he may be directed to divert ashore. This requires that he transit alone over miles and miles of open ocean. If disaster strikes then, and the jet is no longer flyable, the pilot makes a desperate Mayday! call, giving his range and bearing before he ejects into black nothingness and a shivering cold descent. Added to that is the dreaded knowledge that no human being is within 100 miles! And even if a rescue helo is sent immediately, it won’t get on scene for nearly an hour, and the pilot is in the cold water that whole time, fighting shock and hypothermia. They hope to muster the strength to signal for the helo if it, by miracle, finds the “needle in the haystack” of the black and limitless sea.

Wilson and the others were well aware of the sudden and violent ways aviators could meet their end. Episodes like this were quite rare. The Navy, as a whole, often went many years between such incidents. Their training was superb and they knew how to handle any situation placed before them. But the nightmares did happen on occasion, and deep in their minds — in the darker than night place where the demons lived — they knew that some gloomy night fate could choose them.

The external lights of a Hornet at full power came on, a signal to the deck crew the pilot was ready for launch. In the corner of the screen, however, Wilson noted the squadron troubleshooter with wands crossed over his head, the signal for suspend. He watched the Cat crew go through the suspend procedures and heard the Mini Boss make the radio call.

“Two-one-zero, you’re suspended.”

“Roger,” the pilot replied. Another first-cruise aviator, he kept his left arm locked in order to hold the throttles forward until given the signal to throttle back.