Kevin Miller - Raven One

Oh, great…

Brittany was so cute yesterday in her new winter boots. She drew a picture of herself wearing them just for you, which I’ll send to you soon with some goodies. I miss you, my love.

He looked at Mary’s picture on his desk and daydreamed for a few moments. The photo, taken at the Strike-Fighter Ball, was sensational. It caught her beautiful face, her dazzling smile, which generated more wattage than all the sequins on her dress. He dreamed of her feminine shape. Thirty-three years old… and she had not changed since college.

Click, click… weeEEEEeeoowww!

The sound of a Viking recovery above brought him back to his O2 level stateroom and the realization that holding Mary was over five months away. With the Viking aboard, the recovery must be nearing completion. He checked the schedule again and verified his CATCC watch for the next recovery, fifty minutes from now.

Wilson composed a quick note to Mary and headed aft to the ready room.

Thirty minutes later, Wilson walked into Air Ops, amidships on the O3 level. The cool, dark room was illuminated by a few small overhead lights over the work desks. The desks and two rows of Naugahyde-covered benches faced the event status boards.

Wilson was the first CATCC rep to arrive, and he took a spot on the back row. Commander Marty O’Shaunessy, the Air Ops Officer and a career naval flight officer, was hunched over his desk talking on the phone, his usual pose. Wilson knew O’Shaunessy was having a miserable night with this weather. He also knew that, as the sun sank below the horizon, the misery was going to get worse.

Wilson studied the acronyms and numbers on the status monitors for the information he needed. XO and Sponge Bob were checked into marshal , the aircraft holding pattern aft of the ship, at 12,000 and 13,000 feet, respectively. XO had 8,000 pounds of fuel, Sponge only 7,100. And that information was five minutes old. If the launch goes on time, Sponge should get here with a little over 4.0. That 4,000 pounds gave him two passes before he would need to be directed to the tanker overhead.

The ship was working “blue water ops” as normal, as if there were no divert fields in the area, but Wilson sought them out on the status monitors anyway. He needed to find a location in Oman where a divert aircraft, which required a climb and descent through icing conditions in order to make an instrument approach to an unfamiliar field at night, could land as safely as possible in the wind and rain. The ship was definitely where the pilots wanted to recover tonight… if the deck would cooperate. Wilson recalled a salty instructor pilot describe the cause of an aircraft mishap as a “box,” where the sides are closed, one by one, by poor decisions and conditions. He thought tonight’s operations had the construction of such a box well underway.

Wilson caught the eye of LT Mike Metz, the Assistant Air Ops Officer, and gave him a nod to join him. Metz glanced at O’Shaunessy, then got up and walked the few steps to the bench where Wilson was seated.

“Hey, Flip.”

“Hey, how’s it going?” Wilson asked in a low tone. “Are we going to continue?”

“Yes, sir. The weather should be improving with frontal passage. The Captain wants to fly, too.”

“Great,” Wilson muttered as he looked at the status board. “How was the last recovery?”

Metz glanced again at O’Shaunessy. “Took forever. The commander got reamed by the Captain for having too many tankers airborne. We had three sweet tankers and needed to tank four guys almost simultaneously, so we needed them. Hey, did you see that Cutlass bolter?”

Wilson shook his head. “Who was the pilot?”

“I think they call her Betty. It was really long. She went to the tanker but had to climb through some clag to find him, and she finally plugged with about 1,500 pounds. When she got back here, it looked like she trapped hard… She was determined not to go back up there again.”

“I can relate.” Wilson realized he was keeping Metz too long. “Hey, thanks, man. You have a great recovery.”

“You, too, sir,” the lieutenant said with a smile and returned to his seat.

Wilson nodded. He was right. Air Ops was the place to be at night, especially a night like this. Dozens of decisions were being made that affected the human drama of operating high performance aircraft in the close vicinity of the ship. And, for the most part, that drama centered around fuel states. Airplanes could recover aboard a carrier only if they had a certain amount of fuel. The typical requirement was half of a full load; that amount would not overstress a 17-ton Hornet airframe as it smashed into the deck at the rate of 700 feet-per-minute. During the descent, the plane looked as if it were suspended a few feet above the flight deck and then dropped. At the moment of the “drop,” the plane’s tailhook grabbed one of the steel cables stretched across the deck and wrestled the jet to a halt, slowing it from over 140 miles per hour to zero within the distance of little more than a football field.

The hook sometimes skipped over the wires, or the pilot came across the ramp too high and landed long. Either circumstance resulted in a “bolter.” Therefore, landing called for full power on each touchdown to ensure the aircraft could get airborne if necessary. Until it did, its hook clawed at the nonskid surface and kicked up a dazzling spray of sparks. The jet then zoomed off the end of the angled deck and struggled back into the air for a downwind turn and another approach.

Sometimes the pilot would get a “wave-off” signal from the LSO due to a poor approach or due to the deck status. Pilots liked recovering with “max-trap” fuel in these conditions. More fuel meant more options, more chances to get aboard. All aircrew sweated fuel when operating around the ship, but “blue water ops” at night, especially with a pitching deck, put everyone on edge. Sometimes pilots cheated, bringing an extra 100–200 extra pounds of fuel aboard; that extra fuel equaled one or two more minutes airborne if they needed it for another pass, to rendezvous on the tanker, or to make the divert field, even if they had to fly on fumes. That was certainly better than flaming out and ejecting 10 miles short. The fuel gauge was, indeed, the most important instrument in the cockpit at times like these.

More pilots dropped in next to Wilson in the peanut gallery: squadron department heads and COs and XOs from the other squadrons were all there to act as subject matter experts, if the need arose. He exchanged greetings or nods with most of those who caught his eye, but they were all there, like Wilson, to assess the situation facing their pilots that evening. CDR Randy “Big Unit” Johnson, the Buccaneer ’s Executive Officer, sat down next to Wilson. Johnson shared the same name as the flame-throwing major league hurler, stood at six-foot-four, and had a bone-crushing handshake he had developed from regular workouts in the foc’sle weight room. He possessed the good looks of a movie star — with his thick, dark hair, brown eyes, square jaw and cleft chin — he was one of the nicest guys in the wing and a solid carrier pilot.

“Flip, ready for another fun-filled night of stupid human tricks?”

“Yes, sir!” Wilson responded, and then added, “How’s Betty doing? Heard about her long bolter.”

“She saw the elephant on that one. She said she had a ball, but she could sense the deck pitch down — it just slid out from under her. She knew she was going to bolter and just held what she had, but the deck seemed to fall further and further away. She saw nothing but water and lit the cans just as she touched down. My understanding is that she was pretty far up there.”