I’m feeling vaguely dyspeptic and out of sorts in this blogging thing, for all that I had a wonderful bike ride this afternoon up the coast. Carmel Valley to Del Mar, and up that miserable hill. Then down again, through Solana Beach, which soon gave way to Cardiff and then finally Encinitas. At Swami’s in Encinitas I turned around and came back the way I’d gone, to the tune of 23-odd miles or so of a very pleasant day.
So to put it all away and just write something, I thought it’d be fun to share a mini-sea story with you.
Now, I may have mentioned somewhere along the way that a pilot signals his readiness for a night catapult shot by turning on his external lights, usually by means of a pinkie switch outboard on the throttle(s), an “exterior lights master switch.”
It’s important that the switch be located there, since he’ll want to brace the throttle up against the full power stops on the cat shot – the natural tendency would be for the inertia to roll the throttle back to idle as the cat fired otherwise, which would be in so very many ways a lamentable thing to have happen, once flung into the thin insubstantial air.
Which, it must scarcely need be said, is even thinner and more insubstantial at night.
Now, having done all that is necessary to link the jet to the catapult, roger the weight board, finish the take-off checklist and run the engines up to military or even combat-rated power (afterburner), there will still be a number of fairly consequential cockpit tasks to accomplish before actuating the external light switch, signalling that willingness to leave the cold comfort of the carrier deck for the aviator’s natural element. These take only a moment or two to complete, but sometimes that moment or two is just too much to an anxious catapult officer or deck-edge operator.
At least it must be so, since I had the opportunity one dark and storm-tossed night (they are all dark and storm-tossed in the gladitorial halls of aviator memory) to hear this exchange between the S-3 crew but an instant before launched off Catapult 1 into the murk, and the Air Boss, up in his tower:
“Viking off Cat 1, turn your lights on please!”
“Wilco Boss, I’ll turn them on just as soon as I’m ready to go flying.”
Which I’d have loved to have the presence of mind to say something like that, if it had ever happened to me.
That is the definition of Pilot in Command…
Old story about a 747 pilot talking about diverting around weather with a controller who didn’t want to approve the diversion.
Pilot: Are you down there, so that I can be up here, or am I up here, so that you can be down there?
Controller: Diversion Approved
I guess it must be a genetic thing for all pilots to be that calm in the face of stupidity & danger. I remember flying into Dulles one clear, sunny morning in the mid-70s. Cleared to land, gear was down, flaps were down (sounds like I know what I’m talking about, but I was sitting on the wing…). Ground is getting closer. Then suddenly a fully-loaded 727 is nearly vertical, overhead bings flying open, plane shuddering and shaking. Finally started to level off a bit and the pilot comes over:
“Sorry about those bumps. We were cleared to land on top of another plane. We’ll just circle around for a bit until the runway is clear.”
Damn.
I’m just a state college grad Lex but I woulda had that Boss’s vision checked..maybe he thought he saw it go…
I’ve sat there at mil several times, nodding my head emphatically for any number of reasons, while waiting for the cat-o to step in front, as have you…. Seems milliseconds turn into minutes and that cold sweat bead rolls down to where the sun don’t shine.
B2
I love the smell of Air Boss in the morning. It smells like victory.
There must be some sort of time compression device installed somewhere inside the cockpit of aircraft. When I watch other aircraft in the run up bay they seem to be there for several minutes. When I’m there running through the cockpit checks, it seems to take no more than a few seconds of constant activity. Frames of reference or something.
I saw a similar thing with a Prowler:
“604 turn your lights on!”
” Why Boss, they weren’t on when you shot me!”
Remember Chevy Chase in the National Lampoon Vacation movie with Christie Brinkley just before he jumps in the motel pool to skinny dip? He’s standing there saying “This is Crazy!” over and over.
That became part of my checklist on some night shots.
A good friend of mine took a shot one night in a Crusader while he was reaching back across his body with his left arm. With the throttle back to idle during the cat stroke and the engine unspooling he ended up in the drink. Though it had never been tested, the method of egress from a Crusader preferred by some of us if it happened to remain intact on impact was to let it sink and then eject through the canopy. To hear Jim tell it, the ejection and separation from the seat worked just fine. The scary part was popping to the surface only to see the carrier headed straight for him at a crisp thirty knots. Jim used to draw quite a crowd at happy hour with the telling of that tale.