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Dealing with adversityThe story of the grounded Raptors in Hawaii reminds me of one of the first TRANSPAC tales I ever heard. I was an ensign, or maybe a JG in Meridian training in TA-4J’s, and one of the Marine IP’s started talking about a WESTPAC pump his squadron had been on. It seems that eight Yuma-based A-4F’s were on the way to the P.I., herded by a USAF KC-10 – and unlike the high-tech F-22, they didn’t have to worry about navigation systems that might fail. For the A-4’s, it was TACAN and NDB only, neither of which was worth a damn more than 200 miles or so from a land station. Anyway, about half-way between California and Hawaii, the site of their first lay-over. One of the guys was in the basket, replenishing his go-juice – A-4’s didn’t carry much gas, so it was pretty much a constant cycling through the tanker to try and maintain options if something should go wrong aboard the tanker itself. Fatigued, I guess, from all of that form flying and refueling in the cramped environment of a Skyhawk cockpit, he hit basket with too much closure and a little off-center, the result being that the basket ripped off the hose. The still-pressurized fuel hose dumped JP-5 straight down his intake causing the (only) motor to cough and finally quit. Which combination of events was bad for pretty much everyone. For him, it was a complete loss of the technology pilots use to generate airspeed, which is in turn used to create lift, which force – and this is the really important part – is marshalled to overcome gravity and slip the surly bonds of earth, like. He also experienced an explosive decompressurization since engine bleed air is also used to provide cabin pressure, but that was of secondary, even trival concern. His seven remaining wingmen were left to thoughtfully consider the fuel quantities in their own tanks, the groundspeed they were making good and the distance remaining to the field as they were just past the go/no-go line and no diverts were available. After quick consultation with the heavy tanker, they worked the math and realized that they would not be able to hang around if junior couldn’t get his machine started again. Although the warrior ethic is to never to leave a man behind when he’s in trouble, no useful purpose would be served by swimming alongside him in the ocean so they did what they had to do and pressed on course. Even as they motored west, the lead kept up an excited conversation with his stricken wingman, going through the engine out checklist. The wingie had gotten his ram air turbine out into the slipstream, and was trading altitude for airspeed just like he’d been taught, so at least he had radio comms in his otherwise eerily silent cockpit. While Skyhawk pilots may refer to their machine as “God’s jet,” this probably means that God is not a glider pilot, however, because with the engine stubbornly refusing to re-light, the A-4 was falling like a delta-winged rock. Eventually the time came when he was simultaneously out airspeed, altitude and ideas. After trimming the jet up carefully, he reached above his head and pulled the overhead handle out and down, the face curtain coming down over his head. Now whether or not that causes the airplane to eject the pilot, or the pilot to jettison the airplane is a matter of perspective I suppose, but the net result was that in just a shade more than second later, the canopy had blown, the catapult had lauched him up the ejection rail, the rocket motor had blasted him free of the jet’s tail, the parachute altimeter had sensed his height (less than 14,000 feet), the drogue gun had fired – taking with it the drogue ‘chute – and the full parachute had opened behind it. Good ‘chute! IROK is the post-ejection acronym he had been taught, and it stands for Inflate (life preserver), Release (raft, out of the seat pan), Options – (O2 mask and gloves off/on depending on environment – mask on for overwater ejection, gloves off) and Koch – (find and prepare to release the Koch fittings which would release the parachute from his harness- but not too soon: Although getting tangled up in parachute cords after water entry and being dragged under to drown is a serious concern, it’s very difficult to judge altitude above a flat sea and he wouldn’t have been the first guy to jettision his chute from an unsurviveable altitude). Things worked out well for him though, and he kept his head even as he marvelled at how quickly chaos could arise from order. In a short time his boots were wet, the Koch fittings released and fortunately the parachute blew clear of his splash zone with little fuss. A lanyard connected to his seat pan led to the one-man survival raft he’d set free during his descent, and so he pulled it close and struggled aboard, after first freeing the seat pan from his lap restraints. He made himself as comfortable as he could in the warm Pacific Ocean, entirely alone as the sound of his wingman and their tanker faded in the distance. It’s quiet at sea, half way between California and Hawaii with your wingmen receding out of radio range. A man can get thoughtful. But our hero was not just a man but a Marine, so it was ix-nay on the ought-thay. After a short time bobbing around in the deep blue sea, not unlike a solitary rice crispie in a milk bowl, he considered his entertainment options. In the chest pocket of his survival vest was the Sony Walkman he’d brought along to enliven the weary aerial hours of the TRANSPAC. Removing and stowing his helmet in the raft, he discovered that it was still fully functional. Probing his shoulder pocket, he discovered that his pack of Marlboro cigarets were somewhat the worse for wear, but that middle ones were still sufficiently dry to light with the emergency matches in his vest. And when the merchant ship found him and hour or so later, pretty much exactly where the KC-10’s navigator had said he would be, they found him kicked back in his raft, smoking a cancer stick, listening to Chuck Mangione on his Walkman. Which says something, I think, about the power of a positive mental attitude. February 28th, 2007 | Tags: sea stories | Category: Flying
28 comments to Dealing with adversity |
Credo"Sign on, young man, and sail with me. The stature of our homeland is no more than the measure of ourselves. Our job is to keep her free. Our will is to keep the torch of freedom burning for all. To this solemn purpose we call on the young, the brave, the strong, and the free. Heed my call, Come to the sea. Come Sail with me." -- John Paul Jones "Pardon him, Theodotus; he is a barbarian, and thinks that the customs of his tribe and island are the laws of nature" --George Bernard Shaw, "Caesar and Cleopatra" "And those who were seen dancing were thought to be insane by those who could not hear the music."--Friedrich Nietzsche "A kind Providence has placed in our breasts a hatred of the unjust and cruel, in order that we may preserve ourselves from cruelty and injustice. They who bear cruelty, are accomplices in it. The pretended gentleness which excludes that charitable rancour, produces an indifference which is half an approbation. They never will love where they ought to love, who do not hate where they ought to hate."--Edmund Burke "Μολὼν λαβέ" -- Leonidas "Blogito Ergo Sum" -- Neptunus Lex Relocating? SponsorsNearly 60k hits and 130k page views per month - low rates! Advertise with Lex! Stinkin' Badges For the Effort!Recent PostsPopularPagesTags1st Amendment afghanistan Araby army Blogging buffoonery china culture economy education Flying Friday Musings geopol GWOT Headlines History iran iraq Israel issues media Memory Lane Military Navy norks Oz pakistan people piracy politicians politics Politics and Culture pundits Russia seals sea stories silliness Small Stuff SoCal technology UAVs UK usaf usmc weapons WP Cumulus Flash tag cloud by Roy Tanck requires Flash Player 9 or better. Spam Blocked |
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I think that story may have been in Approach, because I remember it too.
I’d forgotten about this …
note to self:
1) Ensure iPod is fully charged and in a waterproof case for all milair flights.
2) Consider starting smoking, or at least carrying a pack.
I agree with Kevin, at least to point 1.
But point 2 would be: upload minimum 2 cd’s worth of Chuck Mangione. Consider adding Herb Alpert & the Tijuana Brass as well.
Make sure you have a set of headphones with a headband along too – I wouldn’t trust the earbuds in that environment.
Shipmates,
I discovered, early on in my aviation career, that the numerous flight suit pockets left plenty of room for various “civilized survival” items. Things like, oh, say, a pint of bourbon, or rum, spare batteries, sunblock, a couple packs of crackers and cheese, some hard candies, etc. Also handy to trade with the natives, so to speak…..
Respects,
Reminds me of a story that I read about a few years back about some USMC pilots in F-8E’s making a TRANSPAC back in the early 60’s. One of the pilots tried to hit the KC-130 they were following, he did it, but couldn’t take gas past a certain point. Then there was a pop and all the “idiot lights” light up on his warning panel. As this pilot begain to troubleshoot, one of the other members in his flight announce he was on fire. Pulled the handle above his head and nothing happened. After composing himself for a second, the pilot went and pulled the alternate between his legs. Again nothing happened. Running out of options, he finally decided to try an manual ejection, except now the fire had burned through the control cables so instead of being able to roll upside down and fall out, now the pilot had to punch the canopy and jump out manually while still upright. Canopy fires and the pilot was able to dodge the vertical stabilizer. Bad luck struck again when this pilots parachute failed to open. So old boy free-fell from about a couple miles up into the Pacific water down below. After achieving the unoffical speed record, this pilot his the water and finally luck or God came back for him, because even though he broke just about every bone in his body he survived.
After 30 some-odd years, my favorite album is still:
Chuck Mangione CHASE THE CLOUDS AWAY
Esther Satterfield sings “Soft”
forget survival, this is bliss…
Ah Jeeze Lex, what a good story.
I’m about 3/4 of the way through Steel Thunder and occasionally its been hard to see through the haze of smoke from those Marlboros. So I was wondering…….are the cigarettes mandatory for fighter pilots or what? Oh yeah, I know, those who fling themselves off ships and land again on them at night don’t worry about cholesterol or cancer but still………
Just curious. Do you (or did you) smoke Lex?
Different times, Michelle. Back then, aircraft came factory equiped with an ashtray
…which some of us still miss considerably, Byron.
Good story, Lex!
Sound’s like a typical Aviator to me.
I never did smoke cigarets, Mich, but I was known to puff on the occasional cigar at the American Club bar in Hong Kong. It took the bite off the brandy.
Of course, I tried to avoid doing so if there was any chance at all of seeing the Hobbit in the next day or so. She don’t much cotton to the smell of cigar smoke. Sure don’t.
yeah… Well GO NAVY!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ic7rCw7SFjs&eurl=http%3A%2F%2Fhotair%2Ecom%2Farchives%2F2007%2F02%2F28%2Fvideo%2Dchristina%2Daguilera%2Dsalutes%2Dthe%2Dtroops%2Dskanky%2Dretro%2Dstyle%2F
Just another day at another port for all you Navy guys.
Michelle, I dunno about the naval folks, but if you look at the ads selling “identical to what was issued ” flight jackets, the green nylon AF ones from the fifties have the little zippered ciggy pocket up on the left sleeve.
Oh, and Elliot White Springs made himself a custom ashtray for his S.E.5.
Maybe it ain’t zippered. But it’s there.
Michelle ma belle (one of my clients sings that to me) is okay. But Mich?? Better make that Ms. Mich…. ar ar ar. Yeah, I crack myself up.
Tell ya what, my brother’s family calls me Mitch. My online name has been Moe for a long time. Which, if I had been thinking, when I first posted on Rhythms I would have used here. Because it would have given me some degree of anonymity (not that that would have lasted long the way I yak!) and you would have said he/she when you talked about me
About the cigaretes, heh, my guess was right! Cigars, phew, stinky – I bet you hid them from the Hornet!
Michelle,
Although I have no doubt Lex’s Hornet was a cruel mistress at times I’m not so sure it was too concerned with his stench.
Sim, is that kind of a “wouldn’t kick him out of bed for cracker crumbs (or in this case, that sweet cigar odour)” kind of remark? Huh? Is it?? LOL
BTW forgot to add above, personally I don’t drink, don’t smoke and don’t swear. But I left my @%*&# cigarettes in the bar. AGAIN
Re: Southern Air Pirates story of the Marine F-8 driver. It happened in ‘62. After he cleared the a/c he manually deployed his chute but the canopy got tangled and he had a roman candle. Talk about not being your time to die, the streamed chute put him in a feet down attitude. He released as he hit the water and was knocked out. half of his Mk-3c inflated and kept him from drowning. A Navy fleet tug was transiting and was 10 miles
from his posit. Better yet, the USS Los Angeles, a cruiser, was 100 miles away and sent a helo. He survived massive injuries because he had no spleen, which normally ruptures on severe impact. It had been removed 18 months earlier due to a car accident.
Once overheard a pilot say that the definition of an optimist is a fighter pilot that doesn’t smoke.
Michelle,
The good Cap’n could confirm, the venerable F/A-18 may not toss the Naval Aviator out of the cockpit due to cigarette smoke, but Today’s Navy may well do so.
Especially if said Aviator did so while on the Roof awaiting a shot.
There was another Marine A-4 group going east (TRANSLANT) in the early 70’s or late 60’s with their own C-130 Tanker(s). I can’t remember all the juicy details but the whole thing crumbled in or near the Azores or the Canary Island chains (can’t remember-old age). Various runways were visited and over run, etc.. Some ejected and one made it to another island nearby. That noboby was killed is all I remember beyond the vision of A-4s going down!. Where is Sid, Sid?
Bottom line- a Scooter in the 60’s wasn’t much better equiped than a Scooter in the 80’s when things go to shoot over blue water!
Michelle,
In the olded dino days we had ashtrays on our ready room chairs (thrones really..) where we could smoke all them 25 cent a pack butts. Wardroom too. No smoking in the rack though. Some of the real old dudes smoked inflight (i’ve heard) but I always remebered that story aboyt Gus Grissom and the o2 fire. LOX and sparks don’t go together.
Put it in perspective. In the big scheme of things when you’re 25, have ice water in your veins and you’re about to go man up for a night launch (and-shudder-eventual night trap-hopefully)a marlboro is a little thing….
I.E.- Bullet-proof. Snake, what’s your take- o’land spirit-warrior?
b2
Oh, never fear, I get it. Between Rhythms, Lex’s other sea stories and now Steel Thunder, I get the picture. It was a cultural thing…. and a youth thing….and a fighter pilot thing, which kind of says it all righ there
But a lot of that was a long time ago. So I was just curious about Lex. For some reason, have no idea why, I couldn’t picture him as a smoker. Even back then.
BTW I am really enjoying Steel Thunder (more so now, near the end) in a few different ways. I find the whole parellel btn the Vietnam War (ahem, excuse me, “military action” perhaps?) and today rather fascinating. Must confess I knew (and really still know) very little about Vietnam. I would have been (gulp, dare I admit it?) maybe a few years old when it ended. But, for some reason, even reading Lex’s “A Great Point” post up above drew parallels in my warped little mind between then and now. Anyway, that’s enough for now.
B2, is it true LOX & petrolium base chap stick don’t get along either?
I wonder if our fearless Aviator got a new call sigh hung on him?!
Doh! Sign, not sigh…….sigh.
Mark,
Early in flight training they used to show a film called “The Man From LOX” or something like that. It was nasty, brutish and short, worse then those old VD prevention movies!
They also discussed using chapstick and being on 100% O2. Suffice it to say, because of that movie, I never used any and when I first turned the O2 on after manning up, I always turned it away from my face before donning the mask and never spent much time in the land of oozing green apples abeam the island…
b2
AW1 Tim,
Never hurts to slip a baby bottle of drinking water in the ol’ flight suit somewhere!
Reguards