Next to Delight was Robert “Robo” Robbins, a retired navy commander and former landing signal officer. Slightly younger, he wore a perpetual smile as if savoring a private joke at the expense of the world around him. Aside from their previous part-time work for ATA, both staffers shared a passion for World War I aviation. They haunted The Aerodrome web site, exchanged arcane information and esoterica, and constantly critiqued each other’s alternating chapters in an epic titled Duel over Douai.
Delight and Robbins were joined by Ozzie Ostrewski, just back from Long Beach. New to ATA, he was known as an exceptionally fine fighter pilot. Rumor and gossip swirled around Ozzie. Reportedly he had scored multiple kills as a USS Langley F-14 pilot during a classified dustup in the Indian Ocean a few years before. He steadfastly declined all efforts to elicit details, both overt and otherwise. Not even his shipmate Psycho Thaler would discuss it; he had been there as well.
“Hey, Oz,” said Delight. “Lemme buy you a drink, god damn it.” Pure and Robo traded sideways smiles. They knew Ostrewski as a nonimbiber, nonblasphemer, and devout Catholic—a rara avis in military aviation.
“And the horse you rode in on,” Ostrewski replied evenly. He was getting good at bowdlerizing. He reached over the bar and pulled a root beer from the ice chest. “Any word yet?”
“Naw,” said Robbins. He knew what Ostrewski meant. “The boss is still in the office with the new kid. But I think he’s gonna hire her.”
“Damn!” Ostrewski slammed his bottle down on the bar harder than intended. It was the direst expletive the normally composed aviator allowed himself. “That’s one reason I got out of the navy—the damn double standards and all that bu … siness.” Delight suddenly realized how upset the instructor really was.
Robbins nudged him. “C’mon, Oz, how bad can it be?”
Ozzie inhaled, held his breath, and exhaled. “Look, it’s the accumulation of all this stuff. I don’t know about you guys, but I really don’t like the idea of teaching Chinese Communists how to land on carriers, let alone go bombing and strafing with them. Add in the trouble we’re bound to have with girl aviators, and what was a dream job is going to get screwed up.”
“The world’s changing, my boy,” Robo said solicitously.
“Yeah, I know, I know … it’s just not my world anymore. Not even my same country.”
Michael Ostrewski wore his heart on his flight jacket. His friends knew he was intensely proud of his Polish heritage and its Old World values.
“Attention on deck!”
Delight, Robbins, and the others turned in their seats. Striding through the door was Terry “Hook” Peters, six-foot-three-inches of enthusiasm and what the navy called command presence. Peters saw his wife in the room and winked. Jane Peters, five-foot-five-inches of feistiness, blew a kiss at the once-gangly kid who earned an ironic call sign when he forgot to lower his tailhook for his first night carrier landing. A former Blue Angels commander, he and Jane had invested most of their savings in ATA, and now it had paid off with the Chinese training contract.
With him was a brown-eyed brunette, about five-foot-nine and 135 pounds. She glanced around, noticed Jane Peters, and gave her a shy smile. Jane had liked her immediately and told Terry Peters that Elizabeth Vespa got Jane’s vote among the four applicants for the new slot. The fact that Liz and that nice Ozzie Ostrewski were single had not escaped her attention.
“Gang,” Terry explained, “I’d like to introduce our new instructor—Liz Vespa, call sign Scooter.”
Cheers, applause, and laughter greeted Elizabeth Vespa. A few ATA staffers chuckled at the nickname. Ostrewski muttered to Robbins, “Cute.”
“Yeah, she is, kind of,” Robbins replied.
“I meant the call sign,” Ozzie said in a monotone.
Peters continued the introduction. “Liz comes to us from TraCom. She left active duty as a lieutenant commander, and the navy’s loss is our gain. She was an A-4 CarQual instructor before going to T-45s, and that’s part of the reason I selected her now that we’re progressing with the Chinese students. She’s more current on carrier qualifications than any of us, and now, having flown with her, I can say that she’s a good stick.” He turned to Vespa and grinned. “Liz, welcome aboard!”
Vespa blushed slightly at the attention. Standing with her hands behind her back, she said, “Thanks, Captain Peters.” She scanned the room, taking in the faces. “There’s no place else I’d rather be than here, flying with you guys.” More applause and laughter skittered through the room—except from the crew cut, gray-eyed instructor at the bar who met her gaze without blinking. Even from that distance, Liz Vespa could read the flight jacket patch that said OZZIE.
Three
As Good As It Gets
Peters and Delight watched the two Skyhawks accelerate as Ostrewski led Vespa in a section takeoff. Zack turned toward his partner. “You sure this is a good idea, Terry?”
Peters’s gaze never left the TA-4s. “It’s Jane’s idea. She said that when any of her third-graders didn’t get along, she put ’em at the same desk.” He shrugged. “Eventually they made up and became friends.”
Delight shook his head. “Child psychology applied to fighter pilots.” He unzipped a wry grin. “Works for me.”
Three miles over Gila Bend, Ozzie keyed his mike. “Ah, Wizard Two, let’s go in trail. Over.”
Liz smiled in anticipation. That was the agreed-upon signal. “Let’s go in trail” actually meant, “The chase is on; see if you can stay with me, cowgirl.” But privately she rankled at Ozzie’s self-confident call sign: “The Wizard of Oz.”
She double-clicked her mike button in acknowledgment.
Two seconds later Ozzie half snapped to inverted and sucked the stick into his stomach. From sixteen thousand feet, Wizard One responded in a mind-numbing split-ess, the Gs building quickly to the grayout stage. His vision grew fuzzy around the edges, narrowing to a thirty-degree cone. In several seconds he would regain full vision and swivel his head to see if he had made any money on Scooter Vespa.
Liz had expected an abrupt move, but the suddenness caught her off guard. She lost a hundred fifty yards before she rolled over and followed Ozzie downward. It was much as she expected: On the ground, Michael Ostrewski was a complete gentleman. Up here, man to man, he was a mongoose. No quarter asked or given.
And damn sure no preferential treatment for girls.
Wizard One pulled through the bottom of the split-ess, and as the nose reached the horizon Ozzie rolled into a ninety-degree bank, still pulling hard. He sensed the Skyhawk approaching the onset of buffet, but a minute adjustment sustained his rate of turn. He felt he was getting maximum performance out of the bird.
From experience and conditioning, Ostrewski was comfortable at four Gs. He looked back over his right shoulder, in the direction of his turn. Vespa’s Wizard Two had lost some of its original dead-six aspect, but the contest was far from over.
Ostrewski’s testosterone-rich brain was convinced that no woman could stay with him in a sustained high-G contest. He determined to make Sir Isaac Newton his chief ally, wearing down Vespa by the unrelenting pressure of gravity. Besides, it was an accepted fact in squadron ready rooms: Girls can fly, but they can’t hack the G.
With her throttle two-blocked, Liz focused her powerful concentration not only on Wizard One, but on its projected path. She knew that Ozzie was unlikely to telegraph his punches, and he could be trusted to do the unexpected, but the laws of physics permitted no amendments; they were enforced equally upon all contenders.
As both jets came around the circle, completing their first 360, Liz perceived that the relative separation had stabilized. Ozzie’s initial move had netted him perhaps fifteen degrees. By common consent, the fight would end one of two ways: reaching the artificial “hard deck” of ten thousand feet, or when one of them could track the other in the gunsight for at least three seconds.
Passing through magnetic north, Ostrewski nudged bottom rudder, sliding the T
A-4 downward to the right. Liz saw the motion and, momentarily perplexed, jockeyed stick and rudder to follow. She was suspicious; Delight had confided that Ozzie seldom made an error of technique.
As Liz slid down toward Ozzie’s six o’clock, he abruptly half rolled to the left, pausing almost inverted. Liz could either try to match the move or risk closing to dangerous range. She followed, smoothly coordinating her controls. The G had abated a little, but the oppressive load still pressed on her body.
Ostrewski smiled to himself as he completed an elegant slow roll, stopped the motion, then stomped left rudder and continued around the circle, sliding outside Vespa’s field of view in a lopsided barrel roll. When he rolled wings level he looked up to his left—about 9:30—and was gratified with a view of Two’s belly. He retarded the throttle and hit the button. His speed brakes extended into the slipstream, incurring welcome drag that slowed him further.
With airspeed and G relatively undiminished, Wizard Two edged ahead of One. Liz sensed more than knew what had happened—there was only one way to explain Ozzie’s disappearance—and she knew it was seconds before his triumphant “Guns” call ruined her day.
Her mind raced. He’s behind my trailing edge, slowing and expecting me to overshoot. But I’ve got more energy.
Liz began a hard left turn, realizing that Ozzie would be cleaning up his speed brakes and adding power before putting his gunsight pipper on her tailpipe. But instead of continuing the turn, she forced the Skyhawk three-quarters of the way around, completing 270 degrees of roll. She stopped the wings nearly vertical to the horizon, then pulled right. She surprised herself with her calmness. Gosh, I hope we don’t collide.
Ostrewski gaped at the plain view of Wizard Two crossing his nose two hundred feet ahead. With Liz’s superior momentum at that point, he realized she would continue the turn into his rear hemisphere before he could regain comparable energy. Smooth move, Scooter! He had no chance to make a “Guns” call.
“Hard deck. Knock it off!” Liz Vespa knew the contest was a draw, but her voice carried the ring of triumph.
Ninety minutes later, following the debrief, Ozzie Ostrewski and Scooter Vespa regarded one another across the bar in the Skyhawk Lounge. He clinked his root beer against her Coors Light. “Here’s to good times.” Clearly the frost had melted.
“Long may they wave.” She clinked back.
Ozzie looked at her. “You seem pretty darn pleased with yourself, Miss Vespa.”
Feeling flirtatious, she cocked her head. “Why not, Mr. O? I just outflew The Only Polish-American Tomcat Ace.”
“Did not.”
“Did too.”
“Did not!”
“Did too!”
He grinned back at her. “Okay, you made a righteous move after I was kicking your butt. Where’d it come from?”
She set down her beer. “Well, because I made a human being of you, I’ll tell you.” She pretended to ignore his feigned indignation. “Daddy’s best friend flew F-86s in Korea. When I got my wings, he told me about his fights in MiG Alley.”
Ozzie nodded vacantly, staring at the mural above the bar. “You know, it’s odd. I’ve seen that move before, too.”
“Really? Where?”
His eyes returned to her face. He shrugged.
“Oh.” She thought. They still won’t talk about the Langley cruise.
“Well,” he said, “it was a great hop, Scooter. You can be my wingman anytime—in Wizard Flight.”
She giggled more than she intended. “And like Maverick said to Iceman: ‘Bullshit. You can be my wingman—in Scooter Flight.’”
Ostrewski gave a noncommittal grunt as he finished his root beer. Two minutes passed before he worked up enough nerve to ask Liz to go dancing.
Four
Gonna Wash That Man …
Orbiting at sixteen thousand feet, Liz Vespa relished being alone in a jet. Hawk Twelve was one of four A-4Fs owned or leased by ATA, and the powerful little single-seater was a joy to fly—as Zack said, “Pure delight.” Lighter than the two-seat trainers with almost thirty percent more thrust, it was the sports car of Skyhawks.
Nearing the end of the two-week air-to-ground phase, the instructors anticipated live ordnance for qualification. Vespa smiled beneath her molded gray oxygen mask—the feds had gone spastic at the mere suggestion of five-hundred-pound bombs being loaded on civilian aircraft. But ATA’s certification with State and DOD, plus some high-level arm twisting on behalf of the Chinese, had resulted in issuance of approval for “owning” and proper storage of destructive devices. Vespa marveled at Terry Peters’s patience with fearful, overbearing federal inspectors.
Vespa switched channels on her VHF radio and checked in with the Gila Bend controller. She was advised to watch for two F-16s outbound—Fighting Falcons of the Fifty-sixth Tactical Fighter Wing based at nearby Luke Air Force Base. Moments later she caught them, swift darts rocketing above her to the southwest. For a moment Liz envied the Falcon pilots their high-performance fighters, then mentally berated herself. I’ve already got one of the best flying jobs on earth. She keyed the mike. “Gila, this is Hawk Twelve. I see them. Are we clear?”
“Roger, Hawk. Your range time begins in three minutes.”
She acknowledged and switched to ATA’s common frequency. “Hawk Lead from Hawk Twelve. Zack, do you read?”
The carrier wave crackled in her earphones as Delight’s New Mexico drawl came to her from twenty miles astern. “Twelve from Lead. I gotcha, Scooter. I’m inbound with four good birds. Will proceed as briefed. Out.”
Vespa now knew that Pure Delight had launched with three other TA-4Js, all with four Mark 82s beneath the wings. Acting as range safety officer, she would clear the flight into the operating area and coordinate with the ground controller in keeping other aircraft away from the impact zone. She was authorized to cancel operations at any time with a knock-it-off call.
In her fifteen years in the navy, Liz Vespa had seldom seen live ordnance expended. Most of her flying had been in C-9 transports and TraCom T-34s or TA-4s. The closest she had got to tactical operations had been qualification as an A-4 adversary pilot, but even that coveted slot ended when all but two of the squadrons were disestablished.
Quitcherbitchin’ she told herself. She leveled the Foxtrot, nosed down slightly, and executed a precise four-point roll. Then for no reason at all she wondered what it would be like to kiss Michael Ostrewski. Do you, Scooter, take Ozzie …
Liz made a clearing turn to port, expecting to see Hawk Flight inbound. She forced herself to focus on the job at hand, upset that she had allowed her mind to wander in the air. That had seldom happened. It was one of the factors that separated her from so many other aviators, male or female. Her flight evaluations had repeated entries: “excellent situational awareness, full concentration, highly professional.” Now she found herself humming the refrain from South Pacific, her favorite musical. Gonna wash that man right out of my hair, and send him on his way …
She told herself she was not in love with Ozzie Ostrewski or anyone else, which was true. She knew that Ozzie had recently met “a nice Catholic girl” at a midnight Mass and presumably he was dating her. Once or twice Liz had thought of asking offhandedly, “Hey, Oz, how’s your love life?” She had demurred because she knew that The Only Polish-American Tomcat Ace would certainly interpret it as jealousy. Men are such swine. Well, at least some men. If only he weren’t such a good dancer …
“Hawk Twelve from Hawk Lead. I gotcha, Scooter. I’m about three miles back at your eight. Over.”
Damn it! Liz, get your shit together. She was angry at being “caught” by Zack Delight, flying in the backseat of one of the trainers. Vespa felt she should have made the first tally-ho on a four-plane flight instead of being tagged as a single. She knew that, despite his red-meat exterior, Delight was too polite to mention it again, but she also knew she had just dropped a point in the unrelenting tacit competition among aviators.
“Lead from
Twelve. Roger, Zack. I’m clearing you onto the range. Check in with Gila Control before your first run.”
“Right-o, Scooter.”
Resuming her orbit, Liz awaited Delight’s initial bombing pass. Each Skyhawk would make four runs: one each from five thousand feet at sixty degrees; seven-thousand at thirty degrees; and two from the low-level pop-up pattern at forty-five degrees. She and Delight would mark the hits on their kneeboards for comparison with the data received from the range personnel before debrief.
Moments later Delight was on the air again. “Gila Control, this is Hawk Lead. Rolling in hot.”
Glancing down, Liz saw the jet roll over and slant into its sixty-degree dive toward the northerly target, an ancient truck. She knew that Wang was flying, with Zack observing in the rear seat. The other three Chinese—Deng, Yao, and Hua—were solo.
The lead Skyhawk tracked straight down its chosen path. Liz judged it a decent run, maybe a bit shallow, but the little delta-winged jet smoothly pulled up after making its drop. Wang’s lilting accent came to her ears, “Lead is pulling off.” Below and behind the TA-4 an orangewhite light erupted near the truck, spewing smoke and dust into the air.
Deng was next down the chute with a “Two is in” call. Liz watched with pride as her pupil put his first bomb near the target at five o’clock. If anything, he had released a little high. She imagined him flipping the master arm switch to safe as he recovered and called, “Two off.”
“Three going in,” came from Yao. Liz rolled port wing low to follow his run. She knew that Ozzie had literally taken the taciturn Chinese under his wing, and evidently the instructor’s extra attention had borne fruit. Mr. Yao would never be the best bomber in the class, but he showed steady improvement. For a moment Liz wondered if Ostrewski had invested the effort for Yao, or for himself. She literally shook the thought from her mind, snapping her head left and right. I’ve got to get him out of my mind for a while.
Yao was pressing, no doubt about it. Delight had just called “Three, you’re …” when Yao dropped. The hit was about thirty feet out at one o’clock. Zack came back on the air. “Too low, Yao. You were probably below twenty-five hundred.” There was no reply, so Delight added, “Acknowledge.” The hick on the turnip truck was gone from his voice, replaced by the Leader of Men.
Combat Page 72
