by Mike Jenne
It was going better than he could have imagined. He checked the clock and altimeter, scanned the remainder of the instruments to ensure he hadn’t forgotten anything, and looked up through his window. In the darkness, he saw the red lights that marked the landing site.
Ourecky confidently initiated the conversation with the notional controller located at the field: “Control, this is Ultra One. Receiving TACAN at Channel Eight. Setting up for right-hand approach on Runway Three-Zero. Five thousand feet indicated altimeter. State field elevation and altimeter, please.”
In his headset, a voice replied: “Ultra One, this is Control. Copy TACAN on Eight, right-hand approach. Field elevation is one-one-zero feet, current altimeter is two-seven-eight-seven. Winds out of five-zero at seven knots, gusting to twelve. Landing surface is loose gravel.”
“Control, Ultra. Copy field at one-one-zero, altimeter two-seven-eight-seven. Winds out of five-zero at seven, gusting to twelve.” Proud of himself for single-handedly flying the approach, Ourecky grinned.
Suddenly, he thought of Bea; the enticing image of her in her nightgown was vivid in his mind, and he remembered her words from this morning. Was he right in saying what he did? He remembered listening to Carson and the other pilots joking about the pitfalls of stumbling into a woman’s “I love you, too” trap; in their words, a man might as well slap handcuffs on himself when he positively responded to a woman’s declaration of love.
It was just a momentary distraction, but even a moment was too much. A quick scan of the instruments jolted him to reality. He was a few seconds late executing his turn to the base leg of his approach. Immediately recognizing his blunder, he yanked the hand controller hard over to the right. “Ultra One turning right to base,” he blurted.
“Ultra One, Control copies right turn to base leg,” came the dry reply over the intercom.
Ourecky felt flushed. Almost immediately he pulled the stick again to execute the ninety-degree turn to his final approach. “Turning right to final. Gear down and locked,” he said.
He glanced up through his window; the simulated view showed a series of bright lights—portraying railroad flares marking the touchdown area—bobbing in the darkness. Short of a miracle, after making the late turn, there was no chance that he would make it to the runway.
The controller’s monotone voice answered his call: “Ultra One, I copy you on final with gear down and locked. You are cleared for Runway Three Zero. Good luck.”
Ourecky quickly glanced to his left. Still feigning unconsciousness, Carson’s scowling face was beet red, and a vein throbbed in his forehead; he was obviously seething with anger, but remained absolutely silent. His eyes were open, but his faint smile was long, long gone.
Instead of a violent impact accompanied by the traumatic sounds of a crash, the end of the botched simulation was marked by Heydrich’s heavily accented voice booming over the intercom: “You’re in the trees six hundred meters short of the runway, Captain Ourecky. You and Major Carson may have survived, but it’s unlikely.”
There was a long moment of awkward silence as Ourecky waited for Carson to detonate. He instinctively shielded his left shoulder with his right hand, hoping that he could ward off or at least soften the blow of Carson’s fist. “Sorry,” he mumbled softly. “Uh, I . . .”
Interrupting him, Carson finally spoke. “Are we done in here, Gunter?”
“Ja. I should say so,” replied Heydrich’s voice over the intercom.
“Fine. Switching VOX off.” Carson reached up and disabled the intercom.
“I’m really sorry, sir,” yammered Ourecky. “I just . . .”
“Quiet,” ordered Carson. His voice was flat calm, without emotion or inflection. “I’m not going to bash you, Ourecky, but you need to listen to me, and you had better make absolutely sure that it sinks in. Do you understand?”
“I do, sir.”
“Ourecky, next month we’re going to Alaska, and we’ll be flying this thing for real. They’re going to haul us up to thirty thousand feet and eject us off the ramp of a C-130. I’ve logged forty-two drops on this rig, and I can assure you that it doesn’t always work exactly as advertised.”
Carson continued. “You free-fall for a few seconds while you’re begging for the drogue chute to pop open, and then you sweat for a few more seconds while the paraglider deploys. Up there, it’s not like riding this simulator. You’re getting slammed back and forth, and if your shoulder restraints aren’t lashed down absolutely tight, your head is going to get banged against the instrument panel. Can you picture that?”
“Yes, sir,” replied Ourecky meekly.
“Good. I’ll tell you, I would gladly shoot a hundred dead stick landings in a T-38 rather than make a single paraglider drop. And while I think that ninety percent of the stuff they throw at us in the Box is unrealistic annoying crap, I can assure you that it’s not unrealistic for one or both of us to be knocked unconscious during a paraglider deployment. For your information, of the forty-two drops I’ve made, I was knocked out on three when the paraglider came out.”
“Ouch.”
Carson nodded. “Yeah. Ouch. Anyway, on one of those three, I didn’t regain consciousness until Agnew had already flown the full approach and had landed us. You cannot afford not to take this training seriously. You can’t allow yourself to be distracted, not for a split second. I know that most of this is just a big game to you because you’re not going to fly, but I can assure you, Ourecky, this is not a game. If we’re not on our game in Alaska, we can die.”
“Major Carson, I’ll pay attention,” said Ourecky. “We won’t end up in the trees again.”
“That’s good. Ready for a mulligan?”
Ourecky nodded.
Switching on the intercom, Carson spoke: “Gunter, we’re ready. Same run, please.”
22
THE FROZEN NORTH
Aerospace Support Project
1:30 p.m., Tuesday, September 24, 1968
Ourecky had been in the Life Support Facility all morning, being sized up for the space suit he was to wear during extended simulations due to start in November. His physical stature was almost identical to Major Agnew’s, so the suit technicians were confident that they could alter Agnew’s training suit to fit him. His fingers were slightly longer than Agnew’s, so a new set of gloves had to be custom-made at the plant in Connecticut.
To produce the gloves, he had to sit still for two entire hours with his hands encased in a foul-smelling latex rubber compound, which the technicians used to mold exact plaster models. While it was a welcome break from the grind of flying the Box with Carson, he despised the notion of idle time, so he tacked a set of Gemini-I electronics schematics to the wall and memorized them as the gummy latex cured.
With that ordeal behind him, he and Carson reported to the supply room to be fitted for the cold weather gear they would wear up north. Divided into an intricate warren of plywood bins and shelves, the storeroom seemed to hold enough gear to outfit an army for any potential environmental extreme, from the desert to the jungle and all forsaken points in between.
“Okay, gents,” growled the supply sergeant, a hefty man with a short crew cut and a Brooklyn accent. “Make damned sure that this stuff fits properly before you leave my shop. When you’re comfortable with it, then we’ll do the paperwork and it’s all yours.”
Puffing on a thick cigar, the sergeant wielded a yellow cloth tape to gather Ourecky’s key statistics. He went into a back room, and then emerged a few minutes later to dump two large piles of winter clothes on the counter.
“So we’ll wear this gear when we go out for the survival training?” asked Ourecky, trying on an Arctic parka. The heavily insulated coat had a “snorkel” hood rimmed with soft white wolf fur.
Carson laughed; he had been to Alaska and was obviously familiar with the equipment. “We’ll wear it for survival training? Ourecky, we’ll wear this stuff all the time. It’s cold up there, like you can hardly imagine. You don’t da
re take a step outdoors, not even to stroll down to the chow hall or the O Club, without suiting up first. We’ll even wear this gear when we fly.”
“We’ll wear this while we’re flying? As tight as the cabin is, it can’t be too comfortable.”
“Yep. We’ll wear it even when we fly. And if you’re worried about being comfortable, here’s a crucial flying tip to file away: Don’t dress for the flight; dress for the crash.”
Nodding, Ourecky realized that he was right; he just hadn’t considered it like that before. Oddly, Carson’s observation reminded him of something Bea had related one Sunday afternoon as she dressed to go to the airport. She said that she hated their new stewardess uniforms, because they were made mostly of polyester synthetics, which would melt in a fire. He had just never considered that Bea and Carson would share anything in common, least of all having to contemplate the potential occupational hazards of airplane crashes.
“Look, Ourecky,” said Carson, slipping into his own parka to check the fit. “I’ve graduated from the survival courses at Stead and Eielson and just about every other crappy place you could name. Survival training is miserable, but nothing to be afraid of. Just stick close, do what I tell you, and you might even come back with most of your fingers and toes.”
Ourecky nodded as he jammed the bulky parka into his kit bag. “I appreciate that, sir.”
“So, have you had any kind of survival training at all?” asked Carson, flipping up the hood of his parka. “I can’t imagine that you engineers spend any time doing field training.”
“Well, uh, I was a Boy Scout back home in Nebraska. I actually made Eagle Scout.”
“Really? You were a Boy Scout back in Nebraska? And an Eagle Scout to boot? Well, all that wilderness training should come in mighty handy if we’re ever forced to bail out over a cornfield or if we’re taken prisoner by a herd of angry cows.”
Ourecky examined a set of elbow-length mittens. They were connected by a cloth lanyard, like the ones he used to wear sledding as a kid, and had a large square of soft brown fur sewn on the back of each hand. “Why do they put this fur here? That doesn’t make a lot of sense.”
“Well, theoretically, you use those fur pads to warm your face,” explained Carson. Demonstrating, he donned his mittens and then crossed his arms in front of his chest, placing the backs of the mittens against his cheeks. “But In reality, these fur pads serve an entirely different purpose. When it’s fifty degrees below and you have a runny snot locker, you sure can’t pull a handkerchief out and blow it, so you just wipe your snout on the fur pad.”
“You’re kidding.”
“Nope. It freezes immediately, and you just brush off the ice crystals. Voila.” Satisfied with the fit, Carson took off the mittens and stowed them in his kit bag. “This stuff was apparently designed by someone with common sense.”
Wolcott walked into the supply room and greeted the supply sergeant. “You have time for me to draw my gear, Bob? I’m accompanying these boys to the frozen north.”
“Sure, Virg,” replied the supply sergeant. “Do you need the full issue?”
“Lay it on me, pard.” Wolcott tilted his Stetson back on his balding head, then lit a cigarette and inhaled deeply from it.
“So you’re travelling up with us, Virgil?” asked Carson.
“Yup. I am indeed, pardner. I need to keep an eye on all you young bucks.” Wolcott glanced at Ourecky, who had taken a seat on a bench behind the counter while trying on a pair of insulated “Mickey Mouse” vapor barrier boots. Lowering his voice, he asked Carson, “So, how’s our young captain doing? You got any qualms about makin’ the paraglider drops with him up there?”
“Well, Virg, he had a rough start in the landing simulator, but he’s been doing much better lately.” Carson crammed the last of his gear into his kit bag before zipping the canvas carry-all closed. “I’ve been watching the other crews, and he’s performing at least as well as they are. I’m just really concerned about him making the transition from the simulator to real life.”
“Understood, pardner,” said Wolcott. “But I guess you know that we would have an empty seat otherwise, and right now I can’t yank anyone else out of my hat.”
“I understand, Virg. Look, I’m confident I can handle the drops myself, but I still have to think about what will happen if I’m cold-cocked again on the opening shock.”
Wolcott took a long draw on the cigarette. “We have that covered,” he said, exhaling a cloud of gray smoke. “The contractors have wired a remote activation setup to the emergency egress system, hoss. I’ll be riding the chase plane for all of your drops. If I don’t hear from you and I ain’t confident with Ourecky flying it to the ground, then I’ll throw the switch and fire the seats. We’ll be watching out for you. Just consider it your fail-safe system.”
“I really appreciate that, Virgil.”
Eielson Air Force Base, Alaska
8:45 a.m., Tuesday, October 8, 1968
After a week of Arctic survival training at Eielson, Carson and Ourecky climbed onto an HH-3E “Jolly Green Giant” rescue helicopter to be dropped off at a remote wilderness site. Ourecky had enjoyed the training and anxiously looked forward to putting the theoretical lessons into practice. He had been somewhat surprised with the attitudes of Carson and the other Blue Gemini pilots, who smugly considered themselves to be authorities on wilderness survival.
Even though the instructors did their utmost to maintain their interest, the pilots appeared bored. While the jaded pilots considered the training a nuisance, Ourecky paid rapt attention, taking detailed notes and applying himself diligently to every opportunity for practical exercise. They all but snickered at him as he stacked kindling to start a fire, tied knots, whittled snare mechanisms to trap small animals, and manufactured a simple fishnet from parachute cord.
And now it was time to see if it all actually worked. Following the trace of a valley, the HH-3 slowed as it approached the site that would be their home for the next few days. In the rear of the aircraft, crouching on the open ramp, the crew chief pointed at a dark shape in the stark white landscape below. Shouting over the painful whine of the twin turbine engines, he explained, “There’s your pod out there by the creek. Like we briefed you, just step off the ramp and keep your feet together. You’ll sink right into the snow. Make sure you’re okay, no broken bones, and then give me a wave with your right hand. Ready?”
Kneeling by the ramp, awkward in his heavy gear, Ourecky nodded briskly. He was apprehensive; as anxious as he was to start the wilderness exercise, he wasn’t too keen on the notion of jumping out of the helicopter. He watched as the crew chief flashed a thumbs up and pointed at the ramp. Carson nonchalantly pushed himself to his feet, took three steps to the edge, and casually walked off into the void, vanishing into the swirling white blur outside.
“Okay,” shouted the crew chief, placing his hand on Ourecky’s shoulder. “Go!”
He hesitantly waddled to the sheer edge of the ramp and then stepped out vigorously. Clamping his feet together, he plummeted through the churning cold of the rotor wash. After a seemingly endless fall, he plunged deep into the snow below.
Momentarily breathless, he wiggled his arms and legs to make sure they were functional, and then wagged his right hand over his head. The helicopter’s downdraft felt like a sandblaster, scouring his face with millions of minute frozen crystals. Squinting through the icy gale, he glimpsed the helicopter creep forward, gathering speed and ascending into the dismal gray morning sky. Minutes later, the overwhelming cacophony was replaced with utter silence.
Ourecky wriggled to the surface. Crouching on his hands and knees, he ensured that his “bail-out” kit was still stashed in the left thigh pocket of his field pants. Packed in a cloth bag, the kit contained essentials—a hank of parachute cord, a signal mirror, a reflective survival blanket, a waterproof match case, a pocket knife—just in case. His right thigh pocket held a URC-64 survival radio—roughly the size of two packs of cigarettes
—and a Mark 13 “day-night” flare.
About fifty feet away, Carson’s head and shoulders popped out of the snow. Sputtering, he blew snow out of his nose and then asked, “Ourecky, you okay?”
“I’m all right,” answered Ourecky, shivering. “Freezing, but okay.”
“Good. Start working your way to the pod. I’ll meet you there.”
Half walking and half crawling, Ourecky gradually made his way to an old ejection pod from an F-111 fighter-bomber. For everyone else participating in the exercise, including the rescue forces, the isolated pair was an “Aardvark” crew. Despite that, he knew that the two-man pod contained two survival rucksacks that would eventually be packed in the Gemini-I spacecraft.
It took Ourecky almost thirty minutes to traverse the three hundred feet to the pod. He was amazed at how much energy he expended; the frigid cold seemed to drain him, like it insidiously sapped energy out of batteries. He tugged off his mittens, letting them dangle from the lanyard around his neck. Underneath the mittens, he wore “anti-contact” gloves made of cotton fabric. The thin gloves did little to keep his hands warm; in this sub-zero environment, their sole purpose was to prevent his skin from inadvertently freezing to any metal that he might touch.
He unlatched the canopy and tried to swing it open. Creaking loudly, the Plexiglas hatch budged open slightly more than an inch, but no more. Not good, he thought; if they couldn’t open the canopy to gain access to the survival kits, they were in for a miserable experience.
Grasping for options, Ourecky mentally reviewed the rules of the exercise. With their URC-64 radios, they could summon rescue forces in the event of an emergency, but if their dilemma wasn’t significant enough to actually warrant a prompt extraction, they could be cast back out for another five-day iteration. Likewise, in addition to the contents of the two survival rucksacks, there was an emergency bundle containing high-calorie cold weather rations, a tent, multi-fuel stove and fuel. But if they so much as cracked the seal on the bundle, they earned another plunge off the HH-3’s tail ramp, followed by a five-day refresher in frozen purgatory.
