No Man's Land

by Kevin Sullivan

  I assume responsibility for communications on the primary radio frequency, Melbourne Centre. They’re in charge of this airspace and for assisting us in this emergency phase and they’re calling me now.

  ‘Qantas 72, Melbourne Centre.’

  ‘Go ahead.’

  ‘Qantas 72, emergency services need 30 minutes to prepare for your landing at Learmonth. Adjust arrival time accordingly.’

  ‘Roger. We will need at least 30 minutes to prepare, too.’

  ‘Copy Qantas 72. Say souls on board and any dangerous goods.’

  ‘Three hundred and fifteen souls on board. No dangerous goods. Qantas 72.’

  The air traffic controller will share that information with all the agencies being mobilised to help.

  There’s a brief moment now for me to take stock of our situation. I must formulate a strategy and an arrival plan that’s simple and effective, but that also addresses our flight-control issues and cabin injuries. The systems that are working are enough to form the first part of my arrival plan but I have a ways to go to fill in my strategy.

  As my brain runs through the loops of possible solutions, one question remains: will the aircraft command a pitch-down at low altitude?

  The aircraft is hiding information from me that I desperately need. I still don’t know the reasons for the two previous computer-generated manoeuvres or why the computers continue to generate the erroneous stall and overspeed warnings along with the continuous caution chimes. I must assume the worst and consider the possibility of more bad aircraft behaviour at lower altitude.

  Our situation is critical and nothing in my commercial experience and training addresses our complex predicament. I fall back on my military training to help me plan for this most extreme and unforeseen emergency.

  10.

  Landing a plane on the deck of an aircraft carrier is difficult, delicate and terrifying to some, but for many it’s the most fun you can have with your clothes on. It tests a pilot’s ability to fly their machine precisely and intricately while controlling their body and mind to land on the deck of an aircraft carrier. It’s the most dangerous evolution you can perform in an aircraft.

  Early in their training syllabus, a navy pilot learns to ‘fly the meatball’ and use angle of attack instead of airspeed. Optimum angle of attack is maintained through the use of a small gauge on the instrument panel that looks a little like traffic lights; the green, yellow and red symbols are used to indicate speed and therefore body angle to the pilot. The correct body angle is a critical alignment of the arresting hook relative to the aircraft’s flight path to ensure an arresting wire is snagged on landing.

  There are no features on the ocean’s surface to indicate if you’re positioned correctly as you approach the aircraft carrier, so the training concentrates on developing a rapid instrument scan. There are specific altitude gates to fly through to deliver you into the ‘groove’ for the final approach and landing, and these are accomplished mostly on instruments until you transition to the visual portion to fly the meatball to landing. Each approach is a precision manoeuvre with the objective of accomplishing a safe landing on the moving platform of an aircraft carrier – and it’s always moving.

  Day carrier qualifications were completed on both the T-2 and TA-4 during basic and advanced jet training. These qualifications were completed solo, meaning without an instructor pilot in the back seat. The landing signal officers (LSOs) told us solemnly that no one was crazy enough to go to the ship in a student’s back seat on their first time out. Our LSOs warned us, as they’d been warned before their first carrier qual, that everyone on the ship was trying to kill us. To survive this day, we must trust no one, always be a step ahead and anticipate any instructions. This would be no picnic.

  They showed us a movie, Carrier Mishaps: a preview of the serious nature of our task. Broken aircraft covered in flames crashed onto the deck or into the sea, to be run over by the carrier. A watery violent death was the fate for those unprepared.

  My logbook shows I completed sixty-two simulated carrier landings at our base in preparation for the qualification. Every landing was graded, my performance under the intense scrutiny of the LSOs. Finally, I was cleared for the real thing.

  The date of my carrier qualification was 12 May 1978. I was twenty-two years old.

  Underway in the Gulf of Mexico was Training Aircraft Carrier 16, CVT-16, the USS Lexington, waiting to welcome us aboard. The ‘Lady Lex’ was a combat veteran from the Pacific campaign of World War II and still sported her original wooden flight deck. In the late 1950s, she’d been remodelled with an angled deck and designated as a training ship.

  This was to be a special day, a baptism into the world of carrier aviation – a world of flame and heat and speed and danger – a world where I yearned to belong by the end of the afternoon.

  None of us neophyte naval aviators slept well the night before. We were going out to the boat for real. The meatball would be attached to a real ship, with real arrestor cables and real steam-driven catapults.

  A group of the instructor pilots were tasked to lead flights of three students (‘chicks’) out to the ‘boat’. The qualification sequence was briefed again: two touch-and-go landings with the tailhook up and, when ordered, extending the hook to complete four arrested landings (traps) and four catapult launches (cats). The lead instructors would drop their chicks into the landing pattern, complete a touch-and-go, climb overhead the ship, wait for their chicks to complete or fail their qualification, then lead us home. Our base was Chase Field, Naval Air Station Beeville, Texas.

  We suited up and prepared for take-off. It wasn’t quite summer, but all the students were sweating profusely. I’d adorned my helmet with two green shamrocks cut out of reflective tape, and I would need their luck today.

  Our flight of four Buckeyes lined up in echelon on the runway; I was Number 4, and my jet’s side number was 605. At five-second intervals, we took off individually and quickly rendezvoused with our flight lead, ‘Hondo’. A US Marine Corps pilot with combat experience in Vietnam, Hondo was usually a hard-ass instructor. But because we were senior student pilots about to be initiated into carrier aviation, he cut us some slack. He nodded in approval at our join-up, then jabbed his thumb over his shoulders, left and right, instructing us to move into a loose cruise formation as we climbed and moved out towards the Gulf.

  When we crossed the hazy southeast coastline of Texas and went ‘feet wet’, I mentally prepared for what lay ahead. With a few deep breaths I confronted the fact I was going to do this.

  Our flight of four checked in with ‘Strike’, the Lexington’s air traffic control centre. We were instructed to enter a counterclockwise holding pattern above the ship, and we maintained our loose formation as we circled. I stole glimpses of the orange-and-white T-2s landing, taxiing and being catapulted off the deck. It looked like a mechanised toy set, but soon it would be my turn to descend into it. I removed my oxygen mask briefly and wiped the ever-present perspiration off my face and around my mouth with the back of my Nomex glove.

  After thirty minutes of circling, our time had come; we started to close up our formation in anticipation of entering the pattern. Everything we did now as student aviators was on show as we built reputations that would follow us through our careers.

  We were descending. I sensed the water getting closer to my jet, but I was too busy maintaining my position in formation to look around. Hondo checked in with the carrier control area. A gruff voice acknowledged and answered abruptly, ‘Charlie.’ This was the code word for us to enter the traffic pattern. The deck was ready for us.

  The gruff voice belonged to the ‘air boss’ of the Lexington. This was the air officer: a veteran, senior naval aviator manning and controlling the traffic pattern from atop the carrier. It was a stressful billet for anyone to complete, and here came three more ‘studs’ to make his day even more stressful. He’s portrayed in the movie Top Gun, spilling his coffee as Maverick makes his high-speed pass
es and buzzes the tower.

  The boss transmitted the ship’s course, which we’d use to maintain position in the landing pattern, then growled at one of the students on the flight deck for using too much power while taxiing. On the deck, an aircraft using too much power could easily blow a sailor overboard with their jet blast.

  Hondo clenched his fist and pumped it up and down, the signal for us to assume ‘echelon right’ formation for our entry into the pattern. From where I sat in Position 4, the T-2s were rocking up and down, aligned with our flight lead as we descended and rolled out at 800 feet behind the ship. I breathed slowly and deeply, trying to control my excitement, fly smoothly and maintain position as we approached from astern.

  The boss cleared our flight to enter the pattern. We were flying past the Lexington now, and I glimpsed the white ‘16’ painted on the bow of the deck. Our Buckeyes were bouncing in formation as we waited for Hondo’s signal; he looked over at Number 2 and blew him a kiss with his right hand before racking his jet into an 80-degree left bank. This wasn’t a term of endearment but the signal that the lead was breaking from the formation. Number 2 was now the lead; he’d started his clock, waiting for his forty-five seconds to elapse before he kissed us off and the belly of his T-2 disappeared behind us.

  After Number 3 broke, I came onto my instruments, maintaining wings level, and flew the ship’s heading on my compass. I started my clock and waited for my forty-five seconds to run before I broke into the landing pattern: the longest forty-five seconds in my young life.

  As precisely as the Buckeye’s roll rate allowed, I smartly rolled into an 80-degree angle of bank, pulling my throttles to idle, and extended my speed brakes. Holding 800 feet, I used the g-force and speed brakes to slow me down to the gear and flap extension speeds. Gently, I descended to 600 feet, adjusting my track by flying the ship’s reciprocal heading to achieve the proper ‘abeam’ point and then extend my landing gear and flaps. Oh, and lock my harness! My first landing would be a touch-and-go, so my hook stayed up.

  ‘605. Sullivan. Four point five.’ My fuel state of 4500 pounds and my name were equally critical in this initial report. Each student’s fuel quantity was closely monitored, and we had to be identified for the qualification.

  I was manually trimming the wings and nose of the aircraft on downwind to balance the aircraft flight path, and I removed my hand briefly from the control stick to check that my jet was in a hands-off state of trim.

  As I started my approach, I was abeam the LSO platform, positioned on the port side towards the stern. Using the clock, I manipulated my rate of descent, speed and angle-of-bank markers to help me fly to the 90-degree point. I was locked into the Zen of the carrier approach. My scan worked at maximum speed as I checked my progress, then I quickly glanced up and looked at the ship’s wake, which I’d pass over to align myself with the 10-degree offset landing area.

  The LSOs on the deck barked at me to keep turning my aircraft; unconsciously, I’d reduced my angle of bank as I looked up at the centreline, a common mistake.

  Passing over the white and turbulent wake of the Lex, I lined up with the centreline and saw the meatball. Smoothly adjusting my power and nose attitude would keep the ball centred and deliver me into the wires for a trap. Also, this was critical in maintaining the optimum angle of attack to ensure correct body angle for my hook to catch a wire – too fast and my hook might skip over it, and I would ‘bolter’; too slow and I’d catch a wire closer to the stern, and the LSOs would get quite vocal. My amber ‘doughnut’ in the middle of my AoA gauge showed that I was ‘on speed’.

  Every pitch, roll and power input required a counter-correction, and so it went to landing – a constant series of counter-corrections until the wheels hit the deck. For the optimum approach, they needed to be small, smooth inputs to the stick and power, but adrenalin could easily overcome this desired performance.

  I heard the LSO issuing instructions to the jet in front of me:

  ‘Get it back on speed.’

  ‘Don’t settle.’

  ‘Power. Pow-weeerrr!’

  As I rolled the wings level into the groove, I was rewarded with the vision of a centred ball and the centreline of the angled deck nicely aligned with my jet. I tried to maintain focus as I glimpsed the T-2 ahead, climbing away after his touch-and-go. Time to make the first ball call of my career.

  I confirmed that I could see the meatball and that I was flying a T-2 Buckeye, and reported my fuel state again: ‘605, Buckeye ball, 4.4.’

  ‘Roger ball,’ came the LSO’s laconic drawl.

  I wasn’t looking at the deck or the ship or the surface of the sea. I was scanning the centreline of the angled deck. The chant of the naval aviator had started: ‘Meatball, line up, angle of attack,’ which set my priorities. I flicked the wings to the right as I tracked my changing centreline. The angled deck was constantly moving to the right as I descended. I was ‘in the middle now’ on my approach, altitude less that 200 feet. The chant changed to the priorities of ‘Meatball, line up, meatball, line up’. By now, speed and angle of attack needed to be stabilised but still required correction in concert with the approach angle and centreline tracking.

  The LSOs are visually scanning our aircraft geometry to ensure our approach angle is precise. An incorrect speed changes the angle of the hook relative to the deck and the landing area. Almost every student was instructed at some point to ‘get it back on speed’ by the LSOs. All aspects of a carrier approach are critical.

  ‘Little power,’ coaxed the LSO, and I confirmed my angle-of-attack indicator was showing a slightly slow condition. I gently ‘walked’ the throttles up a fraction to satisfy the low-energy situation, then recorrected.

  I progressed to the ‘in close’ position as the deck filled my canopy in my peripheral vision. I was still chanting as the ramp – the tail-end of the deck – slid past my jet. My chant was rapid now, my priority was ‘Meatball-meatball-meatball’, my vision locked on the meatball as my wheels hit the deck. The ball was slightly high as I selected full power and shifted my eyes forward to complete my touch-and-go.

  The island of the carrier was a blur as I was off the deck and flying again.

  ‘605 turn downwind now,’ barked the air boss. There must have been a gap in the landing pattern spacing and he was using me to close up the landing pattern.

  ‘605, rog-gaaa,’ I replied, cranking my Buckeye left to join the pattern.

  With a touch-and-go under my belt, and still alive, I felt mildly confident. Mentally, I reviewed my last landing as I turned. Maybe I’d used a bit too much power while correcting to the LSOs’ instruction; next time I’d ensure my power corrections were more precise and my anticipation more focused.

  Fly the ball! I reminded myself.

  I completed another touch-and-go without much comment from the LSOs and turned downwind. I knew what was coming next.

  ‘605, hook down,’ came the boss’s instruction. The time had come for my first trap: my first arrested landing on an aircraft carrier.

  ‘605,’ I responded, as I slammed the tailhook lever down and rolled my shoulders firmly forward in my straps to check my harness was securely locked. My first trap was sixty seconds away.

  I was feeling slightly more relaxed with the flow of the pattern and the handling of my jet, but my work rate and situational awareness were at maximum. I hadn’t forgotten that everyone there was trying to kill me. I reported abeam and confirmed my hook was down. The rest of the approach was another blur as I positioned my jet into the groove, called the ball and caught a wire.

  I wasn’t fully prepared for the violent deceleration of the landing. I was thrown forward in the cockpit, left hand fully extended on the throttles and at full power, as the arresting cable reduced my speed from 125 knots to 0 in about two seconds.

  I had no time to congratulate myself on my baptism into naval aviation – there was work to do. I had to clear the landing area quickly to avoid the wrath of the boss. I pushed my
self to remain focused and start the next phase of a carrier landing: taxiing around the flight deck.

  The deck was ablaze with the coloured jerseys of the sailors and officers who worked in support of the carrier’s air operations. Yellow Shirts, together with Green, Blue, Brown, Purple and White Shirts, all had a separate purpose in harmony across this potentially lethal environment.

  They led me towards the catapult, steam hissing from its track, for my next dose of carrier aviation: the cat shot.

  A Yellow Shirt guided me onto the catapult track. I glimpsed a T-2 climbing away from the cat shot, its exhaust plume blurring the multicoloured figures moving like ghosts in a desert mirage. They swarmed around the track, preparing to hurl another jet, my jet, into the sky.

  As I taxied, I reset my nose-up pitch trim to a pre-determined value and checked my fuel; this was critical in determining my weight, as the catapult steam pressure would be set accordingly. Another calculation I needed to get right – otherwise, I might get wet.

  Once I’d confirmed the weight, the workers positioned me onto the catapult shuttle, attaching it with a wire bridle to two hooks under my fuselage. A Yellow Shirt signalled me to push my throttles to full power, and I was passed on to the waiting catapult officer in his White Shirt, fingers twirling above his head as he waited for my salute. My head went back as I snapped a salute, ready for launch.

  I stared down the catapult track at the bow of the ship, and in my periphery saw the cat officer going through a safety check. Satisfied, he returned my salute and checked the bow was visually clear. In a choreographed movement, he lunged down on one knee as he touched the deck, pointing one arm forward with two fingers mimicking a pistol. This was the signal to the sailor in the starboard catwalk who controlled the catapult firing. He made one last safety check before he reached down and fired the catapult.