On all ships radar dishes swung back and forth searching the sky for strange aircraft. High overhead, jet fighters circled in holding patterns ready to intercept and “frisk” any incoming strangers spotted by the radars below. On the tin cans sonar domes sent beams of probing pings through the water in all directions, searching for submarines. Any unfriendly aircraft or sub approaching the fleet would have gotten a far-out reception and a plain warning to keep clear or be in grave danger.
For reasons understood only by statesmen and diplomats, which this writer will not try to explain, strange surface craft didn’t count. It was now accepted as SOP in the Med for each task group to have a Russian snooper. This morning the snooper was a smart-looking little bucket with an array of missiles and radars on her topside. She weaved from one circle to another through the formation, sniffing around the big ships and generally making a nuisance of herself.
Usually she kept out of the way. But when the task group got ready to launch or land planes, she often managed to complicate the maneuver. The fleet must head into the wind to launch or land. By getting itself upwind of the fleet, the Russian could arrange things so she would have the right of way under international rules of the road after the ships got squared away into the wind. This would then produce a chicken game with the Russian having the law on his side.
Among most naval men, ordinary sea manners require an outsider to keep clear of ships maneuvering in formation. But, of course, the sea manners of Russian naval officers are no better than those of their diplomats at the UN. Big ships may have to back and fill several times a day to avoid collisions in which, under Admiralty law, they would be at fault.
So all skippers now have to keep one eye on the flagship for signals and the other on the goddamned Russian.
On the America there was a lull in operations between launches. But a lull on a big carrier is like one in a busy beehive. There’s still a lot going on. They fly around the clock these days, so time never hangs heavy on anybody’s hands. Each day the crew puts in eight hours on watch, eight hours in the sack, eight hours respotting the deck, servicing planes, hauling bombs and ammunition around, eating, and taking care of their personal affairs. The rest of the time they can do as they please, as long as they keep out of the way on the flight deck.
The America is our latest attack carrier, one thousand feet long, sixty thousand tons, thirty-five knots, and able to handle a deckload of supersonic jet planes. This ship and others like her are among the convincing arguments of our statesmen when they get involved in high-level discussions with the communists about international morality, policy, and world peace. Stowed in her magazines are enough atomic bombs to kill more people who disagree with us in five minutes than Hitler’s slaughterhouses were able to process in five years.
She is not atomic-powered, although all big carriers of the future will be. When the America was being built, the Whiz Kids in the Pentagon decided that atomic power was not a paying proposition. Of course no man-of-war has ever been built that put money back in the Treasury. And the Navy claimed that warships are built to defend the country, and atomic-powered ships can do it better than oil burners.
But the Whiz Kids set the question up on computers allowing for the costs of everything like material, labor, overhead, advertising, and salaries of computer experts, but not for wind, wave, and a lot of other things that you run into in battles at sea. The answer came out, “oil power is probably good enough.” A young Naval Captain who suggested that, on a cost-effective basis, sails might be even better than oil was sent to duty in Antarctica.
But except for atomic power, the America was packed full of all the latest marvels of the jet age. Her radars often told the watch-standers down below in CIC more about what the planes in the air were doing than the pilots knew themselves. Inertial accelerometers and black boxes hooked up by radio to orbiting satellites enabled her to navigate precisely without ever seeing any landmarks or the stars. She had mechanical brains and computers that gave you the right answers to any questions you asked them - and provided you fed the right dope into them in the first place.
Even the galley had a black box that told the head cook how many loaves of bread he had to bake each day.
And of course the America has the canted deck, steam catapults, and mirror-landing systems. These three new wrinkles are what enable her to fly supersonic aircraft around the clock, moon or no moon, and even in fog. Strangely enough, these three ideas came from the British Navy. Until after World War II, our naval flyers looked upon the limeys as poor country cousins just emerging from the era of sail. Which just goes to show that when you get too far ahead in any game you get smug and are riding for a fall!
This morning the America was getting ready for the next flight operation. Purple-shirted gas crews were topping off fuel tanks of the planes. Ordnancemen, wearing red shirts, tinkered (carefully!) with bombs and fuses. Tractors, driven by yellow shirts, towed planes around the deck to their launching spots or parked them on the elevators to go below. The tractor drivers are all frustrated hot-rodders. When they have those high-priced airplanes in tow, they proceed like old ladies parking a brand-new car in a small space. But when they have nothing in tow, they roar around the flight deck like drag racers, skimming the edges of open elevators by margins that would scare the grit out of even a skydiver.
The straight part of the flight deck is always cluttered with airplanes like LaGuardia airport during the tourist season. But the canted part is kept clear to land at all times. When something goes wrong in one of those high speed jets, you can’t hang around up in the sky waiting for them to clear the deck for you, you’ve gotta LAND.
Four and a half acres of flight deck may sound like a lot of room. But it isn’t so much when you come slamming into it at one hundred fifty knots in a five million dollar package of machinery that weighs twenty tons! So the canted part of the deck is clear and ready whenever planes are in the air.
Soon after eight bells of the morning watch, a bugle call blared forth from squawk boxes all over the ship that would have brought a gleam to the eyes of General George Patton - Boots and Saddles. The Navy has lifted this famous old cavalry call from the Army and uses it for “Flight Quarters,” the horses now being the jet propelled monsters on the flight deck.
Plane Captains, catapult crews, plane handlers, and taxi directors double-timed to their stations on the huge deck. Pilots and plane crews togged out in their flight gear headed for the ready rooms for their preflight briefing on wind, weather, and general poop.
Each of the four squadrons in the air group has its own ready room. Pilots and rear-seat men spend nearly as much time in the ready rooms being briefed and debriefed as they do in the air. On each flight they go from there to the planes and back there again when they land.
A ready room is a sort of squadron office, dressing room, classroom and air crews’ clubroom all rolled into one. The bulkheads are covered with squadron insignias, trophies, and bulletin boards. On these boards are posted clippings and cartoons of current interest, the latest word from Patuxent Test Center on the care and feeding of jet engines at high altitude, notices to airmen about the hazards to navigation, and helpful hints about how to avoid highspeed stalls at low altitude, which are regarded as bad luck by jet pilots. In the front of the room are a blackboard and lectern for the briefing officer and a screen with a moving tape, as in a stock brokerage customer’s room. This tape puts out the latest dope on ship’s course, speed, present location, and where they claim they will be a few hours hence; bearing and distance of nearest land, current and predicted weather, and many other odds and ends of interest to pilots about to venture off into the wild blue yonder.
There are a dozen rows of easy chairs big enough to comfortably seat a pilot wearing his G-suit plus all the items of survival gear and housekeeping equipment he likes to take along on overwater flights. And, of course, in the back of the room there are a couple of constantly bubbling coffee urns and a rack for all the private coffee cup
s, like that for shaving mugs in an old-time barber shop.
Those going out on the next flight get the front seats. They sit there like fighters in their corners before the bell, getting a lot of good advice and planning what they’ll do when the bell rings.
This morning Ensign Willy Wigglesworth and his radar man, Joe Blueberry, had the front seats. The squadron intelligence officer was briefing them.
“You’ll go off the catapult grossing forty-one thousand five hundred pounds,” he said. “You’ll be a little heavy rolling off the bow, but we’re giving you forty knots of wind over the deck and extra steam on the cat, so you oughta be all right. Climb at max power to angels forty, and then cruise at Mach point eight. Your mission is high-altitude photo, so you just fly to the Israeli coast, jog south fifty miles, and come back, following SOP for photo missions both ways. Bingo fields are Crete and Malta. Tacan is working - and keep your IFF on at all times. Rules of engagement if intercepted are the same as before the Liberty business. You’re due back overhead at 12:18 with three thousand pounds of fuel. You should be back on board and debriefed by 1300. We’ll tell the wardroom to save chow for you. So-o-o - that’s it. Just a bowl of cherries.”
“Uh huh,” said Ensign Wigglesworth, making a few notes on his knee pad.
“Any special instructions for me, sir?” asked Blueberry.
“Yeah,” said Willy. “Keep your eyes open back there and keep twisting your neck for other planes - especially in the landing pattern.”
“Aye aye, sir,” said Blueberry. “Will do.”
Up on the flag bridge the Admiral said to the Staff Duty Officer, “Okay - let’s get into the wind. Launching course should be about zero two zero.”
“Aye Aye, sir,” said the SDO. “Zero two zero is correct.” He walked over to the rail and yelled down to the Chief Signalman on the level below, “SIGNALS! Stand by to launch. Turn to course zero two zero.”
The Chief Signalman bawled, “Outboard hoist - Prep; Mabel; Charley - look alive and get ‘em up.”
Signal floozies scrambled from one end of the flag bag to the other hooking on flags while others heaved around on the halyards, dragging them out of the bag and up to the yardarm as soon as bent on. You might have thought the Old Nick was prodding them in the stern sheets with a red-hot marlin spike.
“Inboard hoist,” bawled the Chief. “Pennant zero flag, two flag, zero flag, pennant TURN,” and another array of flags shot up to the yardarm on the inboard hoist.
The Chief glared balefully at each flag as it emerged from the bag, ready to flay any floozie alive who bent on the wrong flag and tried to louse up the evolution.
On all ships, signal forces leaped into action and similar flags fluttered up to the “dip” (ten feet below the yardarm) showing that the ship had the signal and was checking it in the book. These being simple, well-known signals the hoists were two-blocked almost immediately, indicating “Signal understood. Ship ready to execute.”
On the flag bridge, the Chief was sweeping the formation with his glass. As the last tin can two-blocked he sang out, “All ships two-blocked” - and then, on a nod from the DO, he bellowed, “EXECUTE!”
On the America the signals were snatched down from the yardarm, followed a split second later by those from all the other ships. On all bridges the OOD barked at the helmsmen, “Left standard rudder - new course zero two zero.”
“Left standard rudder, new course zero two zero,” repeated the helmsmen, spinning their wheels.
All ships slowed a little as the rudders dug in and leaned at first to port, toward the dragging rudders. Then they started swinging left and listing to starboard, leaving creamy curved wakes behind them as they swung together into the wind.
“Pretty good,” grunted the Admiral, sweeping his binoculars around. “That tin can in station sixty was a little slow again.”
Down in the ready rooms, squawk boxes blared, “Pilots, man your planes!”
Willy and Blueberry donned their hard helmets, gathered up their gear, took a last squint at the moving tape, and trotted off to the escalator that takes heavily laden pilots up to the flight deck.
On deck Willy strode once around his plane, giving it the normal jet jockey’s preflight inspection. He noted there was a wing on each side and the tail was all in one piece, gave each of the three tires a sharp kick, and climbed into the cockpit. There he adjusted his seat, squirmed into his shoulder harness, hooked up his G-suit and oxygen mask, and plugged in his throat mike. He squeezed his intercom button and said to the after cockpit, “Whadda you say back there, Blueberry?”
“Set to go,” came back the answer.
Willie stuck his fist over the side with his thumb up, indicating to the lad with the starter cart that he was ready.
Soon the flight deck bull horns boomed out the starting ritual: “Now hear this! Check all loose gear about the decks.” All the plane handlers and taxi directors glanced around their areas to make sure no swabs, buckets, or coils of wingline were adrift where they could get sucked up into jet intakes. “Check wheel chocks and winglines,” continued the bull horns. Plane Captains, crouched under their planes, made sure their wheel chocks were in place and the winglines were removed.
“Stand clear of propellers and jet intakes.” This is the last warning for rubbernecks to get clear. The penalty for disregarding it is severe and messy.
“Stand by-y-y to start engines ...” Starter motors began whining up to speed.
“START ENGINES!” Pilots hit their starter buttons, and the flight deck exploded with a great WHOOMP!
Willie quickly checked his gauges, saw they all read okay, ran his engine up to full power, and noted he got proper RPM and his tail-pipe temperature stayed out of the red. Then he throttled down and gave his taxi director a thumbs up ...
The taxi director held both arms straight up in the air with his fists clenched, telling Willy to hold his brakes. Then he bent forward, hauled his arms down, and swept them from side to side. The plane Captain yanked the wheel chocks out, scrambled out from under the plane dragging the chocks with him, and dropped off the edge of the deck into the gallery walkway.
The director, arms overhead again, made beckoning motions with his open hands for Willy to come ahead slowly. Pointing at the left wheel with his right hand, telling Willy to hold that brake, and still motioning ahead with his left, the taxi director slewed Willy a bit to the left and then pointed with both hands to the next yellow shirt.
Like nearly everything else on a flight deck, transferring control of a taxiing plane from one yellow shirt to another follows a rigid routine. If a pilot gets confused about which traffic director has control, it can cause a jet propelled traffic jam and put dents in expensive vehicles.
The next yellow shirt was pointing at Willy with his right hand and patting himself on the head with his left. As soon as he got a nod from Willy, he stuck both arms in the air and took over control.
As Willy taxied forward, the plane-guard whirlybird stirred up a gale of wind and took off. In the old days, a destroyer used to tag along astern of the carrier to fish bad flyers out of the water. Now, when somebody goes in the drink, the whirlybird is over the crash almost before they get through splashing. If the boys get out of it okay, the whirlybird just lowers a sling and hauls them aboard. If the crew doesn’t get out of the crash fast enough, frogmen drop out of the whirlybird and drag them out. Pilots call the whirlybird “the Angel,” and it is indeed a guardian angel for everyone in the air group.
After the Angel fluttered off, the first of the returning planes slammed into the arresting gear. In the old days of the straight deck, landing aboard was a much more oopsy business than it is now. True, the planes were smaller and slower then. But you came aboard heading straight at a large bunch of airplanes parked just forward of the barriers. The barriers were a little less than halfway up the deck from the stern and were heavy wire cables stretched across the deck at about the height of your propeller hub. So if your tail hook miss
ed the arresting wires, the barriers would stop you. This meant one washed-out airplane. But you could usually limp away from it.
But if you went through the barriers and into the parked planes, there would be blood, guts, and feathers all over the flight deck; and as often as not, a major fire. So rule number one in those days was, “Never touch your throttle again after you take a cut from the LSO. If you think you’re going into the barriers, just brace yourself and go into them. But never try to go ‘round again!”
Nowadays, with the canted deck, it’s different. The rule now is just the opposite of what it used to be: “As soon as your wheels touch the deck, give her full gun!”
Then, if you’ve got a wire, you get pulled up short, and whack off the gun. If you miss the wires, you then become a “bolter.” You’ve got a nice clear deck in front of you, plenty of speed, and a wide-open throttle. You just take a wave-off and go round again. After a little practice your grandmother could do it.
Another jet-age improvement is the mirror-landing system. It used to be that you came aboard following the flag-waving of the Landing Signal Officer. The LSO stood on a platform at the stern facing aft with a pair of signal flags. With those flags he would tell you “go higher - or lower - faster - or slower.” As you got to the ramp he gave you either a cut or a wave off. The LSO was the king of the flight deck then, and had as much to do with good or bad landings as the pilot did.
Now, we do it with mirrors. A slick, gyro-stabilized optical system sends a narrow beam of light astern along the correct approach groove. As long as a pilot is near this groove, he sees a ball of light ahead on the deck near the touch-down point. A horizontal line of light splits the ball when he is smack in the groove. If he gets a little high, the ball goes over the line. If he gets low, it goes under. All he has to do is fiddle with his stick and throttle to keep the line splitting the ball - and just sit there till he hits the deck.
The LSO is still the boss man. When a pilot louses up an approach too bad, he can still wave him off by flashing the lights at him. But the mirror system makes things easier for all concerned.
Cap'n Fatso Page 17
