• Roger Ball

click images to enlarge

Today's personal computer flight simulators are a hair's breadth from reality with add-on weather and terrain packages. Recently I added a freeware aircraft carrier package to Microsoft Flight Simulator X, and it brought back sights and sounds (if not the smells of JP-5, oily steam, or sweat) from forty years ago.

With a couple of mouse clicks I positioned a carrier, flight deck spotted for recovery, ten miles ahead of my Navy/Grumman EA-6B. Into the break at 300 knots, the sight picture brought back a wave of memories.

One indelible memory came from the time the Air Boss called, "Keep it flying," as a stiletto Vigilante staggered into to the air, slowly rolled upside down, and disappeared in a noiseless splash.

Or the night, downwind after a bolter, when I heard a whine under my ejection seat and knew it was a hydraulic pump cavitating.Who knows how I knew that, but a calm pilot and the emergency hydraulic system got us back on deck where they threw chocks under the tires with us still in the arresting gear, and then towed us out of the wires, straight-wing, to the consternation of Flight Deck Control with a crowded deck.

Today, at the 90 rolling into the groove, I thought, yeah I've seen this picture before. Wide open ocean, tiny huge ship churning away from us. Five thousand hot, horny, hard working souls trying to make it through another deployment.

After almost 45 years (I learned in college, before joining the Navy) and 10,000+ hours of flying I figured, yeah, I can do this. Carrier ops can't be that hard. Especially when the pink bag-'o-flesh called 'me' isn't at risk.

Think again, Non-Flying Officer (as Aviation Week, who should know better, ignominiously once called Naval Flight Officers).  Hours and years don't a Naval Aviator make.

First pass was, "I know there's a ship out there somewhere. Oh, there it is. Okay, let's take 'er around and try that again."

Next pass was, "No, no, no. Two thousand feet MSL abeam will never work." The Air Boss would have had a conniption if he saw what I did to get back into a reasonable semblance of a 180.

But the picture was, oh, so familiar. "Been there, done this" kept coming to mind.

"Prowler, ball, two point six," I tell the LSO so he knows we're an EA-6B, not a similar looking Intruder, and so he knows our fuel state.


What are those red lights on the lens? Shit, I'm low, real low. Power, power, POWER. Wave off. Boards in, watch the AoA.

Over the ship at PriFly eye-level, I unaccountably hear a flight deck announcement, and am reminded that this is an almost, but not quite perfect, $30 simulator not a $30 million sim, nor a time machine.

Yellow shirts move around the flight deck, cranials and mouse ears in place. Low slung tugs, in modern white paint, move among the parked F/A-18s and E-2Ds, none of my era's yellow gear pushing A-3s, A-6s, and F-4s, reminding me this is the CV-68 Nimitz — CVA-64 USS Constellation, or Connie, has has been retired for years. My kids think it's funny that the San Diego Air and Space Museum has an A-6 with my name on the canopy rail. I think they ought to stuff me when I die, and just let fly west forever right there.

Next pass starts out badly, but miraculously turns into a trap. LSOs little black book would probably read something like BRFAPPS3: brilliant recovery from a piss poor start,  3 wire.

I wasn't so lucky on the next few tries, including one pass where I got a heart stopping look up at the flight deck after pulling off too much power.

But I did manage one OK3, at least from my perspective. Paddles probably would have though otherwise. And it wasn't dark, and the deck wasn't pitching, and I wasn't worried about dying, or worse yet, embarrassing myself.

On deck, thumb the boards in, hook up, flaps up, start the wing fold, taxi clear, yellow shirt gesturing frantically. Taxi toward the deck edge, cockpit hanging out over the water before a turn so the main mounts almost rub the steel curb that (usually) keeps you out of the catwalk. Looking down at nothing but water going by, another flash of recognition. Watch the power as we come around so we don't blow a plane captain in the water or suck someone down an intake. Shut her down, canopies open, no blast of kerosene wind, but the Air Boss is calling for the re-spot in preparation for the next launch.

Another day, another dollar. Only nine months to go, my memory recalls, and it all counts toward retirement.

"Honey, dinner's ready," my wife purrs, "You want beer or wine?" The fantasy evaporates, replaced by a dream come true.

Maybe I'd better try some FCLPs tomorrow, before I go back out to the ship?

UPDATE 1: I was being facetious when I suggested some Field Carrier Landing Practice. Turns out there is an add-on (free) FLOLS trailer that you can place anywhere. So I plunked one down at NOLF Coupeville and went around the pattern a few times. It helped! Just back from a session on the Eisenhower, amidst a bunch of CARQUAL T-45s (free and better than many payware aircraft), and did better.

UPDATE 2: If you've ever bounced at Coupeville you know the picture below isn't quite right. There should be a tiny landing area painted on the left side of the runway, and lights are way too dim. Well, vLSO (as in virtual LSO, and free) fixes all that, and adds a whole bunch more fun.

Not only will vLSO tell you if you're high or low, fast or slow, or need a little right for lineup, he'll tell you if you're wide at the 180, long in the groove, and get very perturbed if you try a 'taxi one wire' or, CAG forbid, ignore a wave off. The cut pass will show in your logbook and on the greenie board for all to see. And the package comes with a nice scenery add-on for East and West Coast NOLFs.

What's more. vLSO allows you to put a tanker in an orbit over the ship so you can go get a plug and some gas if things really aren't going well. So far I've managed to hit the basket once. And I mean hit, literally, not plug.

Sometime I'll get up the nerve to try it at night in the clag. Or in a fire-breathing F/A-18 ($45).

• Line Division

I’ve often thought of the men I was supposed to lead back in the Vietnam War era when we were on the U.S.S. Constellation (CVA-64) operating from Yankee Station. Attached to VAQ-134, I was a Junior Officer and pretty worthless as the Line Division Officer. But I was smart enough, at least, to get out of the way and let the Chief run the show. Still, I admired those young men—average age probably around 19—and I appreciated what they were doing.

I just ran across an old squadron ’Famly Gram’ news letter from September 1973, just before we headed home. In retrospect, I doubt what I wrote gave wives and girlfriends much comfort, even if it did show them their men were doing something exceptional.

Do you ever wonder what's going on up on the roof? Probably not, but then your roof is a little different from mine. I often wonder what's going on up there - up on the Flight Deck.

My roof is a place with noise so loud it is literally deafening. It comes from jet exhausts that blow scorching 150 degree winds of over 100 miles per hour even when you’re yards away. Sometimes those winds, whipped to several hundred miles per hour by the power required to taxi an aircraft, have flicked men over the side to the rushing water 60 feet below.

Intakes from the jets on the roof are great grinning monster maws that have already sucked up one man's life when he ventured too close. And propellers. Great heavy spinning scyths, swinging in whicked arcs that sound like hell, and can take you there in a brief gory instant.

That's not all that's going on, up on my roof. There are men working in that nightmare world. And they work in tropical sun, torrential rain , and dim erie red light at night. Ask an average man to go up there, and you know what he'll tell you? "No way, man."

But men do work up there; the men from the Garuda Line Division do. More than twelve hours, day and night. Seven days a week, sometimes for almost a month without a break. You know how they tell it's Saturday? It isn't a ball game on TV, or a barbecue out back with the kids. It isn't an extra beer or two 'cause you don't have to work tomorrow. It's Saturday because, because. . . well, you can't tell when it's Saturday. "What day is today anyway?" "Hell, I don't know, September I guess."

Who are they, those men that live among the seventy-odd beasts that so casually can cut them down for a moment, for just the tinyest, briefest moment of inattention? A brown shirt. A plane captain, one of those guys from the Line Division I was telling you about.

He comes in a variety of shapes and sizes (check out "Sugarbear" if you don't believe me). They're called Duke, Wayne, Inspector Ben. Hobber, Bruce, Gil, Newt, Beetle, Rat Bun (Rat Bun?), Herbie, Lou, Dave, Taco, Dan, Grif, and Ike. They're called other names too, more often than not unprintable. Pick anyone at random and he probably has a mustache or beard, hair that's too long according to the MAA, no stencil on his pants from working on non-skid decks and very-skid aircraft. He has grease in his hair, and at least a bump or two on his head from pumping up that damn birdcage.

Who is he? He's from the Line Division. He's a man doing a hard job well. He's hot, thirsty, horny and harrassed.

He's a Garuda Plane Captain.

• And Now For The Rest Of The Story

There are certain occasions that stick in your mind, indelible vignettes of an experience that don't fade with time. One such occasion occurred while orbiting overhead in an EA-6B 'Prowler,' waiting to recover aboard the Connie (CVA-64) someplace in the South China Sea.

Looking down from several thousand feet, I watched as the launch proceeded, and was startled to hear someone (probably the Air Boss) call "Keep it flying, keep it flying!" As I watched, the RA-5C just off the catapult rolled over and went into the water. The splash looked, from altitude, as if someone had dropped a boulder into a pond—a frothy ring expanding silently. Other than a sudden jump in my heart rate, nothing changed. The ship continued steaming, we continued flying, nothing more was said on the frequency.

But there was a lot going on as the folks on the ship's bridge swung the stern and screws away from the crash site, the 'Angel' helo headed for the spot, and the launch was suspended even while preparations began for the recovery. Back on board we learned the crew survived, and watch PLAT video tape of the event. But in a city of 5000 not everyone is your neighbor and that was the extent of the story.

Just now, thirty five years later, I found the following on the web and learned the rest of the story.

From VIGI VIGNETTES
edited by Bob Lawson
In "The Hook"
Winter of 1980

On rare occasions (fortunately) a few Vigi pilots experienced a strange phenomena upon being catapulted from the carrier. Once in awhile there would be a Vigi that would decide it wasn't going to carry all of that weight of the fuel cells in the rearward ejecting linear bomb bay, between the engines. [Seen here on a model.]

Upon receiving the cat stroke, they would unceremoniously dump the three cells right on the flight deck! This usually resulted in a spectacular conflagration on the flight deck, but didn't present a problem that a competent pilot couldn't handle.

However, on one occasion, when only one cell came out with its 2,000 lbs of fuel, ripping the plumbing out of the next cell, it resulted in one of the hairiest cat shots ever recorded. Only through the quick reactions of pilot LCDR Howie Fowler, a well designed North American ejection seat, and whole lot of luck, are he and his RAN, LTJG Art Dipadova, here to relate the story. The tale begins on a fair spring afternoon in WestPac in 1973 as the crew manned their RVAH-12 RA-5C BuNo 156609 aboard Connie. But let CDR Fowler tell it:

FLAT ON MY BACK-OFF THE CAT!
CDR H. D. "Howie" Fowler, USNR

Following a normal brief and preflight the turnup went well with no problems. We were first directed to cat three but then changed to cat two because of problems with three's shuttle. The catapult shot seemed normal, but the nose dropped off the bow causing a settle which required more than normal stick throw to correct. I noticed a RAMPS light on the annunciator which went out after reseting it.

I selected 30/25 flaps/droops and raised the gear. I thought the ramps had closed reducing thrust to the engines and caused the settle. I made a normal clearing turn to starboard and climbed to 300 ft.

As I leveled and the aircraft was accelerating through 200 kts, Departure Control came up with "605 you dropped one of your tanks on the deck and its on fire. " At the same time Art told me he had a fire warning light I saw both engines 1 and 2 fire warning lights on.

The aircraft started to buffet and yaw slightly back and forth. I felt what I thought were explosions in the tail section. Immediately, the aircraft pitched nose down and commenced a violent roll to the right which I estimate was 300-400 degrees per second. Also at the same time, all of the annunciator lights came on with the stick going full forward and to the right, freezing in that position.

I called "Eject!, Eject! " and on the second command I initiated ejection with the left turn and pull knob. At this time the aircraft had completed at least one roll and was now about 90 degrees right wing down and about 20-30 degrees nose down.

As luck would have it, we had just converted our seats to the 0-0 configuration and they worked beautifully, although at first I thought nothing was happening. Time slows down to an eternity and your brain freezes each moment.

The canopy left the airplane and I was aware of an eerie sound caused by the wind. The seat dropped down and bottomed out as I saw smoke from the cartridge and left the cockpit. I lost my helmet and mask as I went out but could clearly see the airplane, I was looking directly at the tail as it hit the water in a 60-70 degree nose down attitude.

When I left the airplane, it had completed about 270 degrees of at least its second roll. I got a full parachute canopy at about the same time that I entered the water. After inflating my life vest I got rid of the chute, and was soon picked up by the helo with no injuries, but I took on a lot of salt water.

Howie's RAN wasn't quite as fortunate. Art's seat left the airplane about 3/4 second before Howie, when the Vigi was on its back. He had attempted to initiate the ejection himself but the violence of the rolling motion caused his arm to be thrown outboard as he reached for the left hand knob. As he grabbed for it the second time and pulled it, he felt the ejection sequence begin.

He was conscious of being inverted as he went out, felt the seat separate and at about the same time he hit the water inverted without parachute deployment. After going under- water 5-10 ft, he tried to inflate his life vest but found his right arm extremely weak and unusable. He managed to get the left toggle pulled which brought him to the surface, but just barely.

After struggling in vain to reach the right toggle with his left hand he unfastened his left parachute riser. At about this time the rescue helo arrived overhead and the swimmer entered the water to assist. It was just in time, as Art was swallowing "quite a bit of the sea. " He was pulled into the helo and they went after Howie. Both crewmembers were back aboard Connie within 15 minutes after the ejection with neither man sustaining serious injury.

The entire lapsed time from the time they saw the fire warning lights until they found themselves in the water was probably about as long as it took you to read this short paragraph.

Here's a portrait of a sister-ship I took during the same deployment. You can watch a movie of the bird that crashed, during a recovery earlier in the deployment --> here.