One mega-yacht was out of fuel and couldn’t move in time. The USS Russell and the USS John Paul Jones, both Arleigh Burke class destroyers with four 100,000 horsepower gas turbine engines, moved the mega-yacht with surprising ease, though not without causing considerable damage to the much lighter-built pleasure craft. The Coast Guard cutter, USS Boutwell, evacuated the billionaire owner. The yacht sank within an hour. The John Paul Jones suffered minor structural damage that didn’t affect its mission-ready status.
Andrew watched the clusterfuck from a mile up and shook his head in amazement. It was a profound testament to the state of their nation. U.S. military units would never have acted with such heavy-handedness. Of course, what they were about to attempt was an even more profound statement.
Lacking unlimited time, the aircraft carriers USS George Washington and USS Carl Vinson came clear first, and began to align tail-on to each other. It wasn’t unusual to see ships that big tied up side by side at a pier, but not in the open ocean. It took time. Andrew watched his fuel consumption instead of the clock as the sun fell toward the western horizon.
The first step in mating the two ships was using their ballast tanks to bring them to the same exact height. Even though they were the same class, the George Washington sat ten feet higher in the water than the Carl Vinson. With that accomplished, the two carriers aligned back to back, with the Carl Vinson facing into the prevailing wind. The Washington moved backwards as slowly as her engineers could manage. On the fantails, hundreds of sailors stood by, ropes in hand, for what would not be a delicate maneuver.
Despite every effort, the impact occurred at nearly two miles an hour. While two miles per hour may not seem like much, it was nearly three feet per second. The two 100,000-ton ships crashed together, stern to stern, at walking speed. The flight decks slammed together, and crushed several feet of honeycomb-reinforced steel with their incredible momentum.
The sailors on the open fantails were only feet apart as the two ships came together. A few seconds before the impact, chiefs yelled, and the sailors threw ropes from ship to ship. As the teams were the ones who usually tied the ships up when they were in port, this drill was, at least, somewhat familiar. Lighter ropes slid through winches and, in turn, pulled over much heavier ropes. The ships collided halfway through the winching process. The impact above them caused metal to spall from the superstructure, some of which launched at extremely high velocity. A two-foot long, razor-sharp flake of steel nearly cut a soldier in half. Smaller pieces hit a dozen others and cut several ropes.
The two ships rebounded, but the Washington hadn’t stopped its engines, so the ships came back together, albeit slower this time. The sailors continued to winch the ropes over as medics arrived to tend to the wounded. Dozens of men held on for dear life as the ropes tightened with ominous groans. The lengths of synthetic fibers hummed dangerously, but held as they tied off more and more. The two ships were, at least temporarily, one. From a mile up, it appeared to be a rather flawlessly executed maneuver. Below them was a 2,000-foot-long runway…but not a very wide one.
The fantails weren’t a perfect match as they weren’t square. They cut at a 20° angle going forward on the starboard side. As the ships were back to back, this reduced some of the mismatch, though not all. Time continued to tick by as soldiers used equipment to push heavy steel plates into place. They used special thermite spot-welding charges to fuse the plates to the leading edge on the Washington’s deck.
All the while, Andrew could see the people on the decks of the carriers furiously abuzz with movement as the crews struggled to clear them. Deployed carriers almost never had clear decks, unless most of their planes were in the air. The hangar decks, while huge, were not big enough to store every aircraft. Once the ships aligned, the rest happened fast. It had to; the light was fading.
“This is Commander Martinez, Air Boss for the Carl Vinson. We’ll be controlling this…operation.”
“Carl Vinson, this is Lieutenant Tobin in 44 Foxtrot, nominally in charge of this airborne circus.”
“Wish we were meeting under better circumstance, LT.”
“Me too, sir.”
“How do you want to proceed, pilot?”
“My bird has the most issues. We have over 500 souls on board and a fucked-up engine. The risk to personnel is highest with us, and I believe I’d benefit from letting the other two planes go first. The pilot of 41 India is the only one of us currently qualified to fly Air Force transports, but that’s in C-130s.”
“At least we’ve landed those on carriers,” the Air Boss replied. “Okay, I can see it both ways. You could go first, but considering you have all the civilians, if this goes south, you can always opt for a water landing, I guess.”
“Most of our passengers are sitting on the deck, sir.”
“God above,” the Air Boss hissed. “Okay, Mr. Tobin, your call.”
“41 India, you’re up.”
“You got it,” the other pilot said. “I’m coming around now, already in my glide path.”
Andrew watched the aircraft below him, and effected a gradual turn to follow it, keeping his engines at a point just above stall speed. He increased flaps to 40 percent and kept his altitude steady. He would have a ringside seat for history.
“41 India, one and a half miles out, air speed 155.”
“Roger that, we have a 15-knot headwind, deck altitude is 70 feet,” the Air Boss told them.
“One mile out, airspeed 145,” 41 India said. “Full flaps. I don’t know if I can get any slower.”
“He can,” Wade said. “Tell him to ride the stall alarm. Even loaded, he should be able to get down to 130. Maybe 120!”
Andrew relayed the information.
“Okay, if you say so,” the pilot said. “That’s almost as slow as the C-130! Slowing…slowing. 140…135…I have a stall alarm at 132, damn, these throttles are sensitive. Half a mile out, 133, stable.”
“Stall as you cross the threshold!” Andrew barked. “You’ll hit hard, but you’ll be going slower.”
“Got it,” the other pilot said. “Prepare for impact!” they heard him yell over the plane’s PA. “Brace, brace, brace!”
Andrew had a wonderful view from above, but from that angle, he had no indication of the height of the other aircraft’s approach, and, for a horrifying second, he thought the plane would slam into the end of the carrier. Then it was over the bow. He saw vertical movement, the C-17 visibly dropped, and Andrew saw the wings flex with the impact.
“Jesus Christ,” Andrew hissed, “that had to hurt!”
Sparks flew from under the plane, and he knew the undercarriage was likely damaged as the huge transport spun up its powerful turbofans and braked. The angle of approach had been vitally important. While the flight decks of the carriers were 238 feet wide, the metal island where Flight Control operated was 37 feet wide, leaving only 200 feet. And the C-17’s wing span was 170 feet! A margin of 30 feet might sound like a lot, but for a huge plane like the C-17 Globemaster, it was more like inches.
Sailors had slopped white paint on the bow to mark where the C-17 was supposed to land. That line was only 30 feet from the left side of the 80-foot-wide bow as the plane approached. It was off-center to give it a wider margin around the Carl Vinson’s island, but it would result in a much closer one to the George Washington’s island. As Andrew watched, the pilot missed his mark and hit almost dead center.
As the plane cleared the bow and slammed down onto the deck, Andrew saw crewmen scrambling into recessed hollows, and diving through hatches on the island to get out of the way. The C-17 raced down the Carl Vinson’s deck in under six seconds, cleared its island by two feet, and bounced over the temporary joining plates holding the two ships together. The welds on one of the one-ton steel plates blew off, and the plate went flying like a massive frisbee into the ocean.
The carriers had two arresting systems to stop landing aircraft. The first, huge steel cables that planes caught with reinforced tail hooks
, wouldn’t work for the C-17s as they didn’t have hooks; the carrier crews left the cables flush on the deck for the Globemasters to roll over.
The carriers also had barricades, huge nets that, when erected, covered the entire width of the flight deck. They were, however, designed to stop carrier-based aircraft. The heaviest plane onboard was the E2 Hawkeye, an electronic warfare craft with a crew of five. It weighed in at a substantial eighteen metric tons—hefty for a carrier-based aircraft—but nothing compared to a C-17’s 140 tons. And the nets were only twelve feet tall, which wouldn’t safely reach the nose of the C-17.
The crew of the George Washington had improvised, though, and had rigged a pair of metal poles that pushed the barrier up to 15 feet, integrating it with the fourth and final arresting cable, which could bring an 18-ton fighter to a stop inside of 75 feet. The C-17 hit the net going 65 miles per hour, with all four thrust reversers screaming at full power.
Sailors shrieked in alarm as the jet slammed into the safety barrier and ran with it like a bull caught in a bedsheet that had been hanging from a clothesline. The torque on the arresting cable was extreme, and the pulleys let out a high-pitched shriek and threw sparks for 10 feet, while the lubricating grease burst into flames. The rating on the hydraulic cylinders was several times their average load, but the C-17 was more than ten times that. They compressed in under a second and slammed against their stops. The intense loading blew out the fittings, sending steel-reinforced hoses crashing through the equipment rooms like scythes. An instant later, the arresting cable severed with an explosive snap. One end whiplashed back with enough force to knock a tug off the deck. The safety barrier managed to slow the C-17 to almost 10 miles per hour before it failed.
The instant the plane hit the barrier, and the pilot felt his plane slow, he rammed the pedals down as far as they would go.
The monumental impact blew two of the starboard tires and one on the port side, and smoke and bits of rubber flew from the remaining nine as the antilock brake systems fought for control. The plane skewed to starboard momentarily, but the barrier netting pulled the plane back in the other direction. The lower arresting cable slid back under the plane and, like a guillotine, sliced off the nose gear. The aircraft’s nose slammed to the deck with a crash and a shower of parts and non-skid from the carrier’s deck. The cable then hooked on the main landing gear and snapped like the other cable had.
The starboard wing tip clipped the George Washington’s island, slicing off the last two feet, and gouging the ship’s steel.
The aircraft took another 420 feet to stop, 77 feet before the end of the flight deck. Its port landing gear came to a stop five feet from the catwalk on the port edge of the bow.
“Holy fucking shit!” Andrew gasped. The entire landing had taken less than 30 seconds, but it felt like it had taken a year off his life. He flew past the carriers and saw hundreds of crewmen running onto the deck with hoses to keep flames from spreading. Others leapt in celebration. However, after a moment’s elation, the truth began to sink in. Even from 4,000 feet up, Andrew could see the damage done to the carrier’s emergency barrier system. Shredded cables and netting were everywhere. He could also see the deep dents in the Carl Vinson’s deck, where the huge Globemaster had slammed down. Chris saw his expression.
“What’s wrong?”
“We can’t land there; the carrier is way too fucked up.”
“41 India, we made it!” the pilot called out below.
“Good job,” Andrew said. “Let us know when it’s our turn.” He glanced at the fuel gauge then back at Wade.
“About 95 minutes of flight time,” Wade said. The sun was almost to the horizon.
“That was spectacular,” the pilot of 23 Papa said. “But how am I supposed to land now?”
“We’re on that,” Commander Martinez said. “Lt. Tobin, after witnessing that, are you still wanting to go last?”
What was Andrew going to say? He knew there would be no third landing attempt. He could see two huge ocean-going tugs moving in already. They were going to flip the mated carriers around, so the George Washington was in the wind, thus allowing them to use the still intact crash barriers of the Carl Vinson. But that would leave nothing for him.
“You’re going to have to go next, 44 Foxtrot,” the pilot of 23 Papa said. “You’ve got the more important cargo. If I ditch, we can probably save most of the passengers. If you ditch, we’ll lose almost everyone.”
“I’m not sure I won’t lose three quarters of them landing that way!” Andrew said. “He did a spectacular job, considering, but it will be brutal on my passengers.”
Below, the tugs had started to ever so slowly turn the two mated ships around. Sailors were fastening more ropes to try and hold the carriers together. They replaced the lost steel plate and readied more. On the flight line, the C-17’s door was down, and the passengers were coming off, some on stretchers. There was no doubt the rough landing had caused injuries. Sailors were clearing debris from the deck, and forklifts came up on an elevator to begin offloading the cargo.
“44 Foxtrot, this is Gerald Ford actual. Captain Christopher Gilchrist.”
“This is 44 Foxtrot, Captain. What can I do for you?”
“I can offer you an alternative, Lieutenant.”
“Sir, I am, most certainly, all ears.”
* * *
Three guided missile cruisers and the USS Ronald Reagan broke free of the flotilla and turned north, sailing as fast as they could. Andrew watched them go from his vantage point as he observed the operation below.
Turning the carriers had not gone without incident. As they were turning, the two ships started rolling on the waves. The plates buckled, the George Washington’s flight deck ground up and over the Vinson’s, and the tension of the ropes pulled them together.
After a few minutes of discussion, the pilots, air bosses, and ship captains decided that separating and rejoining them would take too long and be too risky, especially since the initial joining crushed the skirting underneath. The biggest issue was the drop; the plane would fall as it crossed onto the second carrier, but there was nothing they could do about it. It did, however, confirm Andrew’s decision to go with Plan C.
Once they completed the offload, cleaned up the debris, and rigged the Carl Vinson’s crash barrier similar to the George Washington’s, all that was left was to remove the disabled C-17.
“What are they going to do?” Wade asked, looking out as they passed by.
“Whatever they do, it won’t be pretty,” Andrew assured him, and he was right.
The sailors rigged a heavy cable to the port winglet and attached a quick release. Meanwhile, the crew disembarked, and a single fighter pilot ran back aboard. They raised the cargo ramp a few feet, but left it partially open. Andrew began to wonder what they were going to do, when he saw the engines light off.
“They’re crazy,” he said aloud. A moment later the starboard engines went to full power, and the plane began to grind metal as it turned to port, belayed by the cable attached to the wing. He could see the cable cutting into the wing’s aluminum skin, but it held.
“Are they trying to turn it around?” Chris asked.
“No,” Andrew said. “I think they’re aiming it.”
Chris opened his mouth to ask what they were aiming it at, but the answer became apparent. The port engines spun up to full power, the plane pointed at the port side of the carrier, and a sailor, in a recess in the deck, yanked the quick release.
The entire power of the plane’s engines pushed it, grinding, across the deck. Even the blown tires and missing nose gear weren’t enough to stop it. In moments, it went over the side of the carrier.
“Holy shit!” Chris barked as the 140-ton C-17 tipped, plunged over the side, and crashed into the ocean with a titanic splash big enough to throw water back onto the deck. The engines’ thrust flipped the plane over onto its back, but then the engines turned off, and it lay there like a beached whale, before sinking. Ri
ght on cue, a pair of U.S. Coast Guard RHIBs raced in, and divers leaped into the water. As the plane nosed down, the bright yellow vest of a pilot’s flotation device appeared, and the valiant pilot dove out of the half-open gate.
“Wow,” Andrew muttered in disbelief as he threw a salute at the distant pilot. He wouldn’t find out for some time that the pilot was the Washington’s air group commander.
Exactly 39 minutes after 41 India landed, the ships were realigned, and 23 Papa started on its glide path. This time, the pilot had the advantage of having seen the previous landing. He knew what to expect, although he now had the added difficulty of the overlapping fantails.
Andrew and Chris watched from above, their endurance under one hour as the C-17 lined up on the nose of the George Washington and slowly approached.
The wind was almost seventeen knots, and the pilot had a better feel for what his craft could do. He crossed the bow of the Carl Vinson with a relative speed of 112 knots, at a much better angle. His wheels touched down thirty feet aft of the bow, and almost exactly on the quickly-painted center mark.
“Bingo!” Andrew said as the Globemaster’s engines roared into reverse. The pilot jumped on the brakes from the start, and smoke curled from them as he shot down the entire 1,092-foot length in just over seven seconds. When he jumped the five-foot gap between the fantails, he had slowed to 50 knots, and it looked like he had the landing under control. Unfortunately, that wasn’t the case.
The reduced speed meant the wings didn’t have much lift, and the plane nosedived as it went over the drop. The front landing gear crumpled, and the nose slammed into the deck. The much-heavier main gear absorbed the rest of the impact, and the plane did a nose-down hop that left a trail of crumpled metal and rubber behind.
The hop was just a little one, a bit shy of 155 feet, just enough for the nose to clear the crash barricade, but not the outboard port engine. The arresting system retarded and pulled, yawing the plane hard to port, until the engine sheered from its mounting.
Turning Point (Book 1): A Time To Die Page 43