At those speeds, if his plane had collided with that Phantom…
He wouldn’t have felt a thing. Not a single thing. He would have been just instantly dead, a spot of grease trapped in the exploding fireball.
“Well, Ace,” Flap said, “you will be delighted to hear we have a fifty-foot CEP.”
Jake tried to reply but couldn’t.
“If World War III comes, you and I will be among the very first to die,” Flap informed him. “How about them apples? We’ve earned it.”
Those Phantoms — he wondered if the pilots of the fighters had even seen the A-6s.
“Gives you goose bumps, huh? Ain’t life something else?”
* * *
“Did anybody see those Phantoms?” Jake asked.
Silence. Blank looks. They were debriefing the flight in the ready room. Seven blank faces.
“You mean I was the only one to see them?”
Later, in the solitude of his stateroom, he thought about miracles. About how close to the abyss he had come, how many times. What was that quote — something about if you stared into the abyss long enough, the abyss stared back.
That was true. He could feel it staring back just now.
No one doubted his word when he told them about the fighters. But no one else had seen them.
To be told later that you had a close call was like learning that your mother had difficulty when you were born. It meant nothing. You shrugged and went on.
The Phantoms must have been from this ship. That was easy enough to check. He examined the air plan and found the fighter squadron that had the target time immediately after the A-6 outfit, then paid a visit to their ready room.
“Hey, did any of you guys have a near midair today? Anybody almost trade paint with four A-6s? On your way into the target?”
They stared at him like he was a grotesque apparition, a leering reminder of their own mortality. No one had seen anything. All must have been looking elsewhere, thinking of something else, because unless they were looking in exactly the right place, they would have missed it. Just as the other seven Intruder crewmen had.
Here in his stateroom he worked out the math. An F-4 was about fifty feet long. At a combined speed of 800 knots it would pass the eye in thirty-seven thousandths of a second. Less than an eye blink.
When death comes, she will come quick.
But you’ve always known that, Jake Grafton.
He got out of his chair and examined his face in the mirror over the sink. The face in the glass stared back blankly.
* * *
“A ship under way is a very difficult target,” Jake said.
Lieutenant Colonel Haldane didn’t reply. He knew as well as Jake did that once free-falling bombs were released, a well-conned ship would turn sharply. Probably into the wind, although the attacker certainly couldn’t count on that.
“Ideally we should drop as close to the ship as possible to minimize the time he has to turn,” Jake said. Such a choice would also minimize the effect of any errors in the computer, errors in velocity, drift angle, altitude, etc.
“That would be the ideal,” Haldane agreed, “but it wouldn’t be smart to get all our airplanes shot down trying for the perfect attack. We’re going to have to pick an attack that maximizes our chances of hitting yet gives us a half-decent chance of getting to the drop point. Let’s look again at the weapons envelopes we’ll have to penetrate.”
Jake was briefing the skipper on the progress of the planning efforts under way in the air wing offices. He had been attending these meetings for several days. Now he spread out several graphs he had constructed and explained them to his boss, Lieutenant Colonel Haldane.
As the attackers approached a Soviet task force, the first weapons that they would face would be SA-N-3 Goblet missiles, which could engage them up to twenty miles away at altitudes between 150 and 80,000 feet. These Mach 2.5 missiles would probably be fired in pairs, the second one following the first by a few seconds. Then the launcher would be reloaded and another pair fired — each launcher had the capacity to shoot thirty-six missiles. The number of launchers present would depend on the makeup of the task group, but for planning purposes figure there were ten. That’s a possible 360 missiles in the air.
The next threat would be encountered at a range of nine or ten miles, when the attackers penetrated the envelope of the Mach 3.5 SA-N-1 Goa missiles. The weak point in the Goa system was the fire control director, which could engage only one target at a time. Yet since the missiles were carried on twin launchers, presumably two would be fired at the target, then a second target could be acquired while the launcher was reloaded. The magazine capacity for each launcher was sixteen missiles. Unfortunately the Soviets placed these weapons on destroyers as well as Kynda and Kresta cruisers, so one could expect a lot of launchers. Plan for twenty and we have another possible 320 missiles to evade.
If our harried attack crews were still alive seven miles from the target, they would enter the envelope of the Mach 2+ SA-N-4. This weapon was also fired from twin launchers, each with a magazine capacity of twenty missiles. Figure a task group with twenty launchers and we have a possible 400 missiles of this type.
Finally, after a weapons release, the attacker could expect surviving ships to fire a cloud of SA-N-5 Grail heat-seeking missiles, the naval version of the Soviet Army’s Strela. Grail carried a one-kilogram warhead over a slant range of only 4.4 kilometers and needed a good hot tailpipe signature to guide, but just one up your tailpipe would ruin your day. Within the Grail envelope the attacker could expect to see dozens in the air.
Yet missiles were only half the story. There would also be flak, an extraordinary amount of it. Soviet ships bristled with guns. The larger guns would fire first, as soon as the attacking force came in range. As the distance between the attackers and the defenders closed, the smaller calibers would open fire.
The smaller the gun, the faster the rate of fire, so as the range closed, the sheer volume of high explosive in the air would increase exponentially. In close, that is within a mile and a quarter, the attacker would fly into range of six-barreled 30-mm Gatling guns, each capable of firing at a sustained rate of a thousand rounds per minute or squirting bursts of up to three times that volume.
“Since I started putting this data together,” Jake told the colonel, “I’ve become a big fan of attack submarines.”
“Why don’t you say what you really think?”
“Yes, sir. Attacking a Soviet task group with free-fall bombs will be a spectacular way to commit suicide.”
“If the balloon goes up, we’ll go when we’re told to go, suicide or not.”
“Yessir.”
“So we had better have a realistic plan, just in case.”
“The air wing is planning Alpha strikes. Two strikes, Blue and Gold, half the planes on each one.” An Alpha strike was a maximum effort, with fighters escorting the attackers and the entire gaggle diving the target in close order. The ideal was to get all the bombs on target and everyone exiting the area within sixty seconds.
“Okay,” Colonel Haldane said.
“That will only work on a daytime, good weather launch,” Jake continued. “In my opinion, skipper, we can figure on losing half our planes on each strike.”
Haldane didn’t say anything.
“At night or in bad weather, they’ll just send the A-6s. We’re the only planes with the capability.”
8
Steam catapults make modern aircraft carriers possible. Invented by the British during World War II, catapults freed designers from the necessity of building naval aircraft that could rise from the deck under their own power after a run of only three hundred feet. So wings could shrink and be swept as the physics of high speed aerodynamics required, jet engines that were most efficient at high speeds could be installed, and airframes could be designed that would go supersonic or lift tremendous quantities of fuel and weapons. A luxury for most of the carrier planes of World War II, the catapu
lt now was an absolute requirement.
The only part of the catapult that can be seen on the flight deck is the shuttle to which aircraft are attached. This shuttle sticks up from a slot in the deck that runs the length of the catapult. The catapult itself lies under the slot and consists of two tubes eighteen inches in diameter arranged side by side like the barrels of a double-barreled shotgun. Inside each tube— or barrel — is a piston. There is a gap at the top of each barrel through which a steel lattice mates the two pistons together, and to which the shuttle on deck attaches.
The pistons are hauled aft mechanically into battery by a little cart called a “grab.” Once the pistons are in battery, the aircraft is attached to the shuttle, either by a linkage on the nose gear of the aircraft in the case of the A-6 and A-7, or by a bridle made of steel cable in the case of the F-4 and RA-5. Then the slack in the bridle or nose-tow linkage is taken out by pushing the pistons forward hydraulically — this movement is called “taking tension.”
Once the catapult is tensioned and the aircraft is at full power with its wheel brakes off, the firing circuit is enabled when the operator pushes the “final ready” button.
Firing the catapult is then accomplished by opening the launch valves, one behind each tube, simultaneously, which allows superheated steam to enter the barrels behind the pistons.
The amount of acceleration given to each aircraft must be varied depending on the type of aircraft being launched, its weight, the amount of wind over the deck, and the outside air temperature. This is accomplished by one of two methods. Either the steam pressure is kept constant and the speed of opening of the launch valves is varied, or the launch valves are always opened at the same rate and the pressure of the steam in the accumulators is varied. Aboard Columbia, the steam pressure was varied and the launch valves were opened at a constant rate.
Although the launch valves open quickly, they don’t open instantaneously. Consequently steam pressure rising on the back of the pistons must be resisted until it has built up sufficient pressure to move the pistons forward faster than the aircraft could accelerate on its own. This resistance is provided by a shear bolt installed in the nose gear of the aircraft to be launched, to which a steel hold-back bar is attached. One end of the bar fits into a slot in the deck. The bolt used in the A-6 was designed to break cleanly in half under a load of 48,000 pounds, only then allowing the pistons in the catapult, and the aircraft, to begin forward motion.
The superheated steam expanding behind the pistons drove them the length of the 258-foot catapults of the Columbia in about 2.5 seconds. Now up to flying speed, the aircraft left the deck behind and ran out into the air sixty feet above the ocean, where it then had to be rotated to the proper angle of attack to fly — in the A-6, about eight degrees nose-up.
Meanwhile, the pistons, at terminal velocity and quickly running out of barrels, had to be stopped. This was accomplished by means of water brakes, tubes welded onto the end of each of the catapult barrels and filled with water. The pistons each carried a tapered spear in front of them, and as the pistons reached the water brakes the spears penetrated the open ends, forcing water out around the spears. Water is incompressible, yet as the spears were inserted the escape openings for the water got smaller and smaller. Consequently the deeper the spears penetrated the higher the resistance to further entry. The brakes were so efficient that the pistons were brought to a complete stop after a full-power shot in only nine feet of travel.
The sexual symbolism of the tapered spears and the water-filled brakes always impressed aviators — they were young, lonely and horny — but the sound a cat made slamming into the brakes was visceral. The stupendous thud rattled compartments within a hundred feet of the brakes and could be felt throughout the ship.
Tonight as he sat in the cockpit of an A-6 tanker waiting for the cat crew to retract the shuttle, Jake Grafton ran through all the things that could go wrong with the cat.
The launching officer, Jumping Jack Bean, was wandering around near the hole in the deck that contained the valves and gauges that allowed him to drag steam from the ship’s boilers to the catapult accumulators. The enlisted man who always sat on the edge of the hole wearing a sound-powered telephone headset that enabled him to talk to the men in the catapult machinery spaces was already in his place, staring aft at the two planes on the cats. The luminescent patches on his helmet and flight deck jersey were readily visible in the dim red glow of the lights from the ship’s island superstructure, almost a hundred yards aft.
If anything goes wrong with the machinery below-decks, Jake Grafton knew, the probable result would be less end speed for the plane being launched. A perfect shot gave the launching aircraft a mere fifteen knots above stall speed. A couple knots less and the pilot would never notice. Five off, the plane would be sluggish. Ten off, a ham-handed pilot could stall it inadvertently. Fifteen or more off, the plane was doomed.
Bad, or “cold,” cat shots were rare, thank God. The catapult was very reliable, more so than the aircraft that rode it. They could have an engine flame out under the intense acceleration, dump a gyro, lose a generator, spring a hydraulic or fuel leak… or the pilot could just become disoriented during the sudden, intense transition from sitting stationary on deck to instrument flight fifteen knots above a stall, at night. The blackness out there beyond the bow was total, a void so vast and bleak that one wanted to avert his eyes. Look at something else. Think about something else.
The hell of it was that there was nothing else to look at— nothing else to think about. Tonight Jake was flying a tanker, which was going to be flung off the pointy end of the boat in just a few minutes right into that black void, climb to 5,000 feet and tank a couple Phantoms, climb up to 20,000 and circle the ship for an hour and a half, then come back and trap. That was it, the whole damn mission. Go around and around the ship. Orbit. At max conserve airspeed. On autopilot. The challenge would be staying awake.
No, the challenge was this goddamn night cat shot. The worst part of the whole flight was right at the start — the blindfolded ride on the rabid pig…
The cat crewmen were now taking the rubber seal out of the catapult slot. Steam wisped skyward from the open slot, steam leaking from some fitting somewhere in the cat. They kept the slot seal in between launches, Jake knew, to help maintain the temperature of those eighteen-inch tubes.
The handler had parked the tanker here on the cat, probably so that the miserable peckerhead pilot would have to sit in the cockpit watching the steam wisp up from the cat against the backdrop of the black void while he thought about dying young.
And his life wasn’t going so good just now. First Callie’s jerk father, then Tiny Dick Donovan, the in-flight engagement, that near-midair…
Maybe God was trying to tell him something.
Or maybe those Phantoms this morning hadn’t been there at all.
What if he had just imagined them? Of course the planes passed each other quickly, but there were at least two Phantoms and four A-6s, two guys in each plane. A total of twelve men, and he was the only one who had seen the varmint.
Really doesn’t make sense.
Does it?
“What are you staring at through that windshield?” Flap Le Beau.
“There’s a naked woman out there. If you look real careful you can see her nipples.”
“You look like you’re mentally composing your will. That isn’t good leadership. You are supposed to be impressing me with your self-confidence, calming my fears. The stick’s on your side, remember?”
“What if those F-4s weren’t really there this morning? What if I just imagined it?”
“Are you still on that? You saw ’em. They were there.”
“How come no one else is in a sweat?”
“What do you want me to do, fill my drawers? Slit my wrists? Fate fired a bullet and it missed.”
“You could have the common courtesy to look nervous, sweat it a little.”
“You’re making me nervou
s.”
“That’ll be the day,” Jake Grafton replied disgustedly.
“Okay, I’m sweating. It’s dripping out of my armpits. Every jerk pilot I ever met has tried to kill me. I’m waiting for you to give it a whirl.”
“How come you got into aviation, anyway?”
“Jungle rot. Pretty bad case. They tell me I’m now a paragraph and photo in a medical textbook. Little did I know when I signed up for this glamorous flying life how much jungle I still had to visit.”
The brown-shirt plane captain standing beside the aircraft waved his wands to get Jake’s attention, then signaled for a start.
Time to do it.
“It could have been worse,” Flap told Jake as he started the left engine. “I could have made medical history with a spectacular social disease. Wouldn’t that have been a trip? For a hundred years every guy going overseas would have had to watch a movie featuring my diseased, ulcerated pecker.”
Six minutes later Jake rogered the weight board and eased the plane forward into the shuttle. He felt the nose-tow bar drop into the shuttle slot and came off the brakes and added power at the yellow-shirt’s signal.
The engines began winding up. Another small jolt as the hydraulic arm shoved the cat pistons into tension, taking all the slack out of the hold-back bar. Now just the shear-bolt was holding them back.
Full power, wipe out the controls, check the gauges, cat grip up…“You ready?” he asked Flap.
“I’m really really ready.”
He could feel the vibration as the engines sucked air and blasted it out the exhausts against the jet blast deflector, feel rather than hear the ear-splitting roar. He swept his eyes across the annunciator panel — all warning lights out. The exterior light master switch was on the end of the cat grip, right beside his left thumb. He flicked it on.
The cat officer took a last look at the island, looked up the cat at the void, then swept his yellow wand down in a fencer’s lunge until he touched the deck, then he came up to a point.
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