A Time to Die

by Mark Wandrey

  One megayacht that had arrived was out of fuel and couldn’t be moved in time. The USS Russel and USS Harvey W Hill, both Spruance class destroyers displacing more than 8,000 tons and with 4 gas turbine 80,000 horsepower engines were able to move a megayacht twice their size with surprising ease, though not without considerable damage to the much more lightly built megayacht. The billionaire owner had to be evacuated by the Coast Guard cutter USS Boutwell. It would sink an hour later. The Harvey W. Hill had minor structural damage that didn’t affect its mission ready status.

  Andrew watched this clusterfuck from a mile up and shook his head in amazement. It was a profound statement on the state of their nation. Never before would US military units 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 for ships even that big to be tied up at a pier side by side. But that wasn’t in the open ocean. It took time. Andrew watched the fuel consumption instead of the clock as the sun fell towards the western horizon.

  The mating was accomplished first by using ballast tanks to bring the two ships to the same exact height. Even though they were the same class, George Washington was 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 GW moved backwards as slow as the engineers could manage. On the fantails, hundreds of sailors stood by, eyes huge, ropes in hand, for what would not be a delicate maneuver.

  Despite every effort, the impact was at nearly two miles an hour. While two miles per hour might not seem like much, it was nearly three feet per second. Cross three feet in a second. It’s an average walking speed. Now bring two 100,000 ton ships together, back to back, at walking speed. With a thunderous crash and grinding. The flight deck overhung the open lower decks of the fantail by ten feet. The flight decks smashed together. Several feet thick of honeycomb reinforced steel, under the incredible mass of the carriers still gave.

  The sailors on each open fantail were only twenty feet apart as the two ships came together. A few seconds before the impact, chiefs yelled to throw and ropes crisscrossed from both ships. The teams were the same ones that usually tied the ships up when they were in port, so this drill was at least somewhat familiar. Lighter ropes were slid through winches and in turn pulled over much heavier ropes. The ships collided halfway through winching over those ropes. The impact above them caused metal to spall from the superstructure, some of it launched at extremely high velocity. One sailor was nearly cut in half by a two foot long razor sharp flake of steel. A dozen others were hit with much smaller pieces. Several ropes were also cut.

  The two ships rebounded apart, but the engines weren’t cut, so they came back together. Though slower this time. The ropes were winched over and as medics arrived to tend the wounded, others raced to belay the huge mooring ropes. Dozens of men held on for dear life as the ropes went taunt with ominous whines. The lengths of synthetic fibers hummed dangerously, but held as more and more were tied off. The two ships were, at least temporarily, one. From a mile up, it appeared to be a rather flawlessly executed maneuver. There below them was a 2,000-foot-long runway. Just not a very wide one.

  The fantails weren’t a perfect match, they weren’t square but rather cut forward 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 moving equipment on the carrier decks raced to push heavy steel plates in place. Special thermite spot-welding charges were used to fuse the plates to the leading edge on the GW’s deck.

  All the while Andrew could see the decks of the carriers furiously abuzz with movement as the flight crews struggled to clear them. Carriers that were deployed 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. With the ships aligned, the rest happened fast. They needed to, as 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 Tobins 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 700 souls on board and a fucked up engine. The risk is highest, and I believe I’d benefit from letting the other two go first. The pilot of 41 Indigo is the only one of us experienced in flying Air Force transports, but with prop job C-130s.”

  “And they’ve actually landed those on carriers,” the Air Boss replied. “Okay, I can see it both ways, having you go first instead, 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, call the ball.”

  “41 Indigo, you’re up.”

  “You got it,” the other pilot said. “I’m coming around now, already in my glide path.”

  Andrew watched the radar and effected a gradual turn five miles out, keeping his engines at a point to hold them just above stall speed. He increased flaps to 40% and their altitude remained steady at 4,250 feet. The carrier was four and a half miles ahead of him, and 41 Indigo two miles past that. He would have a ringside seat at history.

  “41 Indigo, one and a half miles out, air speed 155.”

  “Roger that, we have a 15 knot headwind, altitude 75 feet,” The Air Boss told them.

  “One mile out, airspeed 145,” 41 Indigo 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 on the plane’s PA. “Brace, brace, brace!”

  Even from over 4,000 feet they had a wonderful view. From the high angle Andrew had no indications of the height of their approach. For a horrifying second he thought the other plane would just slam into the nose of the carrier. Then it was over the nose. Then he did see 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 began braking. 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 thirty-seven feet wide, leaving only 200 feet. And the C-17’s wing span was 170 feet! A margin of thirty feet might sound like a lot, but to a huge plane like the C-17 Globemaster, it was more like inches.

  Sailors had slopped white paint on the calculated midline for the landing at the much narrower bow. That line was only thirty feet from one side on the eighty-foot-wide bow. This point was designed to have a wide margin on the Carl Vinson’s island, but a much closer one on the George Washington’s. Andrew could see he missed his mark and hit almost dead center.

  As the plane cleared the nose and slammed down onto the deck, Andrew could see 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 mere feet and was bouncing over the temporary joining plates holding the two ships together. One of the one-ton steel plates had its weld blown and it was send flying like a Frisbee off into the ocean.

  The carriers had multiple arresting systems to stop landing aircraft. Primarily the huge steel cables that planes caught with a reinforced tail hook. The C-17s were not equipped with one, so the cables were left flush on the deck for the Globemaster to just roll over.

  They also had a safety barrier, a huge net, 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 E-2 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. 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 ingenious crew of the carriers improvised in a minute’s notice. They rigged a pair of metal poles that pushed the barrier up to fifteen feet. The barrier was integrated with the fourth and last arresting cable. The mechanism used hydraulic retarding pistons capable of bringing an eighteen-ton fighter craft to a stop inside 75 feet. The C-17 nosed into the net still going 65 miles per hour, all four turbofans screaming at full power, thrust reversers pushing to slow the monstrous plane.

  Sailors screamed in alarm as the jet slammed into the safety barrier and ran with it like a bull caught in a bedsheet on the clothesline. The torque on the arresting cable was extreme. The pulleys let off a high pitch shriek, threw sparks for ten feet, and the lubricating grease burst into flames. The hydraulic cylinders were rated at several times their average load, but the C-17 was more than ten times that expected load. They compressed in under a second, and slammed against their stops. The intense loading blew out all the fittings on the pistons, sending steel reinforced hoses crashing through the equipment rooms like scythes. An instant later, the top 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 almost ten miles per hour before it failed.

  The instant the plane hit the barrier and the pilot felt his plane slow, he slammed down on the brakes. He’d engaged them the second they touched down, but only the appropriate amount to slow the craft. Now he just rammed the pedal down.

  The monumental impact had blown two of the starboard tires and one of the port. Actually helping slow it a bit. Now smoke and bits of rubber flew from all eight tortured tires as the antilock brakes systems fought for control. The plane skewed to port, where more braking power remained. But the arresting cable had severed on the port side, and the barrier netting pulled the plane the other direction. The surviving lower arresting cable slid back, under the plane. Like a guillotine it sliced the nose gear right off the plane. Its nose slammed onto the deck with a crash and shower of parts and rubber. The cable proceeded rearward, hooked on the main landing gear and broke like the top cable.

  The starboard wing tip clipped the George Washington’s island, crashing over the last 2 feet and taking a gouge out of the ship’s steel.

  It took another 420 feet to come to a stop, 77 feet before the end of the flight deck. Its port landing gear were left five feet from the edge of the flight deck.

  “Holy fucking shit!” Andrew gasped. The entire landing took less than a minute, but felt like it took a year off of his life. They flew past the carriers and could see hundreds of crewmen running out onto the deck, both to keep any flames from erupting from the smoking engines and to leap in celebration. After a moment’s elation Andrew had the truth sink in. Even from 4,000 feet he 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 that way again; the carrier was too fucked up.”

  “41 Indigo, 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 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 Poppa said. “But how am I supposed to land now?”

  “We’re on that,” Commander Martinez said. “Lt. Tobins, after witnessing that, are you still wanting to go last?”

  What was Andrew going to say? No, he knew there was 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 Poppa said. “You’ve got the more important cargo. If I ditch, we can probably save most of the passengers. If you ditch, we’ll lost almost everyone.”

  “I’m not sure I won’t lose three quarters even landing that way!” Andrew said. “He did a spectacular job, considering.”

  Below the tugs had started to ever so slowly turn the two mated ships around. Even more ropes were being employed to try and hold the carriers together. The lost steel plate was being replaced, and more readied. On the flight line, the C-17 had its door down and passengers were coming off, some on stretchers. A sign that the rough landing had caused injuries. Debris was being cleared from the deck and forklifts were coming 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 had broken 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.

  The turning of the carriers had not gone without incident. When they were turned leeward to the wind, the two ships started rolling on the waves. The plates buckled and one carrier’s deck ground up and over the other. The tension of the ropes pulled them together, and one deck slid back over the other. It was the George Washington that ended up on top.

  After a few minutes of discussion between the pilots, air bosses and ship captains, it was decided that separating and rejoining them would take too long and be too risky. The deck was five feet of steel honeycomb structure and a skirting underneath that had been crushed flat in the overlapping. So five feet of lip now protruded onto the Carl Vinson, and they’d lost ten feet of deck space. The problem was the landing plane would have to fall over that five feet on landing. But there was nothing to do about it. At least it firmed up Andrew’s decision to go with Plan C.

  The offload completed, the debris cleaned up and the Carl Vinson’s crash barrier rigged up similarly to the George Washington’s, all that was left was the now 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.

  A heavy cable was rigged to the port winglet and a quick release attached. Meanwhile all the crew disembarked, and a single fighter pilot could be seen running back aboard. The cargo ramp was raised a few feet, but left 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 on that wing. He could see the cable cutting into the wings aluminum skin, but it held.

  “Are they trying to t
urn it around?” Chris asked.

  “No,” Andrew said, “they’re just 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 was pointed directly to 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 wasn’t enough to stop it. In moments it was moving over the side of the carrier.

  “Holy shit!” Chris barked as the 140-ton C-17 tipped and plunged over the side and crashed into the ocean with a titanic splash, some of the water actually landing on the deck. The thrust of the engines flipped the plane over onto its back just as the power was cut, and it lay there like a beached whale, and began to sink. Right on cue a pair of US Coast Guard RHIBs came racing in and divers leaped into the water. Just as the plane nosed down, the telltale bright yellow vest of a pilot’s flotation device was visible as the valiant flyboy came out the half open gate.

  “That is one steely-eyed missile man,” Andrew said and threw a salute at the distant pilot. He wouldn’t find out for some time that the pilot was the CAG, commander of the George Washington’s FA-18 combat group.

  Exactly thirty-nine minutes after 41 Indigo landed, the ships were realigned and 23 Poppa was on his glide path. This time the pilot had the advantage of seeing it done once before. He knew what to expect, but only the added difficulty of the overlapping fantails to add.