Time Flying

by Dan Garmen

  “So, you guys getting ready to ship out?” my father asked.

  “Almost,” I answered. “We're loading the birds on Ranger, so the logistical stuff is a bit more complex.”

  “Why do that?” My Dad asked. He consulted on construction projects for the Navy and Marines, so he had a security clearance. Not high enough for deep ship's operations stuff, but the information he asked about had been published in the Navy Times, so it was public knowledge.

  “Fear of Jimmy Carter Syndrome,” I answered, to his puzzlement. “Remember those helicopters that crashed before they even got halfway to Teheran to rescue the hostages?” He nodded his understanding. “Well,” I continued, “they don't want any accidents marring the run up to the show, I guess.”

  “Ah,” he answered.

  “In reality, it adds more danger, between winching the planes onto the ship, and then the crazy flight schedule to get everyone qualified when we get to blue water,” I explained. “We're better off flying out to Ranger, but…” I shrugged my shoulders.

  “Decision's above your pay grade,” the former Army officer said.

  “Aye,” was my nautical reply as I took a drink of the Coke.

  My Dad, staying true to form, shifted gears. “Your Mother's worried about this thing,” he said, shaking his head. “She's glued to that CNN. I hear that woman anchor more than I do your mother. I walk around the house turning off TVs!”

  I smiled slightly, a little jolt hitting me as I listened to him rail at the “woman anchor” on the new cable news channel. I knew what CNN would become, and how the entire News industry would change because of this war. “It’s going to be fine,” I said, “Saddam won't back down, but believe me, it's going to be much harder on him than on us.”

  My Dad eyed me skeptically, not as reassured as I intended for him to be. Still, he nodded, and appearing to change the subject, but not really doing so, said “I read 'Flight of the Intruder…’”

  Oh jeesh. But, I played along. “Good book!” I answered. “You'd almost think the writer flew Intruders!” I laughed. “We all had a pretty good chuckle over it.” In the truly well-written and completely authentic novel, written by Stephen Coonts, who HAD flown Intruders in Vietnam, the story opens with a VC grunt firing a single round at an egressing A-6E and hitting the B/N in the throat. I was a Bombardier/Navigator, and I knew when I first read the book if my Dad got hold of it, in his mind, it would be me in that role from page one. Of course, the character dies right away, so I hoped the novel escaped Dad's notice.

  “Dad,” I continued, “our birds are so much more advanced than the planes they flew in Vietnam. The avionics, targeting and ECM (Electronic Countermeasures) packages are light years ahead of the old ones.” He nodded, trying not to appear too concerned.

  I took another quick drink of Coke and added “Hell, we've got the Queens always flying with us,” referring to the specially adapted A6s, which had an impressive suite of electronic surveillance and jamming equipment, in addition to a third crew member. The aircraft were called “Queens” because of the bright gold trim necessary to shield the electronics from electromagnetic interference and attack. “Trust me, we're more a danger to ourselves than Saddam's boys are to us,” I again tried to reassure him. “I’ve…Been shown some things very few people have...That's all I can say, but it's going to be fine. Iraq's a paper tiger, but we're bringing flamethrowers to the fight, not Bic lighters. The fight won't be easy, but it will be devastating to him.”

  My dad still not convinced, put his game face back on as my mother came back into the room. “Oh Rich,” she said, “someone is here to see you.”

  I twisted around in my chair, curiosity turning to disbelief, because Amanda stood in the doorway to the family room with my mother, a small, shy smile on my wife's face, a bigger one on my Mom's. I jumped up and met Amanda halfway, as she leaped into my arms. I kissed her, and then hugged her, my face buried in her blonde hair as she softly sobbed, so I hugged her tighter, stroking her back. Finally, after half a minute or so, we drew apart and I asked her “where are the boys?”

  “Upstairs,” Amanda answered. “Before I told them you'd be here, I wanted…”

  “DADDY!” came a squeal from Aaron, my little one, who rushed into the room, after being herded downstairs by his grandmother. Michael followed, tears starting to glisten on his face. Such a sensitive boy, I thought, a lump having appeared in my own throat. The boys slammed into Amanda and me, laughing, and we all hugged each other as I silently mouthed the words “thank you” to my mother. Her smile showed me she was happy to do oblige.

  I wasn't naive enough to think the tension between us completely gone, but I think circumstances dictated in the end, our family's bond was much more important than what had gotten between Amanda and me the past couple weeks. We didn't talk about time travel, alternate lives, or anything but the here, the now and the future over the next few days as I took care of the logistical challenges involved in bringing the squadron down from Whidbey, getting our aircraft scheduled for loading onto Ranger, and the aircrews billeted on the ship. Chris Bradford, being the junior officer between us, had to deal with the enlisted members of the squadron, the mechanics, clerical and other assorted personnel who kept the Swordsmen flying. My challenges were easier, and much fewer in number, which left plenty of time to spend with Amanda, the boys and my parents.

  On two occasions, I ran into people from my other life, but was able to stop myself before saying anything. On one of these occasions, when seeing my neighbor Jeff at the Carl's Jr. in Rancho Bernardo. I smiled and almost spoke, but caught myself when I saw him look my way, without recognizing me. Amanda caught it, and after a couple seconds, said, “You knew him, didn't you?”

  I nodded. “My neighbor...From...Here. His name's Jeff, and he's a runner. Works for Intel.”

  Amanda nodded, and got up, walking toward the restroom, just behind where Jeff sat, eating a salad. As she passed, she seemed to do a double-take, pausing at the side of his table. “You're...Jeff, right?” Amanda asked him.

  Jeff nodded, but didn't say anything, obviously stunned that this beautiful woman seemed to know his name. “We met at an Intel party a couple years ago. My sister works there.”

  “Oh yea!” he answered, and I had to smile. Jeff didn’t lie well.

  “You run marathons, right?” Amanda continued.

  “I do,” Jeff replied, smiling through a slightly red face. Amanda did that to men. I remember a time when she did it to me on a regular basis.

  “Well, nice seeing you! Say ‘hi’ to Grace for me!” Amanda said, before continuing on her way to the ladies room and leaving Jeff to wonder who the hell “Grace” was.

  When my wife returned, she sat down and I asked “Who is 'Grace?’”

  Shrugging, Amanda said, “I have no idea,” and took a drink of her coffee. I laughed, somehow aware that everything would be okay.

  Unfortunately, I was wrong.

  TEN

  Cruise

  The cruise supporting Desert Shield, which later became Desert Storm, was only my third cruise, but the stress level on Ranger seemed much higher than usual this early on. I'm sure our destination and mission caused some of the stress, the bigger part being the hassle involved in winching our aircraft aboard, instead of flying out to meet the ship.

  Under normal circumstances, the ship would sail and within a few days, the air wings would begin to arrive. Each crew had to execute four carrier landings, or 'traps' in order to be qualified to fly during this cruise, something a pilot would move heaven and earth to make sure he accomplished, because not getting qualified meant a cruise full of admin hell, where the non-qualified pilot spent his days behind a desk doing paperwork, extra watches, all the stuff combat flyers hated doing. Plus, being a pilot who didn’t fly wasn’t exactly “career enhancing.” When the Wing flew out to the ship, the first trap accounted for 25% of a pilot's qualification, carrier landings we wouldn't have, since the Navy had loaded our A-6 In
truders onto Ranger. Spread out among an entire air wing, it meant a lot of activity to make up, since a briefing, refueling, a pre-flight check, a cat (catapult) launch, and the actual flight mission were all mandatory elements of each hop, before the trap was logged. Furthermore, because of the logistical nightmare of shuffling aircraft around the deck, up and down the elevators, etc...We had to 'hot seat' during these qualification missions, meaning changing aircrews while the engines still turned, quite dangerous if you didn’t stay on your toes, as well as stressful, having a bunch of different guys flying your aircraft.

  The thing about other pilots and BNs flying your airplane, aside from the personal turf thing, was the very real phenomenon of “stranger-breaking.” In my other time stream, my best friend, Gary Danner had once explained to me that materials get used to being handled in a certain way. Plastics, wood, even metals physically change as they are used, structurally adapting themselves to the forces acting upon them. Along comes a different person, who exerts different forces and stresses on the item and it breaks.

  No Naval Aviator wanted to break another flyer's kite, but we had little choice, and if we wanted to fly during this cruise, we had to get cruise qualified, so we shared aircraft.

  One of the reasons Pat and I made such a good team, involved proactivity, both of us hating procrastination with a passion. I hated putting off what I could do today because that kind of behavior had created a lot of the problems I lived with in my other life. Armed with this self-understanding, I had made a point to change my ways and not let procrastination live in me this time, and I succeeded. I think Pat's hatred of procrastination came from being the youngest of 6 Irish Catholic boys growing up in Boston, where if he didn't jump at the chances life offered, one or more of the other five would. Also, Pat was blessed with having too much energy to postpone something he either wanted, or HAD to do. “JFDIN,” pronounced “Jeff-Din” was his mantra. “Just Fuckin’ Do It Now.”

  So, we held no discussion about our strategy. When we weren't flying, or otherwise engaged, we'd be suited up and ready to jump in if an Intruder opened up. The flight schedule was so stacked up, an aircraft with no crew to fly would bring things to a grinding halt. So, Pat and I would hang out in the passage way just inside the hatch to the deck, in case the launch officer found he was an A-6E long, and needed someone to fly. Though he never would have done it, in one particularly long stretch of inactivity, while blue water came closer and closer, and the qual-deadline with it, Pat, obsessed with having his name first on the Qual list in our ready room, claimed if a two-seat F/A 18 Hornet came up, we would hit the ladders. The strategy paid off the second time we did this, when a pilot from the other Intruder squadron slipped while climbing the ladder to enter his aircraft. He hit the deck hard, throwing his right arm out to break his fall, breaking the wrist. The jet's turbines were still turning from the aircraft's last flight, and the cat officer remembered we'd been hanging around the day before, and had one of his sailors come looking for us. The young swabbie, clearly on his first cruise, poked his head around the open hatch, and seeing us, shouted “Lieutenant Biggs says if you guys wanna fly, you're up!”

  Pat and I looked at each other before moving quickly for the hatch, slipping through into the heavy breeze blowing on deck as Ranger moved through the water. The sailor got out of the way and then held the hatch open for the injured pilot and those helping him come through, before following us as we ran, heads down, toward the Intruder waiting to launch.

  Even though the original crew had run the pre-flight checklist, Pat and I did so again. We worked from printed lists that left no room to forget anything, but didn’t take our time. The cat schedule had already been thrown into disarray by the minor accident that gave us the opportunity to fly, and we wanted to do our best to make up for that lost time.

  By the time Pat received the signal to taxi our Intruder to the catapult, we had settled in, were comfortable our aircraft was in good enough condition to fly, despite two complaints we found that weren't serious enough to ground the plane. It was rare bird, especially later in the cruise, that didn't have at least a couple gripes. The gripes this Intruder were both 'up' gripes, which meant they represented problems needing to be addressed, but didn't keep the plane from safely completing its mission. “Down” gripes grounded the aircraft until they could be fixed. Pilots had the final say as to whether an aircraft was airworthy or not, a responsibility all of them took seriously.

  As Pat did his part to steer the Intruder into position for the cat personnel to connect the plane's nose gear to the hydraulic arm responsible for launching us into the sky, I had a chance to sit back with nothing to do. We would brief in the air, since we were a last-minute crew replacement. We would be refueling inflight, meeting another Intruder fitted with extra fuel tanks, about 50 miles from the ship. Routine, but better than simply circling the ship and landing again. But, for now, the task at hand was the launch, the “shot.”

  There's nothing like a cat shot.

  I don't care what anyone says, no carnival ride, training exercise, or even out of the blue accident comes close to being as thrilling as being shot off the deck of an aircraft carrier. The whole operation is filled with ritual, as most Naval activities are, but partly because if you don't know exactly when something like a catapult shot is going to happen, you could really hurt yourself. When you're a newbie, even with all the preparation, it's a shock when it happens. When you're more experienced and you get in sync with a cat crew during a cruise, you begin to anticipate when the catapult pressure is going to hit the critical level and then release, hurling you down the deck toward the end of the ship. It's important for everyone watch everyone else. The pilot's salute to the cat officer, his settling back against the headrest, and the beat of suspended time when all the energy produced by the steam driven catapult engine is coiled and ready to fire, are all important parts of the ritual.

  My method was to always be a bit ahead of Pat. I would nod casually to the cat crew member on my side of the aircraft, and settle back into my seat to the right and slightly lower than Pat's a second or so before he made a crisp, snapped salute. I'd be a second or so ahead of Pat, so when he made his salute, I was ready for the cat shot.

  The next time you're in an airliner, rolling down the runway, as the huge jet engines push the airplane forward, just before “rotation,” when the nose wheel lifts off the ground, you may experience a momentary visceral thill in your gut.

  I'm here to tell you that's NOTHING like a catapult launch, but, I suppose it's as close as a someone who never finds himself in an airplane taking off from an aircraft carrier will ever get.

  Out of the corner of my left eye, through my tinted eye shield, I saw Pat's salute, and his settling back into his seat, followed by a single beat. Then, the calm, stable and solid world liquified.

  The application of several Gs of force almost disconnects you from everything, as if you're outrunning the world, getting a little bit ahead of it. There is no gentle pressure, but rather as if a huge hand, with a fist as big as the airplane, hits you, pushing your entire body back into the seat. In training, you're taught to make sure your head is facing forward for the shot. The first cat shot where your head is turned to the side and you can’t face forward again until the giant fist lets go, teaches you to keep your head straight.

  Pilots and B/N's all develop their own personal behavior during the shot. Some, like me, remain quiet as they're thrilled with the speed and G-Forces involved, but some yell all the way down the deck, as if on a roller coaster at the fair. I flew once on a ferry mission with an Intruder pilot who started a huge rebel yell as soon as the catapult fired, hurling his plane forward. Not only didn't he stop after the G-Forces let up, he kept yelling and laughing halfway up to cruise, by which time he had slowly recovered and seemed to be unaware of his hysterics. While in cruise, he was as quiet and by-the-book as they get, but the launch was the most annoying thing I'd ever experienced. He'd been through three B/N’
s, and I heard later he'd finally found a flying partner who exhibited the same behavior. Pat had told me on the next WESTPAC (Western Pacific) cruise, the OPS Center would put their intercom on the PA during launch for the entire ship's entertainment. According to Pat, the bit had been funny the first four or five times, but got old pretty fast. Every now and then throughout that cruise, the OPS Center would, without fanfare or comment, pipe the Intruder's intercom to the ship's company.

  Seconds later, as always, able to pull ourselves from the back of our seats, as the G forces bled off, our airplane flying, we got down to business. Pat executed a shallow left clearing S-turn, to make sure the air around our aircraft was clear of any other planes or helos and the engines, turning full, begin to get purchase and push our bird up into the sky.

  The weather was perfect, crisp, and horribly cold air held at bay by the aluminum skin and thick plexiglass of the Intruder's canopy a few inches from our heads. Good to be in here, and not out there, I always thought in the gaps when I didn’t have enough to do.

  'Whaddya got, Richie?' Pat asked, referring to the food stores I carried in my flight bag, a stash of sweets and protein bars we called “pilot monkey food.” One of the B/N's jobs was to always have a good supply of “PMF,” since the last thing anyone wanted was a nutritionally deprived Intruder driver “calling the ball,” preparing to land on a dark, pitching deck.

  In my previous timeline life, a pilot friend of mine likened an aircraft carrier landing to “turning all the lights off on a football field in the pitch black, running at full speed to where you think the fifty yard line is, and diving headfirst, trying to hit a postage stamp with your tongue.” I can't remember if he had said with eyes open or closed, but you get the idea.