It is the day after Mother’s Day and for her treat, I take Ardis to dinner at the Reef Restaurant on the beach. As is always the case, whenever I look out to sea, my mind wanders back a couple of decades to the time I was learning how to fly Corsairs high above this very ocean.
“Sealord” was in control of all that happened in the oceanic skies. He was the disembodied voice inside my helmet who always answered when needed. As I raced around the sky, sometimes as fast as my A-7 could manage, I imagined Sealord sitting at his scope watching all the battles rage.
One day the mission called for two of us new guys to work as a team against our instructor who was playing the role of the bad guy. The profile called for departing NAS Cecil with a running rendezvous with a climb in a cruise formation to FL 250 (25,000 feet) where the 2 v 1 Air Combat Maneuvering (ACM) would take place.
As we came out of the chocks, I was the last one. Something was wrong with my jet, but fortunately, the final checkers were able to fix it. Because the other two jets were cooling their heels in marshal underneath the tower, the men working on my jet as final checkers were rushing.
I have always disliked rushing or hurrying. If someone is going to make a mistake, it will happen when people are in a hurry to finish a job. This is one of those universal rules, which comes to bite anyone and everyone who is in too much of a hurry. Now I found myself in that very situation.
As the final checkers were rushing around my jet to finish making certain everything was as it should be and the jet safe to fly, I was inside the jet rushing myself. I met with the other two in marshal and as I came around the corner, Lead called for taxi.
Soon we were on the runway. Lead was to the right, Dash 2 was on the centerline, and I was to the left for takeoff. Lead looked over his shoulder and gave the turn up signal and Dash 2 passed it on to me. I pushed my power lever up and checked my gauges; everything looked good and I turned and inspected Dash 2’s jet. He looked good—no missing panels, no fluids coming out of his jet, he looked ready to fly. At the same time, he was checking out my jet.
I gave him the thumbs up, he turned and checked out Lead’s jet and passed on the thumbs up. At that, Lead released his brakes, 10 seconds later, Dash 2 started his takeoff roll, and 10 seconds after that, I started down the runway myself. I watched as Dash 2 joined with Lead and a few moments later, I joined on the two other jets.
After checking in with Sealord, we set up for the engagements. I really enjoyed ACM. ACM was not as concrete as dropping bombs, but it still was most enjoyable. The nice thing about dropping bombs is that it was very objective; you had spotters on the ground who could tell how well you were doing your job. You could walk into the O-Club at the end of the day and throw down your kneeboard card on which you had scribbled your record of hits for the mission.
ACM on the other hand, was much more subjective and prone to one pilot declaring a victory only to hear comments from his opponent proclaiming, “Naw! You were way out of range and about 10 degrees out of parameter. No way you could have got me!”
Yeah, bombs are better.
We wrapped up from the last engagement and Lead called the final knock-it-off of the day. Since I was the one closest to America, the other two jets joined on me. The other new guy joined on my right and then Lead came up on my left. I was just about to pass the lead to him when all of a sudden, I heard a mike button click and he said, “Uh-oh.”
I hate it when someone says that while they’re looking at my jet.
It turned out that in the final checkers’ haste to get the job done, they only snapped two of the six latches that held the panel in place covering my avionics bay. This was normal procedure when the ordnancemen still had to arm the gun. However, since the problem caused the sailors to alter the final sequence, things got dropped. Since it was on the left side of the airplane and because I was to the left on the runway, no one had the chance to see the unfastened latches. Now the problem was the possibility of the 3 x 6 foot panel falling off the airplane as I flew back to base over the city of Jacksonville.
Lead detached me from the flight to fly “a hung ordinance approach” on my own back to Cecil. The other two proceeded on. I was confident the panel would stay on the airplane; after all, I had just spent 45 minutes ripping around the sky pulling four to five g’s as fast as 600 mph. The approach and landing were uneventful.
However, the flight left a bad taste in my mouth for being in a hurry–ever since that day all the way to today.
-30-
© 2011 J. Clark
Great story this morning Joe. Makes me want to be up flying but of course taking my time to get ready to go. I don’t like being hurried as well. Too many things can be forgotten. Once hurried through my checklist and forgot to set the DG. Went to make my first turns after take off and something just didn’t seem right. My settings for the pattern were off for sure until I realized what had happened.