Neptunus Lex

Since we’re on a bit of a flying jag (and heads “thunk” on computer desks across the land), SJS has a series of “getting back to basics” (i.e. prop-powered aircraft) vids up which he alerted us to over at The Other Site. To which I only replied, only partly in jest, “Rudder pedals. That you actually use when you’re not taxiing. Ugh!”

For what you mayn’t have considered, constant reader, is that - rotate though they do? - get engines generate no noticeable torque, neither on the run up nor in level flight.

Prop planes? Oh, so very.

When I was starting Primary flight training in Pensacola, Florida back in my long-lost, oft-lamented, egregiously misspent youth, we had two choices of machines to fly. The first was the venerable (that’s a code word in aviation meaning “old”) T-28 Trojan, a real beast of a machine with performance comparable to a World War II fighter - the Navy version had over 1,400 horses under the cowl and red-lined at over 300 knots. Not to mention the mechanical complexity of a radial engine trainer - say “cowl flaps and blower” to a fresh-faced flight student and watch him turn quizical - that’s a lot of aircraft to learn how to fly in.

Our other option was the T-34C Turbo Mentor - an aicraft known universally to the Trojan set as the “Turbo Weenie” because of the fact that, while it had a miniature jet engine turning it’s propeller - hence the “Turbo” in the aircraft name - it had barely a third the static horsepower of the T-28.

T-28 students had what passed among primary flight students for a devil-may-care panache: We used to joke that if there wasn’t any oil leaking from a T-28 the aircraft had to be down - the only reason could be that there wasn’t any left in the casing to leak - parts were hard to come by, and there was that great big, monster of an engine up front. Another common piece of wit was that you could tell the Trojan student by the bulging of his right thigh from battling all that torque.

There are three elements in play that make a prop-driven aircraft want to yaw the left during a takeoff roll: Torque, prop wash and p-factor. Torque is Newton’s old saw about “equal and opposite reactions” in play. It’s also what spins the prop, so it’s not like it’s a bad thing, but anyway.

Seated in the cockpit, the propeller is seen to rotate in a clockwise direction. If it was suddenly liberated from the engine mount, a high speed prop would want to walk briskly to your right until it either ran out of energy, or ran into something unyielding. Since it’s a fundamental part of the maintenanceman’s job description to ensure that it can’t get free, the opposite reaction generated is for the airframe attached to the prop to want to walk in the opposite direction, i.e., to the left. This is sensed as a yawing moment around the airframe’s horizontal axis. On the ground this necessitates a healthy dose of right rudder to keep the plane tracking down runway heading for the take-off roll. Conversely, a passive pilot could allow the plane to drift off the prepared surface and into the turf, but that attitude is robustly discouraged.

The same thing happens in flight, but the phenomenon gets a different focus - since the wheels are liberated from contact with the earth, the tendency is for the aircraft to want to roll in the opposite direction of the prop’s spin rather than “walk” (i.e. yaw). Roll is counteracted not with rudders, but with ailerons - in this case, right aileron to counter a left roll. A right-roll stick command puts the left aileron down (increasing lift on the left wing) and puts the right aileron up, decreasing lift on that wing. As we increase lift we also increase induced drag, which is that component of total drag generated as a function of lift (the other main component of total drag is parasitic drag, which is the resistance of the airmass to the airframe). Against the increased drag on the upgoing left wing, right rudder is applied to keep the nose and wings in “coordinated flight.”

The instrument below is found in prop aircraft to keep the pilot honest (and an analogue is found in jet aircraft to remind him of his roots, like):

In an uncoordinated (or “skidding”) turn to the right, the aircraft wingform symbol would reflect a right angle of bank but the ball - the black disk in the center of the liquid gauge - would be out to the right. “Right ball, right rudder” is used to bring it back to center. IP’s who considered themselves wags would sometimes pound on one side or another of a grossly out of balance aircraft with their fists, often causing their wild-eyed students to ask in alarm on the intercomm, “What is that banging sound?”

“Oh, that’d be the turn needle ball, trying to get back into the airplane,” he’d reply. Whether or not you found that sort of thing funny depended greatly on your perspective, I suppose.

Prop-wash is an effect related to the helical flow of air coming back off the propeller. It moves in the same direction as the prop, so the air on the right side of the airframe is moving “away” from the vertical tail while that on the left is moving “towards” it. Impinging on the left side of the tail it generates a left yaw moment around the horizontal axis which must be countered by, you guessed it, right rudder.

Finally, there’s the dreaded “P-factor.” The downgoing prop blades on the right side of the disk (seen from the cockpit) have a higher angle of attack - and therefore generate more thrust - than the upgoing blades do on the left. That provides a relatively weak (compared to the other factors) push to the left that once again must be countered by right rudder.

All of these effects reach their maximums at slower speeds when aerodynamic controls are less effective. Like on a carrier landing, or, heaven forbid, a bolter or waveoff wherein the guy who’s cobbing the throttle(s) up from an underpowered condition doesn’t have enough right rudder authority left to get the damned thing safely airborne again without going over the side.

Which, pace our too-long neglected E-2 brethren, is why the Navy was so very keen to get out of the whole propeller driven flight operations scheme just as soon as we could. Not even going there on the whole “critical engine” thing. And even if it weren’t easier to impress the chicks at the O’Club as a jet guy.

Which, you know: Priorities and all.

The four-ship typically comes in level at release altitude. For a 45 degree dive bombing pattern that’d be around 5000′ above ground level (AGL). Aligned with the attack heading, the lead will push it up to the planned release airspeed - typically around 450 knots calibrated airspeed - and the savvier wingmen will ensure that their jets are trimmed out in yaw as they attain release speed: Even modern jets get “bent,” and what is trimmed for level flight at 300 knots won’t always work at 450, while uncorrected yaw is a source of bombing inaccuracy. Once over the target, dash one will call, “Lead’s breaking,” on the aux radio, followed by his wingmen every four seconds or so thereafter, 2, 3, 4.

A four-g climbing turn to downwind at military power, targeting 10,000′ AGL and 350 knots - just enough to keep a little g on the jet. Each pilot will strive to maintain about a 3nm arc around the target - a 30 degree angle of bank turn and the target down there just above his left shoulder. Quickly through the stores management system, ensure that the SIM mode is de-selected - no bombs come off in SIM - the proper stores are selected for release on the digital multi-function display, the target designator control is assigned to the HUD (for a visual release), air-to-ground master mode is selected, stores multiple and programs are properly set (with correct fuzing option) and finally that the Master Arm switch is set to “Arm” just as he approaches the roll-in. If they don’t do each of these steps in sequence, the bomb won’t come off, the jet goes through “dry” and this we label buffoonery. It makes no sense to fight your way into a target just to go through dry because you boogered up the switchology.

The wingmen chase the jets ahead of them in the bombing pattern using a combination of lead, pure and lag pursuit while jockeying the throttles to ensure that they 1) not hit anyone, 2) keep sight of everyone, 3) get themselves in a position to make their own attack runs with a clear lane of fire.

With thirty degrees to go before final attack heading, the lead will run his throttles back up to mil, increase the g by levering aft on the stick before unloading to swiftly overbank the jet and pull the nose down almost to the target, calling “One’s in.” The armament data line is displaced by a calculated angular distance - the “aim off distance” or AOD - from the jet’s flight path, typically four to six degrees for low drag ordnance. Another unloaded roll - loaded rolls take longer and displace the jet away from the target - back upright to get the wings underneath him, then (assuming good alignment and no crosswinds) bunt the jet to a g-loading conforming to the cosine of the dive angle, or 0.9 g in a 45 degree dive. Now he’s on the wire. Now he’s on “government time.”

Throttle back a bit - supersonic release of conventional ordnance is considered bad form - and the altimeter unwinds like a clock in a science fiction movie while the pilot designates the target (if using the “Auto” mode, or constantly computed release point) or else aligns the bomb fall line on the target while waiting for the constantly computed impact point cross to come up in the HUD. Although the bomb release button (or “pickle”) is always hot with an armed jet in CCIP, the impact point is underneath the fuselage and out of the HUD field of view until just before release altitude, so waiting for the aiming cross to emerge from below the nose takes a degree of patience bordering on faith which can nevertheless be worth waiting for: CCIP gives great hits.

The airframe starts to howl as the speed builds up.

Auto releases are more appropriate to the exotic weapons, and offer other flexibilities as well which are beyond the scope of this post. In an Auto release, the target is designated using an aiming diamond in the HUD, which presents wind-corrected attack steering and a release cue that marches down towards the velocity vector (a representation of aircraft flight path). Weapons computers are smart enough to handle various g-loadings with a degree of relative aplomb, but for optimal accuracy a stable, non-accelerating delivery platform is desired.

The windscreen fills with dirt at a rate which can at first be alarming. Weapons release comes quickly, at about 5000′ AGL: Final attack tracking time from designation to release is ideally no more than 4-5 seconds. Any more than that and you’ll be showing a little more thigh to hostile ground gunners than is deemed appropriate to a fully explored career - and then it’s time to execute the dive recovery. No point in following a dumb bomb into the turf with a smart pilot. You’ll typically hit long anyway.

A four to five g pull back up to the horizon and then 30-40 degrees or so above the horizon by 3000′ AGL to avoid your own frag pattern, with the throttles coming back up to the mil stops again. “One’s off.” That should be close, looked like a good run.

“Two’s in.”

You’re not supposed to spot your own hits. You do it anyway. There’s a column of smoke northeast of the bullseye a bit. Not bad. You find dash-four in the pattern - there he is approaching the abeam position - and work your way back into the downwind for another hack. Five more bombs to go.

The target controller calls on the UHF, prime freq: “One your hit was 25 feet at two o’clock.” Not quite a shack hit, but not bad either, not for a first bomb. Put you in the running for one of three bets with your wingmen, “first hit, best hit, CEP.”

“Two’s off.”

“Three’s in.”

CEP is short for “circular error probable,” the mathematical calculation of the radius wherein 50% of your bombs should land. The smaller the radius, the better the bomber. Everything’s a competition.

“Three’s off.”

“Four’s in.”

Check your gas, go through the switchology once again - you never want to go through dry. Laugh to yourself a little that you get paid for this. Plan to aim 12 feet at eight o’clock on the next go around. You can do better than a 25 foot miss.

“Four’s off.”

Your turn: Time to get back on the wire, go back on government time..

“One’s in.”

If you’re really lucky, you’ll get to do it again tonight.

Previously

The ship’s Captain stood by his chair on the bridge in his Service Dress Blues, his binoculars fixed on the channel marker just outside the carrier turning basin at Naval Station North Island, California. He briefly suppressed, and then just as briefly gave in to the temptation to sweep the pier with the binos, looking for his wife and children. Seven months. It had been such a very long seven months. There were thousands of people thronging on the pier, waving flags and signs – “Welcome Home, Son!” and “We Missed You Mommy!”

The civilian harbor pilot stood just to his right, in amiable but meaningless conversation with the Officer of the Deck – this was an experienced crew, and the pilot’s main purpose was to control the three tugboats that brought the great warship alongside the pier after it had made its final turn, gliding in.

The flight deck was starkly bare of aircraft and gleaming in the mid-day light – the air wing had flown off earlier that day, at 0600 that morning, and for the first time in half a year, he could see the full sweep and breadth of the real estate entrusted to his care. The handler and his men had done a brilliant job in the post-launch scrub down, and – combined with the rust work done while in port in Perth, Australia - the ship could receive visitors just as soon as she was moored without fear of  embarrassing herself. So long, the Captain had to admit, as they didn’t see her port side, the side that faced to sea when moored – there had not been enough money available to touch up the port side.

The reality of what he had accomplished – what they had all accomplished – was thrusting itself upon him, even as he tried to keep focused on the task at hand: Mooring 100,000 tons of aircraft carrier to unyielding concrete with only a breasting barge and some Yokohama fenders to separate them was not child’s play. Still, he was bursting with the pride of what his crew had done, and he had to admit that he was proud as well to be their commanding officer: They had gone half-way around the globe and back again carrying persistent combat power with them. They had provided critical, life-saving support to embattled soldiers and Marines and they had done so superbly, generating over a thousand combat and combat support sorties, dropping tons of high explosive ordnance. They had navigated through some of the most challenging strait transits on the globe and conducted six port visits, including two in the Arabian Gulf itself, and in doing so had amassed an almost flawless record – only half a dozen liberty incidents had occurred, none of which had been deemed particularly significant. The flag had been shown and it had not been disgraced. There had been a few more “crunched” aircraft on the roof than he would have liked – one was too many – and they’d hit a rough patch controlling foreign object damage to the engines of embarked jet aircraft. The FOD problem had eventually been overcome through the application of “intrusive” leadership techniques. On the positive side, the crew’s promotion levels had been high, as had their re-enlistments – morale was superb. Taken as a whole, a solid record of operational achievement. Very solid. Not much longer now and it would be over. Suddenly ambivalent, he pursed his lips again at the thought – soon it would be over. It seemed so long since he had known anything else but this.

The pilot was at his shoulder saying that in his considered opinion, it was a good time to shift over to Aux Conn. The Captain concurred saying, “Officer of the Deck, make it so.”

“Aye, aye, Captain. Attention in the pilothouse, the Officer of the Deck is shifting the conn from the pilothouse to Aux Conn.”

“Quartermaster, aye!”

“Bosun’s mate, aye!”

“Helmsman, aye!”

“Lee helmsman, aye!”

Aux Conn then, for the last time in his career as an aircraft carrier CO. The ship would go into a maintenance period as soon as she moored – she was as tired as any of them - and his change-of-command was just one month away. Barring an unforeseen emergency, he would never again get this ship underway. It had been the longest two years of his life, and yet somehow the shortest. Where had the time gone?

“All stop, Conn,” the pilot said.

Having first made eye contact his with his CO, the conning officer spoke into his microphone, “All engines stop.”

“All engines stop, aye,” came the answer from the lee helmsman, followed by, “Conning officer, all engines are stopped.”

“Very well.”

“Left rudder, captain?” the CO asked the pilot.

“Yes, Captain, I think so.”

The Conning officer nodded to both of them spoke again into his mic, “Thirty degrees left rudder.”

“30 degrees left rudder, aye. Conning officer my rudder is left 30 degrees, no new course given.”

“Very well.”

Two years in command, and how nervous he had been at the beginning of it, how carefully he had sought to hide that emotion from his crew. He had worked his entire lifetime to be here and now it was almost over. Although he had gotten a great deal more rest during the oceanic transit than he had in the cramped and bustling Arabian Gulf, the time zone changes every other day for the last two weeks had left their toll on him, especially when combined with “channel fever” – the excitement of almost being home. When this is over I will sleep for weeks, he thought. But not right away, he added with just a hint of a twinkle in his eye. Not right away.

“Three Two, push one,” the pilot spoke into his handheld VHF radio, and the CO looked at the plan he’d inked on the back of his hand – Tug 32 was on the port quarter, to bring her stern side to.

“Three Two, push one, captain,” acknowledged the tug’s master.

“Two Four back two,” said the pilot – port bow, the Captain noted, nodding – that would swing her head around.

“Back two, aye, captain.”

It took so long, the last hundred feet. It seemed to take an hour and there she was on the pier, and the Captain felt his heart leap into his throat – she had always been the most beautiful woman he had ever known, but he lowered his glasses again, put the emotion back as best he could. Soon. Soon.

“Three Two back one”

“Back one, captain.”

“Rudder amidships, Captain?” the pilot offered quietly.

“Make it so conn.”

“Aye, aye, Captain,” and speaking into his microphone, “Rudder amidships!”

“Rudder amidships, aye!” followed by, “Conning officer my rudder is amidships, no new course given!”

“Very well.”

She was surging slightly forward. “Shall I back engines, captain?” the CO asked the pilot.

“Back one-third for a shot, Captain,” and then speaking into his VHF, “Two two, stem on – push two.”

“All engines back one third.”

These commands were quickly answered and in a matter of moments it was time to stop the engines again, her surge checked. She crept in towards the pier, pressed by the thrashing tugs.

The ship’s XO joined him in Aux Conn with 50 feet to go. “We’re all set, Captain. Quarterdeck watches are manned and the reception team is ready in your in port cabin for the Three-Star’s visit. The hangar deck is mostly clear, but the air wing guys are waiting for liberty call like they think they’d earned it or something.”

The CO shared a brief smile with his XO - both of whom had, as airwing pilots waiting impatiently on hangar decks earlier in their careers wondered what on earth could take so long to moor a ship - before thanking him for all his hard work making the ship ready for visitors – he’d make a great CO some day. Thirty feet. Twenty-five. Now twenty.

“Captain, Boats – permission to fire shot lines forward and aft?”

“Permission granted to fire shot lines forward and aft, Boats.”

Ten feet now, and suddenly rifles cracked on the hangar bay, startling some of the family members on the pier as shot lines raced out over the heads of waiting linesmen on the pier, standing by their mooring bollards. These sailors attached messenger lines to the shot lines, which were hauled back aboard and in turn attached to the great mooring lines, each of them as thick as a man’s forearm. Those heavy cables were pulled back ashore, and the CO held his breath as the first mooring loop was passed over the bollard. “We’re moored, conn.”

The conning officer spoke into his mic once more, “Moored, Boats.”

“Moored, shift colors,” the Bosun’s Mate of the Watch cried into his 1MC announcing system. It was done. They were home.

On the jackstaff forward at the tip of the bow the jack ran up – red and white horizontal stripes and a coiled viper in the center of its field – “Don’t Tread On Me” it read, as it had read during the War of 1812, as it had again since shortly after 9/11. The Captain knew that the ensign at the mainmast was coming down, just as he knew that it was being raised aft on the flagstaff, even though he could not see either event occurring from Aux Conn. He knew because he had trained this crew, three thousand men and women and because he loved them.

“That was a good cruise, Captain,” remarked the XO, “congratulations.”

“It was a good cruise XO, welcome home. The best part is that we brought all of them back. Every last one of them.”

No mean feat to bring all of them home alive. The flight deck of an aircraft carrier was a hideously dangerous place even in peacetime, nor were a ship’s engineering spaces to be trifled with. It was altogether too rare that a ship came home unscarred by violence and loss.

Seven months he thought. Seven months and two years. He wandered back into the pilothouse and looked at his chair there on the port side of the bridge. How many hours had he spent there, awake, asleep? How many meals had he eaten in that chair? How many hushed conferences, how many critical decisions? How many near misses?

Far too many to count, and in any case it didn’t matter anymore. All that mattered was that his ship and crew were safely home from the uttermost parts of the world, their mission accomplished - that and the fact that his wife and children were waiting for him on the pier. He took one last look up and down the length of the naked flight deck, nodded slightly to himself. A good ship.

“I’m going below,” he announced to no one in particular.

“Captain’s off the bridge!” rang the answering shout of the bosun’s mate of the watch.

Butch in the Box sent me a PowerPoint brief demonstrating the tough love culture of naval aviation. The brief itself can be found here (right click, save as) but highlights are provided below:

In the beginning was the jacket, and the jacket was precious on account of the “been there, done that” patches, but it got left behind.

And the Training Officer found the aformentioned bit of flight gear laying adrift, and like any good Training Officer he made things right. And that’s when the unassailable court of squadron opinion was benched:

The evidence -

(Friday, October 15, 2004)
Wally’s jacket is found unattended in Bldg 797 classroom by fellow aviator.
Attempts to locate Wally are unsuccessful.
Jacket is placed in Training Officer’s locker for safe-keeping until Wally and his patch-saturated jacket are properly reunited.

(Thursday, October 21, 2004 8:15am )
Wally sends an e-mail to “all VS-41” inferring that the jacket has been stolen.
He claims to have had it in his possession “just last night”.

(E-mail of Thursday, October 21, 2004)
“Last night at 1600 I left my flight jacket where I left it for the past 6 months, on the back of my chair in room 202 in bldg 797. When I came in this morning at 0730 it was missing.”

(The jacket had been in the TO’s locker for 6 days at this point…)

The Charges-

Failure to accept responsibility for his own actions when he lost positive control of his crap.
Not once did he ever mention that the jacket might have been “lost” or “misplaced”.
Implying that there are thieves among your co-workers is not very neighborly.

Acting like a Drama-Queen in describing the loss of his jacket and patches.

Specifically,
(E-mail of Thursday, October 21, 2004)

“If you might know where it is I’d really appreciate getting it back, it’s irreplaceable… and it serves a personal memento of my operational experience.”

Sounds like you’re describing your cruise sock…

The penalty assessed -

If you want to act like a whiny broad, you might as well dress like one too…

Read the rest of this entry »

In 1918, a young man from the Ozarks lied about his age - he was only 16 - to enlist in the Navy and “see the world.” He served aboard a battleship, the USS New Hampshire. His name was Lloyd Brown, and he was our oldest living naval veteran of the First World War.

He died Thursday at age 105, survived by three daughters.

We are reduced.

“They shall not grow old, as we who are left grow old:
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun, and in the morning, we will remember them.”
– Laurence Binyon, from “The Fallen,” 1914

Returning to a familiar them, I’ve related in the past how I got my radio callsign, a story that, though it does not redound entirely to my credit, nevertheless is better than some. “Sport” you have already heard about, but there were a couple of guys who went through flight school with me in Meridian with similar names, and who therefore got similar callsigns. The first guy’s last name was “Satterfield,” which was abbreviated to “Slat,” while the second guy’s last name was “Sutterfield,” a name which, when similarly emended, ended up being a little less comfortable to use on the radio.

That was back in the 80’s though, before we’d gotten our collective sneakers hammered by the post-Tailhook ‘91 acculturation experience, so while unfortunate, the second callsign was by no means uniquely egregious. In fact when he got to the fleet to fly Tomcats, he was paired with a fellow whose last name was “Znatchko,” and whose callsign ended up being an appropriately euphonious synonym for “grab.”

If you’re not keeping up, you really need to try a little harder, because this is a PG-13 blog and I’m not going to paint you a picture.

Anyway, the pairing of the two meant that “their” jet had both of their callsigns on the canopy rail, which would have been fine, really, in the days before the fairer sex went to sea aboard warships in large numbers, except for the fact that this was also the squadron’s airshow bird. This meant that not only was their (to us) humorous pairing of fore and aft callsigns a matter of private amusement within guarded military installations, but also that the straights got to see what passed for naval entertainment on the civilian airshow circuit - picture: Young children still working through their phonetics sounding it out aloud before being roughly yanked away by their speechless parents. 

Now, some of us learn faster than others, and they get to fly Hornets while others have to learn by repetition. This helps explain, I suppose, why certain members of the west coast Tomcat community decided it would be sporting (once again, in a post-Tailhook environment) to cross swords with former Congressman Pattsy Schroeder (D-Colo) - a lady whose enthusiasm for all things military went largely unremarked upon during her illustrious career - staging ribald plays at the O-Club (and then leaving incriminating banners to be discovered by Those Who Are Never Amused afterwards) and even going so far at one point as to faxing unkind and in any case improbable suggestions to the congressman’s office recommending what she might do with herself. From the squadron ready room. Not knowing their gear well enough to realize that, like tracers, faxes point both ways.

In time, sufficient heads of appropriate commanders had rolled around on the deck for an adequate duration as to make even the Tomcat guys come to see the error of their ways (while clearing the path to flag rank for a bunch of other guys along the way).

Which series of events might have cleared the path to this kind of thing, had in fact it ever actually happened:

RMKS/1: THE DEPUTY COMMANDANT FOR AVIATION IS COMMITTED TO AN EFFICIENT AVIATION TRANSITION/CONVERSION (T/C) PROGRAM. THIS JSFADMIN

DIRECTS AND CONVERTS ALL CALL SIGN AWARD PROCESSES TO BE INTEGRATED INTO NEW CALL SIGN AWARD PROCESS [CALLPROPENT] AS JOINT STRIKE FORCE DESIRES TO STREAMLINE AND PROVIDE CONSISTENCY IN CALL SIGN AWARDS FOR ALL US AVIATORS.

RMKS/2: THE ASST JOINT CHIEF OF STAFF COMMISSION HAS DIRECTED ALL CURRENT DEPARTMENTAL COMMANDANTS FOR AVIATION TO COMMIT TO AN EFFICIENT AND INTEGRATED PROCESS TO FACILITATE THE INTERCHANGE OF PROFESSIONAL AND TACTICAL EXPERTISE WITHIN ALL AVIATION GROUPS, AS WELL AS ASSIST HQMC IN BALANCING CULTURAL AND COMMUNICATIVE PROCESS INVENTORIES IN ALL REFERENCED FIGHTER AIRCRAFT COMMUNITIES. RELATED TO/IN WHICH PERSONAL CALLSIGNS ARE AWARDED AND UTILIZED AS SOP REGARDING SHIP TO AIR, AIR TO AIR, GROUND TO AIR, AIR TO SHIP, AIR TO GROUND, AIR TO UNSPECIFIED AND UNSPECIFIED TO AIR COMMUNICATIONS.

RMKS/3: THE ASST JOINT CHIEF OF STAFF COMMISSION AND ASSIGNED DEPUTY AND/OR DEPARTMENTAL COMMANDANTS FOR AVIATION ARE COMMITTED TO AN EFFICIENT CONVERSION OF ALL SUSPECT CALLSIGNS.
1. SUSPECT CALLSIGNS ARE DEFINED AS, BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE EXISTING DEFINITIONS, ANY CALLSIGNS THAT IMPLY GENDER SPECIFIC PROWESS, GASTRONOMICAL EXPERTISE, PHYSICAL IMPAIRMENT OR DYSFUNCTION, SUSPECT FAMILY GENECOLOGY OR HERITAGE /ACTUAL OR ESTIMATED/…
4. IN COMPLIANCE OF RECENT USN TAILHOOK 91 INVESTIGATION, ALL CALLSIGNS THAT ARE DEEMED TO REPRESENT A HOSTILE /NON-WAR CATEGORY OF HOSTILITY/ OR UNCOMFORTABLE WORKING ENVIRONMENT NEEDS COMMITTEE REVIEW.

Which - although it fairly drips with bureaucratic authenticity, I kind of doubt, because Enya? The kid whose callsign I wrote about on the first link at the top?

 Pure gold.

Our conversation below on the Code of Conduct and Leading Sailor Turney brought some thoughts back to mind that I hadn’t turned over in quite a number of years.

I had three deployments flying over Iraq enforcing sanctions in the southern no-fly zone between the wars. Each time we went the political situation was a little different. During my first trip up there 1994, we mostly flew two-ship defensive counter-air missions, designed to protect Kuwaiti and the southern Iraqi Shia provinces from air attack by a vengeful Saddamite air force. It was pretty peaceful for the most part, and in fact we used to recce SAM sites by doing target acquisition missions in the threat envelope, vying to see who could bring back the best FLIR video. Crazy when I think about it now, but we’d won the war, hadn’t we?

We didn’t know any better.

By the time of my last flying deployment in 1998-99, the focus had changed and each of our “box” hops was like a mini-strike, complete with tanking plans, SEAD and USAF coordination. Tensions escalated in December of ‘98 - we got to the Gulf just after Saddam had gone through one of his UN inspector-ejecting spasms, and in time to join a previously stationed east coast carrier that had been launching air strikes the previous four days in support of President Clinton’s Operation DESERT FOX. We launched one strike of our own - I wasn’t on that strike, I was setting up to lead our ship’s second strike in country - when the word came down that we’d accomplished whatever it was we were supposed to have been accomplishing and that it was time to stand down.

When we had first gotten there, the airspace had been fairly unrestricted - there was one long-range SAM site in Najaf, and another, shorter range one in Basra I believe, but after that it was clear sailing almost all the way up to Bagdhad, or at least as far as the 32nd parallel. But during our 30-day, self-imposed stand-down - ostensibly to show our sensitivity by observing Ramadan - Saddam threw every surface-to-air missile system he could scrape together into our airspace.

What had been relatively permissive environment was now a damned tight bit of maneuver space, into which a lot of high speed aluminum was routinely packed, most of it going in different and non-complimentary directions.

And as if all those machines weren’t a sufficient threat to each other, when Ramadan ended and we started flying in the Box again, Saddam started shooting at us - anti-aircraft artillery, mostly, since we were smart enough to stay out of the missile engagement zones and the SAM operators were (mostly) smart enough not to shine their radars at us when we were out of range. Churchill said that there is nothing quite so exhilarating as being shot at and missed, which is true at first, but after a while it can also get nettlesome.

The odds of getting hit by undirected AAA at the altitudes we operated at were pretty small - and undirected AAA was the main threat, as anyone shining a fire control radar on an arty tube was begging for a self-defense anti-radiation missile to be shoved down his throat - but while small, the odds were non-zero. On top of the ever present risk of clacking into one another, we used to also fret about getting hit by a “golden BB.” After all, you put enough trash in the air, and eventually someone’s going to run into it, which, if it hits you someplace vital then you’ll have to ditch the jet and go for a walk.

In very likely the same neighborhood where someone was just shooting at you. Which sucks.

Speaking of suck, there are few experiences to match, for sheer density of compacted suckage, SERE school. “Survival, evasion, resistance and escape.” Even though our instructors were Americans, and military servicemen who at their heart wanted to make sure that we all got through it OK, it was still pretty much the Worst Thing Ever. The lesson I most of all took away from that was, “Don’t get captured. Ever.”

People carried different things on their trips into “the Box.” On top of all the usual survival gear, I carried a lot of extra water, a blood chit, morphine ampules (it may be true as the the Marines say that “pain is weakness leaving the body,” but it’s also true that it’s easier to run south on broken ankles if you’ve got morphine in your system), a 9mm pistol (although I would have much preferred a .45, they weren’t issuing them) and two mags of ammo, 16 rounds in all.

I was suiting up one day and noticed that one of my wingmen - a junior guy whom I respected, and a real knife-in-the-teeth warrior in an airplane - wasn’t carrying a pistol. I asked him why. Turned out that one of the guys he’d known who got bagged by a SAM during the ‘91 scrape was quickly surrounded by Republican Guards before he’d even had a chance clear his parachute, much less clear leather. The agitated Iraqis - and I reckon you’d be agitated too, if someone had been bombing the hell out of you pretty much non-stop for five weeks - yanked his pistol out of its holster and shoved it in his mouth, which if you’ve ever hefted and smelt a pistol is a pretty vivid image even before you paint the angry Iraqi soldier into the background. That was enough for my man.

Which was right for him, I guess - you couldn’t make a guy carry a personal sidearm, or anyway, having ordered him to carry it, you could scarcely order him to use it in his own self-defense unless you wanted to jump out of the jet beside him when he went down. Which, they may have done that sort of thing back during the Korean War, but it’s fallen out of favor in recent years.

I felt differently of course. I told him that one of my first mentors told me that if you get shot down the war hadn’t ended, it’s just the tactics that have changed. And while that may sound like fighter pilot braggadocio, it was also true that if there was one Iraqi farmer there with a pitchfork standing between me and liberty, it’d be nice to have Mr. Glock around to demonstrate his poverty of options, came down to it.

What I didn’t say but was privately thinking was that 16 rounds gave you 15 chances to escape and one alternative to surrender.

It’s funny what you think about.

Long, long ago it was, in the land that was, shortly after the final dinosaur had heaved his last breath, and while the earth was still a-cooling, like. The Gipper was in charge of the federal, and your correspondent was a junior officer among that cohort of the few, the happy, few, the band of Hornet bubbas who strode the earth like jolly green giants, in flight suits.

High desert warriors we were, establishing our digs in the hamlet of Lemoore (population 14,000, very nearly - as the WikiPedia page notes, the new Motel 6 is very popular among visitors) or maybe the teeming metropolis of Hanford just down the road a bit (population 40,000, or so - did you know that Slim Pickens grew up in Hanford? I didn’t, until just now). But mostly we were engaged in the Art and Science of breaking up other people’s gear, just for the job satisfaction that was in it, while flicking aside any such as would try to get in our way. We flew from our lodgings at the Naval Air Station over into scenic venues east of the Sierra range such as Death Valley, and the Panamint, and the Walker River dry lake bed. Sure, they weren’t much for looks, but no one much cared what you did over there and the environment suited us just fine.

Not least of us in those ancient times was a man y-clept Seamon. A right good stick he was, and personable too and probably he deserved better, having joined the sea service, than to think that with a last name like his it would all work out for the best. Now I have previously regaled you, gentle reader, on the inherent, inveterate, malicious cruelty of callsign assignment. Even given that, I ask you to put aside, for the instant, the confusion that attends to an officer whose last name is homonymic for the lowest ranking member of the sea service. It might sound all nautical and such in isolation, but putting “lieutenant” together with “seaman” was a recipe for the kind of low japery that gave Joseph Heller a head start in this cruel world.

But it was worse than that, since naval aviators - as a class - are addicted to the kind of infantilism-cum-humor that would extend the metaphor further, indeed: Well past the pale of civil propriety. Thus it was that Lieutenant Seamon’s designated delta tau chi nickname was “Sp*rm.” (Out of a certain sense of delicacy - not to mention the perverse Google hits that are in it - I choose to modify his call sign for this venue.)

A good sport he was, and he bore up under the strain of being called “Sp*rm” by his best friends as well as anyone might have done, although I cannot think that he ever enjoyed it. One day it came to pass that he was the wingman on a 2vX hop against four FA-18’s from his sister squadron, themselves simulating the rough nags that used to be exported by the Evil Empire unto them such as who could afford to pay good hard currency sufficient to die foolishly in air combat. This simulation our fellas accomplished by restricting their radar modes at range, their close-combat modes in close and modulating their afterburner usage at the merge so as to present the under-performing simalcrums of those who’d dare to test their mettle against the US Navy’s finest in second class gear.

By way of introduction you should know that in fighter aviation, we’re very big on communications brevity. Quick’s the word, and smart’s the action, and never use two words where one would suffice. So when a wingman says to his lead, “Tally 2, visual, engaged,” what he’s really said is, “I see two of them bad fellers, I see you as well, and I’m maneuvering with an offensive advantage.” On the other hand, he might say, “Blind, no joy,” which communicates that he sees neither his wingman, nor any of his foes. Further down the totem pole on the scale of inutility would be the wingman who called, “Tumbleweeds,” which marvelous terse form of expression means “I don’t see them, I don’t see you, I don’t have a radar contact, and - as far as I know - I am not targeted: I got nothin’.”

There’s no comm brevity reply for that, but if there were it might sound something like, “Thanks for coming.”

Anyway, the good guys made it to the merge with their adversaries, and right good swirl they had of it, too. It’s no mean feat once you’re engaged with a gaggle of adversaries in similar airframes to know exactly which of them is the good guy and who deserves a good shooting after a turn or two. You can get all mixed up and turned around, like. Sometimes you have to resort to the radios in order to make sure you don’t shoot the wrong person, which is considered very bad form.

Which is what happened when one of the four bandits lost SA to his own wingman, but had a good tally on our hero, just out of missile range right in front of him and trying to extend out of the fight. The bandit lead, having momentarily lost track of his wingie, asked him for his “status,” essentially demanding, “Yo. What’s up?” to which the bandit wingman inauspiciously replied, “I’m blind, I’ve got Sp*rm on my nose.”

Now, for joy of verbal sally and quick repartee the FA-18 community - motto: “No slack in light attack,” yields the stage to no one, but this particularly graphic formulation, coming as it did in the midst of a vast aerial brawl, left all the whole world shocked into momentary speechlessness. This uncharacteristic silence was followed of course, by the kind of violent wheezing which is the very limit of human capability when uproarious laughter is constrained by a well-fit oxygen mask.

For a while there, it was borderline unsafe.

Someone sagely called a “knock-it-off” before the distraction of reply became too much to bear. The whole gaggle headed back to the home drome, with some of ‘em heading back there faster than others. At any rate, in short time this exchange was memorialized for eternity in the squadron hit log. Shortly thereafter, cooler heads prevailed, and nugget or no, the decision was made that “Sp*rm” really was an untenable call sign for a naval aviator. Thus remonstrated, the JOPA scratched their collective noggins and lit upon a brilliant inspiration: “Let’s call him ‘Sp*rt’, instead.”

And that “*” does not stand for, “a, e, i, or o.” No. Alas.

Or at least it didn’t, at least until our man got orders to fly for the Blue Angles. Once there, the publicity conscious leadership decided that “Sport” would do right well, all things considered.

They do a lot of traveling of the world, the Blue Angles do - it’s bad form to scare the straights.

Was doing some spring cleaning in the garage, and this beat up old pic came up from out of the depths, like.

Two MK-84’s with M904 fuses a station 8 VER (and two on t’other side no doubt as well, or she’d be out of symmetry limits). AIM-9M on station 9, and the Great White Hope on station 6. Oh, drop tanks too, of course. It is a Hornet.

I just wonder who the kid is with cocky smirk and the head of dark hair.

On the back is written “Earnest Will, North Arabian Sea, July 1987.”

That was almost 20 years ago. Doesn’t seem possible.

–

Tech assist bleg: Also surfacing was the VHS tape displaying your correspondent’s experience in the g-tolerance centrifuge at Warminster, PA. If I recall correctly, those images might provide us all with an entertaining moment or two. How best to digitize them?

It’s funny how the memory well can run dry, and then something comes along and primes the pump and there’s one story after another waiting to spill out of you. This one, like yesterday’s, is not my own, but told to me by the man to whom it happened. Another Marine captain, an instructor in the TA-4J training squadron in Meridian, Mississippi. Had a livid scar across his eyebrow, a white line that ran from atop his brow half way to his right ear.

I often wondered how he got it. One day, without prompting, he told me.

It was a night bombing hop out of Cubi Point Naval Air Station, south of Olongapo in the Philipines. He was dash-2 on a dark and drizzling night - a night maybe, where wisdom might have called for discretion as the better part of valor, but that was not our culture in those days. We didn’t scrub for darkness, and we didn’t scrub for weather if there was any way around it. Only non-hacks cancelled. They were Marine attack pilots. They were going flying.

It was a ten-second separation take-off, and he watched through the bulletproof glass in front of him as the taillight of his lead faded into the muggy darkness. Having waited the alloted time, he ran his engine up to mil, released the brakes and felt the familiar kick of the A-4F “SuperFox” engine behind him. Dark enough to be on and off the gauges on the go, backing up the runway edge lights as they flashed by with his AJB-3 gyro-compass. The little bomber’s nose got light at 120 knots, and at computed lift off speed he hauled back on the stick. Reluctantly, the heavy jet rotated to a take-off attitude, and up came the flaps as he transitioned to level flight above the harbor. After a moment to climb and gain some airspeed on course, he turned hard left to avoid mountainous terrain a mile or two ahead.

In the turn he strained over his left shoulder to re-acquire his lead’s tail light in the gloom, finally finding it, nearer than he had anticipated. He focused with all of his energy on setting the light in the proper quadrant of his forward glareshield, trying his best to be a good wingman and make a safe rendezvous. The sight picture looked strange - the lead’s tail light seemed to grow far too quickly, and - alarmed - he pulled the throttle back to idle and extended the speedbrakes in anticipation of an under-run. Still the light loomed ever closer, and he wrapped the jet up in a hard, belly-up turn, trying to shred airspeed as best he could - trying to avoid a collision. The last thing he distinctly recalled hearing before he struck the water’s surface at a 150 knots was the wheedling cry of the radar altimeter - which, given his intended altitude, didn’t make any sense.

There was a single bright flash of pain, and then down came the darkness like a falling curtain, and the darkness lasted an indeterminate time.

When he awoke, it was in slow stages and he felt pain in several places. He did not know where he was or how he had come to be there, only that he was heavily seated in a cramped space and restrained around the shoulders and hips. Something warm flowed across his face while a cool wetness rose around his legs, climbing to mid thigh. The snoring sound of his oxygen mask was loud in his ears, but louder still was the voice of Ray, his roomate, “It’s time to wake up, Mark. It’s time to go.”

“Tired,” he tried to reply through thickened lips, adding, “hurts.”

“I know, but you’ve got to try, you’ve got to get up, we’ve got to go,” and now he felt his roomate shaking him, slapping him around and he raised his arms in protest even as he came more fully awake and aware of his surroundings.

He was seated in the cockpit of his A-4F SuperFox, at the bottom of Subic Bay. He had cracked his head against the eight-day clock on impact - the light he had been attempting to rendezvous on was not his lead’s tail light but instead a navigational buoy in the harbor - the warmth across his face was blood, one of his legs was broken and the fingers of his left hand were smashed. The pain washed over him with panic following close behind - the water around his legs was rising. For a moment he considered pulling the ejection handle, even reached up for it, but his roomate shouted at him, “NO!” and he realized that Ray was right. The canopy would never clear under the water pressure, if he didn’t break his neck when he slammed into it, he’d burn to death when the seat’s rocket motor initiated in the enclosed cockpit.

“The knife. Use your K-bar,” Ray said in a conversational voice, and for the first time Mark felt a moment of scratching doubt at how his roomate had come to be with him in the cramped cockpit of a single-seat attack jet that was underwater.

He pushed these thoughts aside and retrived the rugged Marine knife from its position on his survival vest, turning it end over to hammer against his canopy above him, to break it so that he could swim away and even as he started to strike at it with all his desperate strength he heard Ray’s voice as if in a receding whisper, “Your harness. Release your harness first,” and he admitted that to be a good idea. He relased the Koch fittings that had restrained him in the seat and even as the water rose around his chest he hammered at the plexiglass above him with everything he had and there was a hole! And water rushed through like a spigot and it was cold but he kept on hammering until the canopy gave way in chunks and the spigot became a torrent pressing down on him and he felt Ray pulling him roughly up by the shoulders - he’d come back! - felt Ray pull him out of the cockpit, cutting his left arm on the plexiglass as he came out and Mark felt a flash of resentment at this new assault but then he was rising up through the black water, his life preserver automatically inflating as the salt water hit his FLU-8P actuators and he was trying to remember to keep exhaling as he ascended, keep exhaling because you didn’t want to hold the pressurized air in and cause an embolism, not after all that.

When he got to the surface, the IP told me, Ray was gone. Which only made sense, he said, staring me in the eye as if daring me to question him, or begging me to explain it because, he said, even if somehow the laws of physical space and probability had been overcome, his roomate had died in a fiery crash off-target during a practice bombing mission the week before.

That was the story he told me. Other Marine instructors verified that this had been the only story he had ever told, and that the outer details were undoubtedly true - he had become disoriented during a rendezvous on a filthy night, and flown into the water. His roomate, with whom he had been particularly close, even by the standards of the service, had indeed died the week before.

“But what about the roomate, down in the cockpit,” I asked. “Do you believe any of that’s true?”

They grimaced a bit, exchanged glances and shook their heads a little, before finally replying, “He thinks it is.”