Committed now he rested his helmet back against the seat box, braced the throttles up against the stops with his left arm, raised his right hand to the canopy rail handle and waited for the shot which came, as it always did, with unexpected, almost unimaginable violence.
In a screeching mist of noise and steam, shaking and bouncing in the cockpit like a rag doll as the jet went from a standstill to 165 MPH in two and a half seconds, he fought against the acceleration to look at his HUD, hoping to see three numbers in the airspeed box. With three numbers he could fly, said a prayer so abbreviated that the only word in it was “God” and finally she fell off the edge, released by the catapult and he was flying, flying, flying. A good shot.
“311 airborne.”
“311, Departure, roger. Passing angels 2.5 switch Red Crown, check in.”
“311.”
Up and further up into the inky darkness, focused on the airspeed and altitude boxes on the head’s up display, ten degrees nose up pitch at first to capture 300 knots, then 8 degrees nose up as he passed 12,000 feet, now targeting an optimal mach number. The reassuring thrum of the GE F404 motors behind him almost masking the whirr of cockpit cooling fans, the rhythmic surging of the environmental conditioning system, or ECS as it kept pace with the increasing altitude and decreasing outside air pressure.
Between his legs on the horizontal situation indicator – the HSI – he selected the ship’s tactical air navigation set, or TACAN as the steering source and using a toggle switch just to the side of the flat panel display, dialed in a course line of 320 degrees magnetic. His flight lead and squadron CO would be on the 320 radial at 80 miles, waiting for the JG to take station at 30 miles on the same radial and commence their air intercept training runs. A short cycle this evening, only a 1+15 (with no launch to wait for upon return) so no tanking required for this mission. Which, he reflected with a grimace, was really not so very much about tactical air training as it was him landing on the first try back at the end of the flight.