Navy Chief
Senior Member
A friend of mine, Fred Sanders, is a former US Navy A-7 Corsair II pilot. He sent me a story he wrote many years ago, about some of the experiences he had.
This is the first of three stories. Enjoy:
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The ship was steaming off the coast of Florida, near our home base, Cecil Field near Jacksonville. We were doing "Type training", i.e. preparing for a 7 month cruise. I was an ensign in the fleet, a rarity for someone as junior as me to be in an operational billet that soon. But, I was good.
The plane I was flying was a Corsair II. It weighs 21,500 lbs empty, and with a full load of rockets, bombs, fuel, cannon shells, tops out at 42,500 lbs. It carries 10,200 lbs. of fuel in the wings, and can carry another 4,000 lbs. in drop tanks under the wings, on bomb racks. It is single engine, and single pilot. That night, I was pilot, navigator and bombardier. As usual. I liked it.
The weather was awful when I catapulted off the deck that night. Rain, dark, storms. About 20 planes went off on that evolution. A typical mission. Every 2 hours and 20 minutes, about 20 planes were shot off the deck and 20 were recovered when the deck was clear. Around the clock.
I climbed out and finally busted through "the clag", as we called it. The ride up through the clouds was nerve wracking. Plane being buffeted. Lightning illuminating the cockpit interior every so often, wrecking my night vision. Finally, I busted through the tops of the clouds, into the most beautiful, moonlit, serene world that I could imagine. As I took in the new found peace and beauty, I rolled the plane over slightly to look below me at what I had left, but would have to penetrate in less than two hours. Not good. Rolling tops of clouds with lightning going off with increasing frequency. No point in dwelling on it. I would see it soon enough. I was trained, and good and fearless. What's a little rain to a Navy pilot? So, I rolled wings level, pointed the nose toward a star whose light who's light left it in the days of Moses and was finally getting to me.
After my mission, I called the ship and was given "marshal" instructions. Fly circles at 28 miles behind the ship, and some altitude, separated by only 1,000 feet from the jets above and below me, and one mile closer and further away. Its the way we come home at night. At exactly the given time, I am exactly at 28 miles, on altitude, with nose pointed toward the boat. I pull the throttles to flight idle, extend the speed brakes and "penetrate". The sleek plane is now a winged brick, descending at 6,000 feet per minute. I saw the rolling, lightning lit cloud approaching faster than I wanted, but just bit the bullet and kept on towards the sea. Into the clag. Bumpy. Scary. Falling like I had no wings at all. A huge, nearby lightning flash again destroyed my night vision, and in an effort to see the instruments that are dimly illuminated by red lights, I turned on the interior cockpit flood lights. I could see now, but what was left of my night vision was shot for good. Things were getting hairy now, and I was a bit nervous. Still descending at the speed of heat. Plane being rocked by horizontal winds as I passed through in a vertical track. I am so glad this is a robust airplane. It is meant to take this kind of abuse. I hope.
At 3,000 feet I retracted the speedbrakes, added a little power and slowed out my descent. My instruments told me that the ship was ahead. In the process of the descent, I had not turned on the windscreen de-ice and the one inch thick bulletproof glass had iced over but good. De-ice won't make it go away, will only prevent it from occurring. I was now really nervous. At 1,200 feet I added power up to about 3,200 lbs/hr. fuel flow to level off. In order to see, I had to perform a "slip" maneuver, actually flying the plane a bit sideways. took a lot more power to maintain altitude. I had about 2,200 lbs of fuel left. Not much. I called in, reported "the ball" ("Sierra Tango, Chief 305, ball, 2.2"). The ship reported back as I expected, "Roger ball". That means I had the optical landing aid in view. It was now my landing to make or not.
The two pilots before me had boltered - failed to catch the arresting wire and had taken off again. It is MANDATORY what when the wheels hit the deck, the pilot go to full military power, so the engines can spool up in the event you don't catch a wire. I was the third guy down that night. The one before me was our Lt.Cmdr. Operations Officer. Very experienced. He failed to get aboard. Damn. Not looking good for the rookie.
Landing at night is hard enough when everything goes well. Trying to land in rain, with an iced over windscreen, in a sideways flight path is mad, and I don't mean angry.
I was desperate. The ship MUST steam into the wind for planes to land. Right into a huge rain cloud. My wheels hit the deck, I went to full power and wanted to feel that comforting pull on the plane as it goes from 155 mph to zero in less than 2 seconds and 400 ft. No such feelings. I could feel the bump bump bump, which I knew for previous failures, as the planes wheels rolled over the deck. By the time I was off the pointy end of the boat, I was at full power, and heard the LSO call out on the radio, "Bolter! Bolter! Bolter!". That's right, rub it in, you jerk. Not really, its his job.
I was climbing out to enter the "bolter pattern" for another shot at it when there was a call over the radio: "Ninety-nine Sierra Tango, your signal is BINGO!" What that meant was all you guys flying off the Kennedy at the moment, head for the beach. Hot damn! The "bingo" maneuver is a preplanned exercise in saving the planes and pilots when the ship cannot recover planes. Basically, it is go to full power, climb to a predetermined altitude, the pull the throttle to idle and essentially glide in. It is the best way to conserve fuel. Fuel is life in a jet plane. A jet without fuel is a brick, and flies like one. We had a saying during air combat maneuvers (dog fighting): "running your enemy out of gas is tantamount to a kill".
That's about it. I landed at NAS Cecil Field at some hour when the civilized world was alseep in their beds. Sweaty, nervous, on edge, scared, triumphant, grateful to God for the answered prayers offered by one scared young man doing his duty and in way over his head. I smelled like the ship, like black oil. We all did. I seem to recall it was about 1 AM or some such time. Just another day in the office for me. A unique one, yes. But there would be many more. I remember getting out of the plane, still in all my gear. Others guys were taxiing in. Tomcats, other A-7's from both squadrons, A-6's, S-3's. All of us were glad to be on the beach. And alive. I recall touching my plane, just putting a hand out like someone pats a faithful dog. She was still hot and wet and as she cooled, there were the familiar tinkling sounds that machinery makes as it cools down. Her underside was pink with fresh leaking hydraulic fluid - typical. She is a hydraulic monster, and if she isn't leaking, she's empty. She was bleeding a little but not severely. I looked at the empty bomb racks, the empty Sidewinder missile rails. The cannon muzzles which had not been fired.
The ice on the windscreen had melted.
This is the first of three stories. Enjoy:
------------------------------------------------------------------------
The ship was steaming off the coast of Florida, near our home base, Cecil Field near Jacksonville. We were doing "Type training", i.e. preparing for a 7 month cruise. I was an ensign in the fleet, a rarity for someone as junior as me to be in an operational billet that soon. But, I was good.
The plane I was flying was a Corsair II. It weighs 21,500 lbs empty, and with a full load of rockets, bombs, fuel, cannon shells, tops out at 42,500 lbs. It carries 10,200 lbs. of fuel in the wings, and can carry another 4,000 lbs. in drop tanks under the wings, on bomb racks. It is single engine, and single pilot. That night, I was pilot, navigator and bombardier. As usual. I liked it.
The weather was awful when I catapulted off the deck that night. Rain, dark, storms. About 20 planes went off on that evolution. A typical mission. Every 2 hours and 20 minutes, about 20 planes were shot off the deck and 20 were recovered when the deck was clear. Around the clock.
I climbed out and finally busted through "the clag", as we called it. The ride up through the clouds was nerve wracking. Plane being buffeted. Lightning illuminating the cockpit interior every so often, wrecking my night vision. Finally, I busted through the tops of the clouds, into the most beautiful, moonlit, serene world that I could imagine. As I took in the new found peace and beauty, I rolled the plane over slightly to look below me at what I had left, but would have to penetrate in less than two hours. Not good. Rolling tops of clouds with lightning going off with increasing frequency. No point in dwelling on it. I would see it soon enough. I was trained, and good and fearless. What's a little rain to a Navy pilot? So, I rolled wings level, pointed the nose toward a star whose light who's light left it in the days of Moses and was finally getting to me.
After my mission, I called the ship and was given "marshal" instructions. Fly circles at 28 miles behind the ship, and some altitude, separated by only 1,000 feet from the jets above and below me, and one mile closer and further away. Its the way we come home at night. At exactly the given time, I am exactly at 28 miles, on altitude, with nose pointed toward the boat. I pull the throttles to flight idle, extend the speed brakes and "penetrate". The sleek plane is now a winged brick, descending at 6,000 feet per minute. I saw the rolling, lightning lit cloud approaching faster than I wanted, but just bit the bullet and kept on towards the sea. Into the clag. Bumpy. Scary. Falling like I had no wings at all. A huge, nearby lightning flash again destroyed my night vision, and in an effort to see the instruments that are dimly illuminated by red lights, I turned on the interior cockpit flood lights. I could see now, but what was left of my night vision was shot for good. Things were getting hairy now, and I was a bit nervous. Still descending at the speed of heat. Plane being rocked by horizontal winds as I passed through in a vertical track. I am so glad this is a robust airplane. It is meant to take this kind of abuse. I hope.
At 3,000 feet I retracted the speedbrakes, added a little power and slowed out my descent. My instruments told me that the ship was ahead. In the process of the descent, I had not turned on the windscreen de-ice and the one inch thick bulletproof glass had iced over but good. De-ice won't make it go away, will only prevent it from occurring. I was now really nervous. At 1,200 feet I added power up to about 3,200 lbs/hr. fuel flow to level off. In order to see, I had to perform a "slip" maneuver, actually flying the plane a bit sideways. took a lot more power to maintain altitude. I had about 2,200 lbs of fuel left. Not much. I called in, reported "the ball" ("Sierra Tango, Chief 305, ball, 2.2"). The ship reported back as I expected, "Roger ball". That means I had the optical landing aid in view. It was now my landing to make or not.
The two pilots before me had boltered - failed to catch the arresting wire and had taken off again. It is MANDATORY what when the wheels hit the deck, the pilot go to full military power, so the engines can spool up in the event you don't catch a wire. I was the third guy down that night. The one before me was our Lt.Cmdr. Operations Officer. Very experienced. He failed to get aboard. Damn. Not looking good for the rookie.
Landing at night is hard enough when everything goes well. Trying to land in rain, with an iced over windscreen, in a sideways flight path is mad, and I don't mean angry.
I was desperate. The ship MUST steam into the wind for planes to land. Right into a huge rain cloud. My wheels hit the deck, I went to full power and wanted to feel that comforting pull on the plane as it goes from 155 mph to zero in less than 2 seconds and 400 ft. No such feelings. I could feel the bump bump bump, which I knew for previous failures, as the planes wheels rolled over the deck. By the time I was off the pointy end of the boat, I was at full power, and heard the LSO call out on the radio, "Bolter! Bolter! Bolter!". That's right, rub it in, you jerk. Not really, its his job.
I was climbing out to enter the "bolter pattern" for another shot at it when there was a call over the radio: "Ninety-nine Sierra Tango, your signal is BINGO!" What that meant was all you guys flying off the Kennedy at the moment, head for the beach. Hot damn! The "bingo" maneuver is a preplanned exercise in saving the planes and pilots when the ship cannot recover planes. Basically, it is go to full power, climb to a predetermined altitude, the pull the throttle to idle and essentially glide in. It is the best way to conserve fuel. Fuel is life in a jet plane. A jet without fuel is a brick, and flies like one. We had a saying during air combat maneuvers (dog fighting): "running your enemy out of gas is tantamount to a kill".
That's about it. I landed at NAS Cecil Field at some hour when the civilized world was alseep in their beds. Sweaty, nervous, on edge, scared, triumphant, grateful to God for the answered prayers offered by one scared young man doing his duty and in way over his head. I smelled like the ship, like black oil. We all did. I seem to recall it was about 1 AM or some such time. Just another day in the office for me. A unique one, yes. But there would be many more. I remember getting out of the plane, still in all my gear. Others guys were taxiing in. Tomcats, other A-7's from both squadrons, A-6's, S-3's. All of us were glad to be on the beach. And alive. I recall touching my plane, just putting a hand out like someone pats a faithful dog. She was still hot and wet and as she cooled, there were the familiar tinkling sounds that machinery makes as it cools down. Her underside was pink with fresh leaking hydraulic fluid - typical. She is a hydraulic monster, and if she isn't leaking, she's empty. She was bleeding a little but not severely. I looked at the empty bomb racks, the empty Sidewinder missile rails. The cannon muzzles which had not been fired.
The ice on the windscreen had melted.
