Four minutes later, Norton called in ready. Furness took the flight to ground control to copy their route clearance and get permission to taxi. Furness swept the wings of her RF-111C to 54 degrees, clicked on nose-wheel steering, and turned on the taxi light. “Ready to taxi?” she asked Fogelman.
“Ready. Clear right.” Fogelman had properly set the taxi lights and had the NAV mode primary pages up on the two Multi-Function Displays on the forward instrument panel — NAV DATA page on the left and NAV PRESENT POSITION page on the right. He was looking out the right cockpit canopy as if he were scanning for wingtip clearance, but he was pretty quiet and unanimated — he seemed a bit lethargic, as if he had got up too early. Hopefully he’d snap out of this soon.
“Here we go.” Furness released the brakes and pushed the throttles up, then pulled them back and tapped the brakes when they started moving. The ramp seemed slightly slippery, but not dangerous. Ken Brodie guided her out of the parking area and watched carefully as she made the right turn toward the parallel taxiway. In order, the rest of the flight followed along, keeping a 150-foot spacing and staggered slightly on the taxiway to keep away from the preceding jet’s exhaust. She noticed a blue station wagon following the aircraft, and tried to ignore it — undoubtedly the generals and the squadron commander were watching from there.
There was a short taxi checklist to run, which consisted mainly of checking switches and indicators while turning to make sure everything was tracking. When Rebecca checked the left MFD, however, she noticed that the TIME TO DEST, GND SPEED, GND TRK, and FIXMAG readouts were blank. She checked the right MFD, and the PRESENT POSITION readout was blank. “Something’s wrong with your INS,” she told Fogelman.
“No, it’s—” Fogelman stopped his protest, then issued an exasperated “Shit,” loud enough for Furness to hear without the interphone. He hit a switch on his right instrument panel. The readouts on both Multi-Function Displays came back, but they were reading gross values — the GND SPEED readout, the inertial navigation system’s computed speed over the ground, was reading 87, about seventy miles an hour faster than their actual speed. “Dammit,” Fogelman said, “I forgot to go to NAV.” Fogelman had neglected to command the Inertial Navigational System (INS) to stop ground alignment and begin navigating before moving the aircraft. The INS would factor in all aircraft movement less than twenty-five nautical miles per hour and net zero earth-rate movement, and all the velocities in the system would be in error. Fixes, even superaccurate satellite fixes, probably wouldn’t torque the errors out — he would have to start over.
Forgetting to go to NAV on the INS before taxiing was a common new-guy error, but Fogelman had nearly six months in the RF-111G — he should have known better. He was behind the aircraft already, and they hadn’t even left the ground yet. “Realign in the hammerhead,” Furness suggested. “You should have time for a partial alignment at least.” Fogelman swore again in reply. This flight, she thought wryly, is kicking off to a great start.
The quick-check area was three aircraft-parking areas surrounded by thick steel walls where aircraft were inspected, de-iced, and, if they were carrying weapons, the armorers pulled the safety wires — in case of an inadvertent bomb release or fire, the revetment walls would protect the other aircraft being armed up. Rebecca pulled into the first parking slot in the quick-check area, set the parking brake, checked that the attack radar and terrain-following radars were off, shut off the taxi light, then called on the radio, “Quick, Thunder Zero-One, radar’s down, brakes set, cleared in.”
Two maintenance technicians stepped out of a large blue truck. One plugged his interphone cord into the bomber’s ground-crew jack, while the other stood by and waited. “Good morning, Zero-One. Quick’s going in … when you’re ready.”
Furness placed her hands on the canopy bow. “Feet and hands clear,” Furness replied.
“When you’re ready, ma’am.”
Furness looked over at Fogelman, who was working on restarting the INS. “Fogman, let ’em see your hands.” The quick-check crews would not approach the aircraft unless they were sure that a crewmember in the cockpit wasn’t going to move a flight control.
“One second.”
“Don’t bother restarting your alignment, Mark,” Rebecca said. “They’re going to move us in thirty seconds.” But he did not acknowledge her, just continued working for a few seconds, then placed his hands on his side of the canopy bow. “Okay, feet and hands clear.”
“Thank you, ma’am,” the crew chief acknowledged. His assistant rushed in to check for loose access panels, leaks, Remove Before Flight streamers that might have been missed, and tire cuts. The assistant reappeared a minute later, and the crew chief began to motion for Furness to roll forward. She released brakes and applied power …
“Hey!” Fogelman shouted. Furness slammed on the brakes. “Dammit, you just spoiled the new alignment. I’ll have to restart it.”
“I tried to tell you that, Fogman,” Furness snapped. “Let’s finish the quick check, then start the alignment at the hammerhead.” She taxied forward and reset the brakes.
The crew chiefs finished their tire inspection, then had Rebecca run the right engine up to 85-percent power and got into the main gear wheel well area to check for bleed air leaks. When that was done, the crew chiefs unchocked the plane, moved away from the bomber, and waved at the cockpit. “Have a nice flight, Zero-One.”
“Thanks, Quick.” The crew chiefs unplugged and trotted over to the next bomber waiting in the adjacent revetment. Rebecca taxied forward out of the quick-check area and over to the aircraft hammerhead, the parking area at the very end of the runway. Again, she set the brakes, then called for the Before Takeoff checklist. The wings were swept forward to takeoff position, the flaps and slats were set, and Rebecca checked the flight controls for full and complete movement. “Now you can start your alignment,” she told Fogelman. He said nothing.
Another blue sedan, this one bristling with radio antennas on its roof, approached the parked bomber. “Foxtrot moving in,” they heard on the radio.
“Foxtrot’s cleared in to Zero-One, radar down, brakes set,” Furness replied. As the bombers lined up in the hammerhead waiting for takeoff, the blue sedan carrying the Supervisor of Flying, an experienced flyer trained to be the commander’s eyes and ears on the flight line during flight operations, began circling them, conducting one last visual inspection.
“No leaks, no streamers, and you appear to be in takeoff configuration,” the SOF reported. “Have a good flight, Zero-One.”
“Zero-One, thanks.”
It was obvious Fogelman was still having problems — the PRI ATT and PRI HDG caution lights were still lighted on Furness’ caution panel, indicating that the inertial navigation system was still not ready to go, and it was only a few more minutes to takeoff time. Fogelman was frantically searching through one of the supplemental squadron booklets for something. “How’s it going, Mark?” she asked.
“The GPS didn’t feed present position for coarse alignment,” he replied. “I gotta set in the parking spot coordinates by hand.” The INS needed an accurate latitude, longitude, and elevation to start an alignment. The squadron booklet, or “plastic brains,” had coordinates for almost every possible parking spot on base, so getting the INS running without GPS shouldn’t be a problem, but if you weren’t expecting trouble, you usually weren’t prepared for it — and that described Fogelman pretty well.
Meanwhile, the last bomber was coming out of the quick-check area.
“Thunder Zero-Six, no pins, no leaks, and you appear to be in takeoff configuration,” the Supervisor of Flying radioed. “Have a good flight.”