“Zero-Six, thanks,” Paula Norton replied. “Lead, six is ready.”
“Zero-One copies. Thunder Flight, push button four.” The other five bombers acknowledged. Furness was going to tell Fogelman to change frequencies for her. Normally, the weapon systems officer changed radio frequencies via the Computer Display Unit on the right-side instrument panel, but he looked pretty busy, so she decided to do it herself. On the left Multi-Function Display, Rebecca punched the NAV option-select switch in the upper-left corner, which switched the MFD to the master menu page, then pushed the switch marked IFF/COMM, punched the switch marked CHAN, entered 04, then ENT, then RTN to get back to the radio page.
“Thunder Flight, check in button four.” All five other planes acknowledged with short “Two … Three … Four … Five … Six.”
Rebecca noticed that the PRI ATT and PRI HDG caution lights were out on her instrument panel, meaning that the inertial navigation system had finished coarse alignment and was somewhere in fine alignment. That was good enough for now — they had only two minutes to get the flight off the ground. “Plattsburgh Tower, Thunder Zero-One flight of six, ready for takeoff.”
“Thunder Zero-One flight, winds two-eight-zero at eight gusting to fifteen, RCR 12, patchy ice, braking action fair, runway three-zero, switch to departure control, cleared for takeoff.” The RCR, or Runway Condition Reading, was a measure of the slipperiness of the runway — a low number was good, a high number was bad. Twelve was borderline. The sweepers, with their big revolving bristle drums, had been out here a few minutes earlier, but sometimes the brushes merely polished the stubborn ice, making it even slicker. But Rebecca could see a lot of clear patches in the grooved runway, and the hammerhead and runup areas were clear.
“Zero-One, cleared for takeoff. Thunder Flight, push button five.” All five planes acknowledged. On interphone, Furness said, “Stick it in nav and let’s go, Mark.”
“It’s not done yet,” he protested, but he punched the NAV line select key next to the steady NAV READY indication on his control and display unit — the INS was now navigating on its own, although with only a partial fine alignment its accuracy was in doubt. He then switched to the UHF RADIO page, tuned the primary radio to Burlington Departure air traffic control, set the backup radio to Plattsburgh Tower, then switched the identification beacon transmitters to ON. “Radios are set.”
Furness released brakes and taxied out of the hammerhead. She made one last cockpit check, then “stirred the pot”—moved the control stick in all directions to check for free movement — then, as she turned and lined up with the runway centerline, began pushing in the power. Both throttles went to the first detent, and she scanned the RPM, turbine inlet temperature, exhaust pressure ratio, and nozzle position gauges. When the needles were stable, she started a stopwatch, then moved the throttles one at a time into afterburner zone one and watched the RPMs peg at 110 percent and the nozzle gauge read full open. She then quickly clicked the throttles all the way to afterburner zone five, letting the gradual but powerful kick of the engines shove her back into her seat.
The Vampire bomber sped through sixty nautical miles per hour in a few seconds. No call from Fogelman — the sixty-knot call was mandatory. “Sixty knots, nose wheel steering off.”
“Hundred-knot check, instruments good,” Fogelman said a few seconds later. At least he made the call, Furness thought, although she doubted he really checked the gauges or even really knew what to check for. Her engine instruments were good, the afterburners were still lit, and no warning lights on. He missed the fifteen-second acceleration call as well, but by that time they were almost at rotate speed. Furness applied back pressure, drawing the control stick to her belly, then waited a few more seconds. At the takeoff speed, the Vampire’s nose wheel lifted off, followed by the main gear. Because the wheels were so big and the suspension system so rugged, takeoffs in the RF-111G were very smooth and it was hard to tell exactly when they lifted off. She simply waited until the vertical-speed indicator and altimeter were both moving upward a substantial amount, then raised the gear handle and retracted the flaps.
Ten seconds later, Johnson’s Vampire crossed the runway hold line and leaped into the sky, Norton followed ten seconds later, and Kelly, leading the second three-ship cell, followed. But Clark Vest in the number-five bomber was a few seconds late getting his plane across the hold line, and tried to compensate by shoving the throttles too quickly into afterburner. The left-engine afterburners lit, but it blew out seconds after the right afterburner was cut in. Vest cycled both throttles into military power, let them stabilize, then tried to relight the ‘burners, but the left afterburner blew out again.
“Thunder Five, fifty knots abort, fifty knots abort, fifty knots abort,” he called on the Departure Control radio frequency. “Switching to tower.” He turned his radio wafer switch to the backup radio. Meanwhile, Bruce Fay in Thunder Zero-Six had started his takeoff roll, but had aborted as soon as they saw Vest’s left afterburner wink out. “Plattsburgh Tower, Thunder Zero-Five, aborting takeoff at fifty knots, turning off at midfield. No relight on number one. TITs are steady.” Abnormally high TIT, or Turbine Inlet Temperature, would mean that a fire was building within an engine, which was common during afterburner blowouts or power drops. Fay switched to the Tower frequency as well — he wasn’t going anywhere now.
“Thunder Flight, Plattsburgh Tower on GUARD, cancel takeoff clearance,” the tower controller said. Zero-Five and Zero-Six held their position and acknowledged the order.
Furness and her wingmen heard the abort call on the departure control frequency as they continued their takeoff climbout. “Dammit, what a way to start the week,” she muttered. “Now we’ll have a royal clusterfuck to get this flight back together.”
The big bomber climbed rapidly in the cold, dense air. A few seconds after takeoff, Furness had the gear, flaps, and slats fully retracted and the wings swept back to 26 degrees. At 350 knots indicated she pulled the engines out of afterburner and continued her climb to cruise altitude. “Mark, get on button one and find out about the other three planes.”
Fogelman was looking at something in the radar — not a good idea when they were less than ten thousand feet altitude, in scattered clouds, with two wingmen trying to rejoin. With an exasperated shake of his head, he clicked his microphone. “Thunder Flight, go to button one on backup, now.”
“Two.”
“Three.”
“Four.”
“Mark, what do you have in the system?” Furness asked on interphone. She was following the standard instrument departure from Plattsburgh and was ready to transition to the mission flight plan, but the autopilot steering bug, or “captain’s bars,” were pointing behind the plane.
“I’m busy, pilot,” Fogelman said. “I don’t know where they’re at. Switch it yourself.” He then checked in the other two planes on the backup radio. Again, Furness couldn’t argue, so she swapped nav pages with the right Multi-Function Display, checked her flight plan copy on her kneeboard for the correct computer sequence number, and entered it in the MFD. The captain’s bars swung around to the proper heading, and she engaged the autopilot and turned to the first waypoint. Again, Fogelman was either being a jerk or was already too task-saturated to do more than one thing at a time — like set up the mission computers properly.
“Vest aborted because of an AB blowout,” Fogelman told Furness. “Fay is going to hold with him.”
“Terrific,” Furness said. Their morning spectacular was busted almost before it began. Frank Kelly and Larry Tobias in Thunder Zero-Four were dropping “beer cans” and buddy-lasing for Bruce Fay in Zero-Six — he should launch single-ship and let Vest in Zero-Five, who was dropping a TV-guided bomb solo, go when he was ready. “Tell Command Post that Zero-Six needs to launch ASAP. Zero-Five can delay, but we need Zero-Six up here.”