12
Matt was standing at the scheduling desk in the squadron, getting ready for his first flight as an instructor pilot. He had been assigned to fly in the backseat with a new lieutenant in the squadron, one Sean Leary. He copied down the information from the big board behind the desk and grimaced when he saw the duty officer rub out his wingman’s name and write in “Martin.” Mike Martin was the new deputy for operations.
“You’ll love having Mad Mike as your number two,” the duty sergeant said.
“I thought they called him Gorilla,” Matt said.
“That’s what he calls himself,” Furry said. He had walked into the squadron and was standing behind Matt. “Both names fit.”
“I wish you were going along on this one,” Matt said.
“Then who would be sitting on whose lap?” Furry laughed. “You get to play backseater on this one while your student plays nose gunner. Come on, we need to talk about the lieutenant.” He led Matt into a briefing room and closed the door behind them. “What do you know about Sean Leary?” Matt shook his head. “His mother is a movie star.” Furry mentioned a name Matt recognized instantly.
“I didn’t know she was that old.”
“Yeah, kinda surprising,” Furry continued. “I was in his pit the last time he flew and recommended that he fly with an instructor pilot for a few rides.” Matt waited to hear why. “Basically, he’s okay. But he has a tendency to get behind the aircraft.” Matt was still listening. That was a problem but an experienced wizzo like Furry could sort that out. “Also, he tends to bury the nose of the jet and get going straight down.” The F-15 could easily handle that; might lose some altitude, but no big deal. “And he gets too aggressive at the wrong times, especially when he’s near the ground.”
“Why don’t they team him with an instructor wizzo?” Matt asked. “You could handle all that in a heartbeat.”
“Why kill a perfectly good wizzo?” Furry said. “It’s your turn to be a DM.”
“A what?”
“Designated mort. Welcome to the backseat of the F-Fifteen.” Furry laughed and walked away.
“Stalwart fellow,” Matt mumbled at his back.
Sean Leary was waiting in the briefing room when Matt walked in. Leary was a young version of Robert Redford and made Matt think of a young, eager Doolie at the Air Force Academy. Mike Martin came lumbering in and, much to Matt’s surprise, Furry emerged from the DO’s shadow. Furry grinned and said there was another last-minute schedule change and he would be Martin’s backseater. Leary sat quietly, making the appropriate notes while Matt ran through the briefing for a one-versus-one BFM mission. At one point, Matt paused, remembering the basic fighter maneuvers mission he had flown with Jack Locke. He gulped and pressed ahead.
Once airborne, Matt discovered that Leary was a good pilot but too eager and aggressive. His timing was off and he would start a maneuver too soon and then run out of ideas on how to correct the situation he had gotten himself into. It was simply a matter of slowing him down. On the third engagement, Martin dragged the fight down to die bottom of die training area they were flying in. Their altimeters were hovering at 5,000 feet when the two fighters met head-on. Martin went into a horizontal turn and held it. “Pull the nose up and use the vertical to counterturn on him,” Matt said.
Leary pulled up into the vertical. “Okay,” Matt said, “Martin’s holding his turn. You can go on the offensive now and eat his shorts.” The colonel was deliberately holding the level turn, his eyes glued to Leary’s jet. He was willing to be a target at least once if the lieutenant could learn from it. “Roll inverted and watch him while you come across the top,” Matt said. “Keep your eye on him until he’s come through 180 degrees of turn. Drift a bit over the top and than pull down hard into him so you’ll be in a lag position at his six o’clock.”
The maneuver was developing perfectly when Leary pulled hard down into Martin, stroking the afterburners. He was premature and should have waited about five more seconds. Matt had not been expecting the move and his head snapped to the right when Leary loaded the Eagle with four g’s. Matt’s helmet bounced off the canopy, momentarily stunning him. Leary was aiming them directly into Martin’s flight path and had them pointed straight down and going through the Mach. Only Martin’s rattlesnake-quick reflexes saved them from a midair collision as he pulled up, as Leary flashed by fifty feet in front, going straight down in full afterburner.
The first coherent thought Matt had was of the color brown filling the windscreen in front of him. The digital altimeter was unwinding in a blur and he could not read it. “PULL!” he shouted as he raked the throttles aft out of afterburner. He grabbed the stick, but it was already coming back.
“EJECT!” Leary shouted over the intercom.
“NEGATIVE! NEGATIVE!” Matt yelled. They were going too fest and outside the ejection envelope. The air blast would have crushed their chests when the seat kicked them out into the slipstream.
The nose of the Eagle came up as “Bitchin’ Betty,” the computer-activated woman’s voice on the Overload Warning System, announced they had an over g. Matt didn’t worry about Betty. An over g was the last of their worries. The nose was pointed up but they still had a six-thousand-feet-a-minute sink rate. “AFTERBURNERS!” Matt yelled. He could not light the afterburners from the rear cockpit. The dash 229 engines kicked in when Leary jammed the throttles full forward.
They both heard a loud “Oh fuck!” over the radio as a cloud of dust enveloped them and, for a split second, Matt knew he was a dead man. Then they were flying again in an upward vector.
“Fire warning light on number one engine,” Matt said as they climbed out. His breathing was ragged and quick. He called up the Overload Warning System on a video screen as Leary shut down the left engine. The screen read, “10.5 g’s, 130 % overload.” It was a major over g and the fire light was probably a result of the engine sucking something in. But they were still flying.
“We’ve lost utility hydraulics,” Leary said, his voice also coming in pants.
“Okay, so fly the damn airplane. What systems have we lost and what do we do now?” Matt was still being the instructor.
“No brakes and we take the barrier,” Leary said.
“Take your time and do it right,” Matt told him. Slowly at first, and then with increasing confidence, the lieutenant ran the checklist for taking the barrier, the cable stretched across the approach end of the runway that would catch their tail hook and snatch them to a stop as in a carrier landing. Leary’s voice was almost normal when he told Martin to look him over to see if any pieces of the jet were missing. Then he called air traffic control to announce that he had an emergency and would be taking the barrier at Stonewood.
The approach and landing went smoothly and Leary snagged the first barrier cable one thousand feet down the runway. When they were at a complete halt, Matt ripped off his oxygen mask and took a deep breath. He could smell urine. Leary had wet his pants. “We’ll go to Life Support and change before we debrief Maintenance on the over g,” he said. Leary was quiet.
When they had finished debriefing Maintenance about the over g, the fire warning light, and lost hydraulics, they went back to the squadron. Martin was waiting for them. “We got two fresh jets,” he said. “Let’s go and do it again.” Leary visibly paled. “Get your ass out there,” he snapped. “Now.”