They sat in the cockpit, Wink four feet behind Woods, canopy up, arms hanging over the sides. The sunshine felt gloriously warm through their green Nomex flight suits. Woods looked at the sky for any signs of coming weather but saw nothing but clear blue sky. He gave the signal for electrical power. In short order the plane captain hooked up the electrical cord from the yellow tractor-like vehicle that also served as the huffer — the high-speed air that turned the jet engines to get them started.
“Coming down!” Wink yelled as he pushed the lever forward to close the double-length canopy.
Woods moved his arms inside the cockpit. The canopy came down slowly, hesitated, then slammed forward into the locks.
Woods gave the signal to hook up the huffer to send in high-pressure air and quickly started the two turbofan engines. He and Wink silently prepared for flight as each checked the weapons and aircraft systems.
Woods gave a thumbs-up to his plane captain, who returned the signal. The chains were removed from the plane and the chocks were pulled away from the wheels. His oxygen mask was tight on his face, feeding him pure oxygen. Woods looked over at Boomer in the Tomcat next to them, also facing forward and nodded. Vialli nodded back as he pushed the bayonet fittings of his mask to his yellow and black helmet with the skull and bones on the sides.
The yellow-shirt aviation boatswain’s mate signaled to Woods to taxi. “I’m going hot,” Woods announced to Wink, activating the microphone in his oxygen mask. Wink did likewise. They were both hot mike — they could hear each other breathing.
Wink turned the rear seat radio to the frequency used by the Air Boss, the commander six stories above who ran the flight deck like a dictator. The frequency was quiet. Everyone knew what to do; talking wasn’t necessary.
Woods taxied forward to cat 3 — one of the waist catapults on the angled deck. The two F/A-18s on the bow cats would go first. Woods watched carefully as he taxied slowly toward the plane director and onto the catapult. The yellow shirt straddled the catapult track and steam rose up all around him. There were men in different colored shirts running all around, looking at innumerable things on the airplane. If anything was wrong they would signal that the airplane was down, and they weren’t going to go anywhere. A man ran up to their plane on the left side and held up a board with a number on it — 62,000. Wink gave a thumbs-up and the man took the weight board and turned it to the catapult officer sitting at the side of the flight deck with only his head showing above the deck level. The officer acknowledged the Tomcat’s weight, and dialed it in to the catapult.
On the signal, Woods brought the wings out of oversweep and put them into automatic. The wings swiftly swept to their full forward position, 20 degrees back from straight out. It was one of the truly remarkable things about the F-14, that it could sweep its wings back and forth, either manually or automatically. It made the large airplane very maneuverable, and a serious fighter. Woods continued to taxi forward slowly, steering the nosewheel with the rudder pedals, and touching the brakes at the top of the rudder pedals to keep from going too fast. As the F-14 approached the shuttle the yellow shirt gave the signal to kneel. Woods hit the switch and the nosewheel collapsed on schedule. The plane crouched down and the launch bar dropped to the deck, working its way over the shuttle as they taxied forward. The yellow shirt signaled Woods to slow the plane down and he felt the familiar clunk as the bar dropped home. Automatically, Woods hit the brakes. The yellow shirt took a quick look and stepped to the side, looking down the track and at Woods. Another man crept under the plane, careful to stay out of the suction of the jet engines. He attached a hold-back bar to the rear of the F-14’s nosewheel to keep it from rolling forward too soon. The bar in place, Woods took his feet off the brakes. Everything looked normal. The yellow shirt raised his right hand at the same time that he slid his left hand toward the bow of the ship. The shuttle jerked forward and put the plane in tension — pressure from the catapult — but not enough to launch them yet.
Woods put the throttles at full military power and pushed the handles outboard into the detent to keep them from coming aft on the cat shot. “Checklist,” he said calmly, running through it from memory. “Fuel pressure, fuel flow, engine rpm, and TIT all good. No caution or warning lights. Full aft stick.”
“Clear.”
“Forward stick.”
“Good,” Wink replied.
“Left,” Woods said.
Wink looked at the port wing to check all four spoilers.
“Right… and rudder.”
“All good,” Wink said.
“Ready?” Woods asked.
“Ready,” Wink said immediately.
Woods checked his instruments once more. He put his head back against the seat and saluted with his right. The catapult officer, from his glass bubble buried in the flight deck; looked down the deck, examined his instruments, and pushed the launch button.
Woods felt the immediate jerk of the plane as it was pulled down into the flight deck then hurtled forward by the catapult. The rapid acceleration was thrilling. The shuttle pulled the F-14 from a dead stop to one hundred thirty-five knots in two seconds.
“Good speed,” Wink said calmly in the same voice he always used when he was sure they had enough airspeed to fly and didn’t need to eject from a cold cat shot.
Woods rotated the nose up gently above the horizon and climbed away from the carrier, banking hard left into a clearing turn to get away from the ship. An F-18 had been launched off one of the bow cats just before them and had turned to the right, away from them, for the same reason. Woods raised the landing gear and flaps and set his speed at two hundred fifty knots. He climbed to five hundred feet and leveled off.
Wink changed the radio to Strike and called to report airborne. He strained to look around and saw Boomer being shot off the catapult behind them.
When they were seven miles out from the ship Woods pulled back hard on the stick and the plane climbed quickly. The wings threw off trails of vapor as the moist air condensed under the pressure.
“Going cold,” Woods said as he deselected the hot mike setting on their Internal Communication System, the ICS.
“Ditto,” said Wink, throwing an identical switch in the backseat.
“Where are we going anyway?” Woods said, keying his mike with a button on the throttle.
“Overhead rendezvous at 12, then descend to tank at 6, then we’re cleared into the gunnery pattern at 0845.”
“Right. Two or four planes in the pattern?”
“Just us and Boomer. I think the F-18s have it after us, but I’m not sure. We have it until we run out of bullets. Roger, Strike,” Wink said, responding to Woods and the radio at the same time.
Woods climbed to twelve thousand feet and leveled off. He dipped his left wing and saw the carrier two miles below. As large as it was, it looked impossibly small from two miles up, far too small to land a helicopter on, let alone a 60,000 pound jet. Just as Woods set up a gentle banking turn to circle over the carrier he saw Vialli approaching him from behind. “There’s Boomer.”
“Tally,” Wink said.
Vialli approached from inside the turn and slightly below Woods. He was doing a perfect rendezvous — not too quick, and not dangerous. As he closed to fifty feet or so, he lowered his right wing and slipped underneath Woods, taking up a perfect position on the outside of the turn, exactly as he was supposed to do.
Woods looked over at Vialli, thirty feet away, and nodded. “He’s a natural,” he said to Wink.
“He’s still got a lot to learn.”
“Don’t we all.” Woods put his left hand on the stick and with his right motioned for Vialli to take a trail position, farther back and directly behind Woods. Woods waited until Vialli was in position and then pushed his throttles to the stops without using afterburner. The F-14 accelerated quickly. “Anybody scheduled to be above us over the ship?”