Wink looked left and saw the S-3 shoot off the bow of the ship, and men scrambling to clear the flight deck for their approach. The white-shirted LSOs were in place, ready to wave them off if their approach was dangerous, or “advise” them if their approach needed correction.
As they flew past the LSO platform a mile away heading the opposite direction from the ship, Woods began a left turn that he would hold until directly behind the ship in the groove. He had done it so many times it was a habit.
Big was right behind them with a perfect interval. Woods rolled his wings level three quarters of a mile behind the ship, lined up with the centerline of the angled deck. The ball, the lens that showed where they were on the glide path, was centered. Woods checked his airspeed, lineup, and angle of attack, and descended steadily toward the flight deck. He made small corrections to stay on the glide path — big corrections would lead to bigger ones later. They landed just behind the three-wire. The hook grabbed the wire, pulled it up off the deck, and held the Tomcat as Woods went to military power. The plane tried its hardest to get airborne again, but the steel cable held it back and finally stopped it fifty feet short of the end of the angled deck.
A yellow-shirted sailor ran out and signaled Woods to take his feet off the brakes and go to idle on the engines. He did, and the retracting three-wire pulled the Tomcat gently backward. They rolled toward the stern for thirty feet until the cable cleared the hook. Woods raised the hook on the signal and quickly taxied forward to get out of the landing area for Big to land. They crossed the red and white line on the edge of the landing area ten seconds before Big slammed into the deck, snagged the number-two wire, and came to a stop just to their left.
They taxied toward to the bow of the ship. The yellow shirts maneuvered them just forward of the island as the ordies ran underneath the wings to safe the missiles. Gunner Bailey stood in his red turtleneck and red flotation vest supervising the entire operation. Woods and Wink put their hands up while the ordies put the pins with long red flags on them into the missiles to ensure no accidental firings. Routine. Ordinary. Happens every flight. Except the ordies weren’t usually safing Israeli missiles. Woods closed his eyes, hoping they didn’t notice anything different about them.
The ordies ran out from under the wings with their thumbs up. Woods looked at Bailey, who gave him a knowing thumbs-up, and the yellow shirt motioned for them to taxi forward to the bow.
Woods, Wink, Big, and Sedge walked into the ready room together, helmets and flight bags in hand. Woods surveyed the room carefully, trying to look casual, and saw the usual activity: briefing and watching the PLAT as the recovery continued above their heads. The first day out from a port was always more exciting as the aircrew were anxious to get back into the air, back into their routine of flying.
“How was the hop?” Meat asked, sitting at the SDO desk in his khakis. Second only to Big in size, Lieutenant Mark Mora, Meat, was another first tour pilot.
“Defied death once again,” answered Woods.
Meat looked at Woods more closely as he sat in a ready room chair to fill out the yellow sheet. He frowned. “You guys look like you’ve been swimming,” he said, noticing the sweat-drenched hair and flight suits. “You didn’t do any unauthorized ACM, did you?” Air Combat Maneuvering, Dogfighting.
Woods tried to look disinterested. He put his finger to his lips. Meat smiled.
Chief Lucas walked into the ready room looking for them. “Any gripes?” he asked.
“None,” Woods replied, looking at Wink, who shook his head.
“Nope,” Big answered.
A young sailor with a green maintenance turtleneck on stuck his head into the ready room. “Hey, Chief, can you come here for a sec?”
Chief Lucas rolled his eyes, “Never a moment’s peace,” he said, turning. “What!” he yelled, walking next door to Maintenance Control.
He came back in five seconds later and crossed to Woods. He stood in front of him glaring angrily. “Petty Officer Wynn said the accelerometer reads eight Gs. You pull eight Gs on that hop, Lieutenant?” he asked.
Woods felt a rush of blood; he wanted to kick himself for failing to reset the needle on the accelerometer. “Guess we got carried away. Did a little tail chasing.”
“Sir, that’s a down jet. You know we’ve got to pull the panels if someone pulls eight Gs. You told the mechs on the roof the plane was up, sir!”
“Sorry, Chief,” he said, chagrined. “I guess I forgot.”
“Sir, begging your pardon, but how do you forget pulling eight Gs? We told the aircrew for the third go that they could have your jets. Now the spare’ll have to go instead of the lead,” the Chief said, putting his hands on his hips. “They’re gonna be pissed.”
“Sorry, Chief,” Woods repeated.
Bark walked into the ready room in his flight suit ready to brief event four. “Hello, boys. How’d it feel to get in the air again after five days off?”
“Great, Skipper,” Big said, watching Chief Lucas to see if he was going to take the opportunity to let the Skipper in on his unhappiness.
Chief Lucas scowled, and left the ready room without another word.
“What’s with him?” Bark asked.
“What’s for lunch, Meat?” Big asked.
“Spaghetti, and Israeli milk.”
“Weird containers again?” Woods moaned, writing on the yellow sheet.
“You’re still fixated on the German milk,” Big said. “The Israeli milk is actually much worse. It tastes like Brie cheese that has been sitting out for three days with flies crawling on it. It’s cold just to cover the flavor.”
“Lumps?”
“What the hell is Brie cheese?” Wink asked, annoyed.
Big shook his head. “You are so cosmopolitan, Wink. You probably think eating a cheeseburger on a whole wheat bun is on the cutting edge of culinary adventurism.”
“You really crack yourself up, don’t you, Big?” Wink replied.
“I have to laugh. Nobody else gets my sophisticated humor. Living with you guys is like putting on a Shakespeare play in front of a bunch of prisoners. They just stare at you, no idea what’s being said, missing the subtlety, the nuance, the turn of the phrase, the double entendres…”
“What the hell is a dooble ontonder?” Wink said.
“Do you actually know who Shakesp—”
“Blow it out your ass, Big. Don’t give me your drama major crap,” Wink said, not looking at him, writing on the yellow sheet. “You don’t even know what a cosine is.”
“Sure I do,” said Big quickly. “It’s someone who guarantees a debt for another, someone…”
Wink laughed out loud, joined by others, the engineers.
Big smiled, his eyes twinkling. “You guys are so easy. You think you’ve got a secret world that we truly educated don’t know about? Cosine is so sophisticated it’s from about, oh, eighth grade or so, maybe ninth if you’re slow.”
“So what is it then?” Wink pressed, hoping Big was bluffing.
Big glanced at Wink, sitting three chairs away from him. “You don’t think I know, do you,” he said, looking down at the green sheet on which he was writing a minor gripe about the throttle friction sticking. “Maybe I won’t tell you.”
Wink smiled knowingly. “Like I figured.”
Big spoke tiredly, as if to a poor student who had heard the explanation before. “It’s a trigonometric function of an acute angle. It’s the ratio of the leg of a triangle by the angle, if it’s a right triangle, and the hypot—”