He climbed into the inviting bed, prepared for him by Gulfstream corporate customer service as they did for all their customers. Ford laughed. Wonder what the squadron mates would say if they saw me now, all pampered and ritzy?
Their flight plan, filed with the FAA over a computer during the pre-flight brief, had them flying over Atlanta, Little Rock, Denver, San Francisco, then south of Adak, Alaska, over to Sapporo, Japan, direct to Seoul, South Korea, an over flight over Tianjin, and finally landing in Beijing. The 7,335 mile flight was expected to take 11 hours and 18 minutes according to the flight software, which did not take into account winds at altitude, the reduction in airspeed for the descent, nor the radar vectoring from air traffic controllers to land. They flew the filed plan at Mach 0.88 at 50,000 feet, which was near the G650ER’s max cruising altitude, and so far, they were able to get that out of the aircraft with ease.
The luxury jet made Ford giddy because he wasn’t used to this much luxury in fine goods and services. He had been in military business jets, which Ford thought were nice, but this was completely over the top. It was almost comical to him how the top 1 % percent lived. He finally did relax, and by the time he closed his eyes for a nap, they were at altitude over Oklahoma and steadily on their way to the Asia Pacific region. Compared to the noisy B-1, the quiet ride in this jet was complete pampered luxury.
The U. S. Navy C-2 Greyhound that performed Carrier Onboard Delivery, or COD, was already turning engine number two on the ramp as Mark, Emily and Robert came out of the terminal building, carrying their bags and rolling their small suitcases. They just landed in the G IV from Hawaii to Okinawa, and were ready to press on to the carrier. The DIA team used the flight time to nap, attempting to catch up on the jet lag. An olive flight suited crew member of the USS Abraham Lincoln’s C-2 crew was there to escort them on board and to the ship, compliments of the ship Captain.
“WELCOME ABOARD. SORRY TO YELL. LET ME GET YOU SOME HEADSETS,” yelled the C-2 aircrew chief to the three of them, as they buckled in.
Mark started to sit, then stood up quickly to shake the hands of the pilots. He waved in thanks for the mission, as he and the other two appreciated the ride out to the carrier. Mark turned to return to his seat, and got a solid whiff of the exhaust from the Allison T-56 number one engine, just starting on the left wing.
“Chief, they up yet?” the co-pilot asked, just as the three were putting on their vests and headsets.
“Yes, sir, all three pax up,” he answered.
Mark forgot that the headsets were not voice activated, so he started talking, but his voice did not transmit. He then pressed the button to talk, located on a small, black colored box located on his cord, connected to his headset. As he did it, the Chief closed the door, and the noise of the engines was muffled a bit.
“We’re here,” Mark said over the intercom, giving a thumbs up to the crew. So did Emily and Robert.
“Nice to meet the three of you. So, not sure who you guys are, or who you know, but we were diverted from Seoul to Kadena to get you. We have another sister aircraft picking up a VIP pax down at Naha, Okinawa in a few hours,” the aircraft commander told him.
“Yup, appreciate the lift very much. Thank you,” Mark said with complete sincerity.
“Yes, thank you, boys,” Emily added.
“Whoa, a Brit?” the co-pilot said. Both the pilot and co-pilot turned around in the cockpit to see if the face matched the accent. It did, and they looked at each other with complete amusement and smiles. “Well, welcome aboard. I’m Ginger and this is Piglet,” said Ginger from the left seat.
“How long is the flight today, Ginger?” Emily asked.
“Man, she is a freaking hottie. Dude, did you see that butt? Look at her…” said co-pilot Piglet, by accident, transmitting it to the whole aircraft versus just the pilot on intercom. “Crap. Sorry.”
“That’s ok, Mr. Piglet,” replied hottie Emily.
“We should be landing on the Abe at just over an hour,” Ginger replied. He slapped the co-pilot in the upper arm with his right hand, telling him to shut his mouth. Ginger covered his headset and yelled over to him, “They are guests of PACOM, you dip shit. The Admiral. Shut your mouth, dummy.”
At about 40 minutes of flight time, the headsets were full of chatter from a variety of voices. From inside the aircraft, the crew were performing the descent and before landing checklists. It consisted of everything from the cabin pressurization to harnesses.
“Hey, pax. Not sure if you have ever landed on a carrier while at sea, but we will be approaching the ship soon. Ensure your harness is locked. As we come down in altitude, we’ll be talking to her and listening to commands from the Landing Signal Officer, the LSO,” said Ginger. He looked at his watch. “I’d say about twelve more minutes or so.”
“Got it, Ginger. Thank you,” Mark said, then moving the black knob lever located near his right hip to the forward position. He leaned forward in his harness and he no longer had freedom of movement. Locked.
The C-2 zoomed by the right side of the carrier at 1000 feet of pattern altitude, at 220 knots, preparing for the procedure called the ‘overhead break’. Robert leaned forward and looked out his porthole window, and could see in large white letters and numbers ‘CVN-72’, along with white light bulbs, painted in the vertical island. The ship looked tiny from that altitude, but he knew it was gigantic. It was the fifth Nimitz-class aircraft carrier, and Robert always loved seeing the ballet in progress on the flight deck. All sorts of moving aircraft and helicopters, and a variety of colored shirt personnel doing things all at the same time.
“What are all the colored shirts people doing down there?” Emily asked, seeing the same view Robert was seeing.
The crew chief came up, pointing to a little laminated hand-held chart he had to explain just that. It described the deck operations, with a few warnings.
The deck of the USS Abraham Lincoln looks like chaos, but things are very controlled and coordinated. Upon landing, your escort officer will take care of both you and your bags. Please follow his or her instructions and we will explain everything upon landing. We welcome you to the Abe!
Below the opening paragraph on the card were photos of the different colored shirts the sailors might wear on the flight deck, with a small explanation of what they were.
Purple-Aviation Fuels
Blue-Plane Handlers
Green-Catapult and Arresting Gear Handlers
Yellow- Aircraft Handling Officers
Red-Ordnance
Brown-Air Wing Plane Captains
Ginger and Piglet received permission from the Air Boss to make the left turn in front of the ship, yanked the yoke to the left, and turned in a hard and tight angle of bank turn opposite direction of the ship. They got dirty with gear and flaps, and double checked all their instruments to ensure they were turned up to the ship frequencies. They were now abeam the island, and Ginger in the left seat kept his scan active to ensure just the proper angle to begin both a turn and a descent towards the rear of the carrier. Ginger looked out his window, as he did so many years ago when he learned to fly the T-34C TurboMentor with VT-28 at Naval Air Station Corpus Christi, Texas. He extended downwind a few more seconds to give him the proper separation between himself and the rear of the ship. One last scan that the gear was down, hook down, and flaps were 50 %.