“PROVIDER 32, you are cleared to turn. Call fuel state and souls on board,” said the Abe air traffic controller.
“Abe, PROVIDER 32. Six souls. 3.2,” Piglet reported back.
“Roger, PROVIDER. Winds 220 at 22. Call the ball.”
Ginger kept the turn in to line up the aircraft visually with the moving aircraft carrier. They were turning onto final approach, with both Ginger and Piglet looking at the approach end of the ship, in addition to the Fresnel lens that was used to determine the aircraft descent angle. All the landing navaids were tuned and working properly, always a good back-up to a visual approach.
“PROVIDER has ball,” Piglet called out to the Abe over the radio.
“PROVIDER 32, you are cleared to land.”
“Roger, PROVIDER cleared to land,” replied Piglet.
Robert, Emily and Mark swayed back and forth with the aircraft as the pilots up front made minor adjustments to the aircraft. The water was coming closer and closer to the window, and if they did not know they were landing on a ship, it looked like from the rear of the aircraft they were going to landing on the water.
“Ginger, Buttercup here at LSO. Continue. Looking good, my friend. Keep her coming down,” said Buttercup, a fellow pilot who was working at the Landing Signal Officer. He was there to talk down the pilots, keep them at ease during the landing process, and provide them input for altitude, attitude, airspeed, and safety.
“Good altitude. Continue. Spot on. Add a bit of power, looking low,” Buttercup said, in a calming and serene voice.
“Roger,” Ginger replied, concentrating on the approach.
Mark leaned over a bit, and he saw Piglet place his hands at the base of the throttles, just below Ginger’s right hand. Ginger was moving them ever so slightly, and Piglet looked like he was just supporting him.
“Keep her coming. Looking good. A bit more power. Power. Almost there…,” Buttercup passed.
WHHHAAAAAMMMMMM!
The C-2 slammed on the deck of the carrier and everyone was pressed hard into their harnesses. The engines went from a low roar at what seemed like idle, to full power, making enormous noise. Ginger went to full power on both his engines upon landing, just in case he missed the ship’s deck or a wire. They were no longer airborne, but the aircraft was moving still a bit on the deck.
Ginger pulled back the throttles once he was assured they were safe on deck, and the aircraft leaned back a bit. The ship was moving at a steady 15 knots, and the airplane bobbed and weaved together along with the deck of the ship, cutting through the clear blue water of the Pacific Ocean.
“Good trap, Ginger. Welcome back,” Buttercup said. “OK, three wire.”
Every single landing on the deck of a ship for a pilot was graded on a scale of no grade to 4, and corresponded to one of the four wire steel cables strung across the approach end of the ship. The pilot’s goal was to catch the number three wire with his tailhook, but catching any of them meant you landed. Even if you made a perfect landing, the best you could do was “OK” on the grade sheet. Nothing like keeping the egos in check.
“Roger, Buttercup, thanks,” Ginger said.
“PROVIDER, you are cleared to taxi. Follow Blue Shirt instructions for starboard parking. Welcome home,” the ground controller told them.
Mark, Emily and Robert looked at each other with smiles. They gave thumbs up signs to each other. Mark thought that in just a few short hours, Ford and Wu would be doing the same thing.
“That was cool as heck. BLOODY HELL that was cool!” Emily yelled.
“Civilian guests, welcome to the USS Abraham Lincoln, international waters, Pacific Ocean. Your first hook… congratulations. Alright, follow me, please,” the crew chief instructed them, and they exited the C-2 Greyhound to see the floating city.
Wu just returned from the Chinese drug store where he purchased eye drops, located near the Sunshine Hotel. He also realized how out of breath he was, which disturbed him because the distance was so short. In his room, he located his flight suit pocket to put the drop bottle in, then took out his smart phone for flight planning. The flight planning app aided Wu in his flight for later today, which was to be the speed test that they missed from the engine number two fire.
Wu looked at his flight planning software and punched in the numbers for his planned route of flight to the Xining Caojiabao Airfield, dragged the icons across China on a map, and saved the file. He would be able to upload the planned route into the jet’s navigation software upon arrival, which made it easy to transfer data both before and after a flight.
Wu had been back to his room for a few minutes, but still breathed heavily and sweated profusely. He got up from his desk and slowly walked into the bathroom to splash water on his face, finally coming to grips that the simple walk to the drug store practically exhausted him. Because the cancer had taken over his lungs, as evident when he spit blood into the sink, his tumors had spread to the lymph nodes and made him wheeze. While the drug store was just down the street, and here he was weak, jaundiced, wheezing when breathing, and was just plain exhausted. Wu told himself it would not be long now, swallowed, and closed his eyes to concentrate.
Wu opened them, walked back to the desk, and sat. He typed out the secondary profile, this time from Gansu to Tianjin, total distance of 948 nautical miles. Wu thought for a moment, and cracked a smile at how short that was in the Devil Dragon. He shook his head from side to side, and figured he would have to take the jet out to the northeast to simulate the flight test, and come around to the Beijing and Tianjin area on the turn back to the west. Wu opened up what looked like Google Maps, and a blue line showed the potential flight path.
Wu then changed to the satellite imagery and looked at the fire house on the airfield. Seemed easy enough, he thought, since he was just off the taxiway near the western runway. Depending on what direction they were landing, he figured they would be fine with the plan. Pretty smart, he thought, as he wondered who specifically generated the idea.
Wu gathered his flight bag and overnight bag, as he done so many times before, and mentally said good bye to the hotel room. He had hoped he would never see it again, as he always thought of the nice hotels he had stayed in during visits to America. From the MGM Grand in Vegas to the Yellowstone Hotel at the National Park to the Hollywood Hotel in Los Angeles, Wu felt very lucky to have stayed at so many nice places. He would not miss the Sunshine Hotel.
Meeting in the dining area as they did before every mission, Wu and Liu dropped their gear and went over for some food and tea. Wu grabbed the table they ate at a few times in the past, and sat. Liu sat, didn’t say much, and got right up again for the buffet.
Wu calmly looked around and saw that no one was near him, nor looking in his direction. He slipped his right hand into his flight suit pocket near his right calf, and pulled out the clear bottle of eye drops.
“You want any tea?” Liu asked, startling Wu from behind, not even seeing him arrive back at the table. Wu immediately dropped the eye drop container back into his pocket.
“Yes, yes, very nice. Thank you,” Wu answered.
Liu dropped off two teas in cups and saucers at the table, and Wu was shocked that he nearly got caught in the act. Shit! he thought. He was already feeble physically and mentally, and here the mission would have been over before it even started. Wu made a note to pay better attention.