“Standby, War Ace.”
Flap leaned across the center consol and stared at the offending fuel gauge for several seconds, then straightened up. He didn’t say anything.
“How far is it to Hickam Field?” Jake asked.
Flap consulted the notes on his kneeboard. “About a hundred fifty miles.”
“We’re almost to bingo!” Jake exclaimed, his horror evident in his voice. “We’ve got to have a tanker right now!”
Flap Le Beau keyed the radio: “Approach, War Ace Five Two One, our state is Three Point Five. We’re eight hundred pounds above bingo. Apparently the fuselage dump valve stuck open. Request a tanker ASAP.”
“Negative, War Ace. We’ll take you aboard in about eight or ten more minutes.”
A sense of foreboding seized Jake Grafton. They were in deep and serious trouble. “How’s the spare tanker?” he asked.
“We’re still trying to launch it,” was the reply. “We should have it off in a few minutes.”
Jake couldn’t help himself. “Is there some problem with the spare?” He felt like a condemned man asking if he could have one more cigarette.
“Yes.” One word.
“They’re digging us a hole,” Flap told Jake.
The pilot glumly examined the instruments. What else can go wrong? Bingo was the fuel state that required he depart for the shore divert field on a max range profile flight. Bingo was a low fuel emergency. And he was eight hundred pounds above that state. He had to leave for the shore field before his fuel reached that level or he would flame out before he got there.
Without additional fuel which only a tanker could provide, Jake had to trap or eject. Well, he still had some time. Right now he was burning four thousand pounds of fuel per hour. When he blew the gear down he would be unable to raise them again. And his fuel consumption would immediately jump to six thousand pounds per hour in level flight. More in a climb. At this moment he had three thousand four hundred.
Why had he switched the fuel gauge from the fuselage tank to the wings? So he could monitor dumping. Of course, there was a totalizer there under the needle, but it was usually unreliable. Over the years he had developed a habit of ignoring it. What a fool he was! The lash stung and he laid it on hard.
He could stand the glare of the fire warning lights no longer. He took the L-shaped flashlight hanging on the webbing of his survival vest and pounded the offending lights until they shattered. The cockpit was darker, a lot darker, and that calmed him.
At least the weather was good tonight. Ceiling was high, maybe ten thousand feet, and the visibility underneath was ten miles or so. He could see the lights of the carrier eight miles away, just a little collection of red and white lights in the dark universe, and here and there, the little globs of light that were her escorts. At least he could fly alongside a destroyer or frigate when he had to eject. Then he and Flap wouldn’t have to depend on the rescue helicopter to find them.
That was something. A straw to grasp.
Exasperated, his thoughts turned to Callie. It was four-thirty in the morning in Chicago; she was probably in bed asleep.
Thirty-one hundred pounds on the fuel gauge. A-6s had been known to flame out with as much as seven hundred pounds showing on the gauge. He could have as little as twenty-four hundred.
He got a pen from the sleeve pocket of his flight suit and did some figuring on the top card on his kneeboard, which as usual he wore strapped to his right thigh. The numbers told him he was burning sixty-seven pounds of fuel a minute, about ten gallons. Every six seconds a gallon of gas went into the engines. Twenty-four hundred divided by sixty seven — hell, he could dangle here twisting slowly in the wind for thirty-five more minutes. What’s the problem? What’s the sweat? Well, when he lowered the gear the power requirements would go up. He might bolter. The deck could stay fouled. The weather could go to hell. Something else could go wrong with this plane— like the gear might not come down or the hook might stay up. Or…He felt frustrated and outraged. The plane had betrayed him!
The second hand on the clock caught his eye. It swept around and around and around.
“Did I ever tell you about the time I stole a police car?” Flap asked.
“No, and I don’t need to hear it now.”
“Stole a cruiser, with a bubble-gum machine on top, siren, police radio, even a shotgun on a rack in the front, the whole deal. Fellow in Jersey wanted it for a farm truck. He wanted to take the trunk lid off and weld up a pickup bed. Was gonna use it to haul manure. He was a retired Mafia soldier. Now I didn’t know Mafia guys ever retired, but this one apparently had. He was out of the rackets and had him a little farm in north Jersey. A brother I knew told me there was five hundred bucks in it for me if I could come up with a police car. Luckily I knew another bro who was screwing a cop’s daughter pretty regular, so I got to thinking. Five hundred bucks was real money to me back then. Anyway…”
Jake could hear pilots in other planes checking into marshal. It all sounded pretty normal. Well, the weather was good, no one was shooting…
“Ninety-nine planes in marshal, ninety-nine planes in marshal, this is Approach.” Ninety-nine meant “all.” “Your signal, max conserve. Add ten minutes to your commence times. Add ten minutes to push times.”
Now what?
Should he ask? He waited a minute, waited while another sixty-seven pounds of fuel went into the engines. Then he said, “Approach, War Ace Five Two One. Does that ten minutes apply to me too?”
“Affirm.”
“Uh, what’s the problem?”
Silence. Then, “The nose gear collapsed on a Phantom on Cat Three. The deck is foul.” Cat Three was on the waist, in the landing area.
“War Ace Five Two One has Two Point Eight. Any word on Texaco?” Texaco was the tanker.
“We’re working on it, War Ace.”
Flap left his story unfinished. Jake stared at the offending fuel gauge. Should he just say Bingo and go?
The ship was headed northwest, into the prevailing wind. Hickam was northeast. As the minutes passed they were getting no closer to Hickam, but on the other hand, they were getting no farther away. Without more fuel, what did it matter?
The minutes ticked by. Five, six, seven…
The needle on the fuel gauge passed twenty-four hundred pounds and kept descending. One pass — that was it. They would get one lousy pass at the deck. If he boltered for any reason, he and Flap were going to have to swim for it.
The crew fidgeted.
The hell of it was that they were betting everything on the emergency gear extension system. Compressed nitrogen would be used to blow the gear down since hydraulic fluid was no longer available to do the job. If any one of the three wheels failed to lock down, they could not trap aboard the ship. They would have to eject.
Betting your ass on any one system in an airplane with a variety of other problems is not the recommended path to a long and happy life.
Jake Grafton sat monitoring the instruments and thinking about the black ocean beneath him. At least the water was warm. With warm water came sharks. He hated sharks, feared them unreasonably. Sharks were his phobia. If he went into the water he would have to fight back the panic, have to keep functioning somehow.
He had never told anyone about the sharks. The thought of being down there with them made him nauseated. And at night, when he couldn’t see. Of course he would be bleeding somewhere. Nobody ever ejected without getting cut somehow. Blood in the water, trying to keep from drowning…
“War Ace Five Two One, your signal charley.”
“Five Two One,” Jake acknowledged bitterly, then bit his lip. He should have told the brass to go to hell and bingoed.
First came ten degrees of flaps, which had to be lowered electrically. Linked to the flaps were the slats on the leading edge of the wing; they also came out. The flaps and slats changed the shape of the wings and allowed them to develop lift at lower airspeeds. They also added drag, slowing the plane.