Low station was 5,000 feet, but it could be lowered if the visibility was better below this crud. Maybe he should ask. “Ah, Strike, Texaco. How’s the visibility and ceiling underneath?”
“A little worse than when you took off. Maybe a mile viz under an indefinite obscuration.”
“Who’s our customer?”
“Snake-eye Two Oh Seven. He’s got an emergency. Switch to button sixteen and rendezvous on him.”
Jake was passing ten thousand feet, still turning steeply with G on. Bracing himself against the G, Flap changed the radio channel and called.
“Snake-eye Two Oh Seven, this is Texaco. Say your posit, angels, and heading, over.”
“Texaco, I’m on the Three One Zero radial at nine miles, headed inbound at four grand. Better hurry.”
Jake keyed the radio transmitter. “Just keep going in and we’ll join on you.”
The fighter pilot gave him two clicks in reply.
Jake eyed the TACAN needle on the HSI, the horizontal situation indicator, a glorified gyroscopic compass. He had a problem here in three-dimensional space and the face of the instrument was an aid in helping him visualize it.
He rolled the wings level and stuffed the nose down more. His airspeed was at 400 knots and increasing.
“Snake-eye, Texaco, what’s your problem?”
“We’re venting fuel overboard and the pull-forward is going to take more time than we’ve got.”
“Posit again?”
“Three One Zero at five, angels four, speed three hundred, heading One Three Zero.”
“Are you in the clear?”
“Negative.”
“Let’s go on down to three grand.”
Jake was passing six thousand feet, on the Three Three Zero radial at nine miles. He was indicating 420 knots and he was raising the nose to shallow his dive. He thumbed the speed brakes in and added some power. “We’re going to join fast,” he muttered at Flap, who didn’t reply.
The problem was that he didn’t know how much visibility he would have. If it was about a mile, like the controller on the ship said, and he missed the F-4 by more than that margin, he would never see him. Unlike the Phantom, the tanker had no radar to assist in the interception.
He was paying strict attention to the TACAN needle now. The seconds ticked by and the distance to the ship closed rapidly.
“There, at one o’clock.” Flap called it.
Now Jake saw the fighter. He was several hundred feet below Jake, which was good, at about a mile, trailing a plume of fuel. Grafton reduced power and deployed the speed brakes.
Uh-oh, he had a ton of closure. He stuffed the nose down to underrun the Phantom.
“Look out!”
The wingman! His tailpipes were right there, coming in the windscreen! Sweet Jesus!
He jammed the stick forward and the negative G lifted him and Flap away from their seats. In two heartbeats he was well under and jerked the stick back. He had forgotten about the wingman.
Still indicating 350, he ran under the Phantom in trouble and pulled the power to idle. “At your one o’clock, Snake-eye. We’ll tank at two seventy. Join on me.”
At 280 knots he got the power up and the speed brakes in. He quickly stabilized at 270 indicated. After checking to ensure that he was level headed directly for the ship, Jake turned in his seat to examine the Phantom closing in as Flap deployed the refueling drogue.
The three-thousand-pound belly tank the F-4 usually carried was gone. Fuel was pouring from the belly of the aircraft.
“Green light, you’re cleared in,” Flap announced on the radio.
Jake turned back to his instruments. He wanted to provide a stable drogue for the fighter to plug. “What’s your problem, Snake-eye?”
“Belly tank wouldn’t transfer. We jettisoned it and now we are pumping fuel out the belly. The check valve must be damaged. We’re down to one point seven.”
“Strike, Texaco, how much does Two Oh Seven get?”
“All he needs, Texaco. We should have a ready deck in six or seven minutes. Pulling forward now.” This meant all the planes parked in the landing area were being pulled forward to the bow.
The green light on the refueling panel went out and the fuel counter began to click over. “You’re getting fuel,” Flap told the fighter.
They were crossing over the ship now. Jake Grafton eased the tanker into a descent. If he could get underneath this haze he could drop the Phantom at the 180-degree position, only thirty seconds or so from the deck.
When the fuel-delivered counter registered two thousand pounds, Jake told the fighter pilot.
“Keep it coming. We’re up a grand in the main bag. At least we’re getting it faster than it’s going over the side.”
At two thousand feet Jake saw the ocean. He kept descending. At fifteen hundred feet he spotted the carrier, on his left, turning hard. The ship was coming into the wind. From this distance Jake could only see a couple airplanes still to go forward. Very soon.
He leveled at twelve hundred feet and circled the ship in a left turn at about a mile.
Five thousand pounds transferred…six…seven…the ship was into the wind now and the wake was streaming straight behind her, white as snow against the gray sea as the four huge screws bit hard to drive her faster through the water.
“Snake-eye Two Oh Seven, this is Paddles. We’re going to be ready in about two minutes. I want you to drop off the tanker on the downwind, dirty up and turn into the groove. Swells still running about fifteen feet, so the deck is pitching. Average out the ball and fly a nice smooth pass.”
“Two Oh Seven.”
Jake was crossing the bow now, the fuel counter still clicking. Eight thousand five hundred pounds transferred so far.
“Texaco, hawk the deck.”
“Roger.” Hawk the deck meant to fly alongside so that the plane on the bolter could rendezvous and tank.
This was going to work out, Jake told himself. This guy is going to get aboard.
The fuel-delivered counter stopped clicking over at 9,700 pounds. The fighter had backed out of the basket. Jake took a cut to the right, then turned back left and looked over his shoulder. The crippled fighter was descending and slowing, his hook down and gear coming out. And the fuel was still pouring from his belly in a steady, fire-hose stream. The wingman was well behind, still clean.
When the fighter pilot jettisoned the belly tank, Jake thought, the quick-disconnect fitting must have frozen and the plumbing tore loose inside the aircraft. There was a one-way check valve just upstream of the quick-disconnect; obviously it wasn’t working. So the pressure in the main fuel cell was forcing fuel overboard through the broken pipe.
Jake slowed to 250 knots and cycled the refueling hose in and back out to reset the reel response. Now to scoot down by the ship, Jake thought, so that if he bolters, I’ll be just ahead where he can quickly rendezvous.
He dropped to a thousand feet and turned hard at a mile to parallel the wake on the ship’s port side.
The landing fighter was crossing the wake, turning into the groove, when Jake saw the fire.
The plume of fuel streaming behind the plane ignited. The tongue of flame was twice as long as the airplane and clearly visible.
“You’re on fire!” someone shouted on the radio.
“In the groove, eject, eject, eject!”
Bang, bang, two seats came out. Before the first chute opened the flaming fighter went nose-first into the ship’s wake. A splash, then it was gone.
“Two good chutes.” Another voice on the radio.