screwing around, no unexpected maneuvers, just a careful ballet between
two giant dragonflies.
“Fly in with the Tomcat, sir. Tomcat Two-zero-eight is airborne for
formation flight in five mikes. You’ve got time to scamper over and
get a drink, then back to Marshall to join on him.”
“Who’s flying her?” Thor demanded. If anything was worse than a
formation flight, it was working with a Tomcat.
While the F-14 had an extended range and could carry more armament than
a Hornet, it was markedly less nimble. It was, he reflected, not a
damn sight much better than driving a surface ship. He shuddered at
the thought.
“Staff wienie, sir. Call sign Bird Dog. That okay?”
Thor grinned. “Sure, send the young lad on up. We’ll let him get a
look at a real aircraft.”
Thor heard muffled voices just below audibility come out of the
headset. Finally, the operations specialist came back on the air.
“Tomcat Two-zero-eight will be on button three for coordination. And,
sir, he asked me to tell you that you’d better suck on some fuel before
he gets up there. He doesn’t want to be waiting outside the rest room
for you every five minutes. He said,” and Thor could hear the smile in
the OS’s voice, “that you should’ve gone before you left home.”
1205 Local (+5 GMT) Tomcat 208
Flight Deck, USS Jefferson “You ready?” Bird Dog asked. He twisted in
his seat to look back over his shoulder at Lieutenant Commander Charlie
“Gator” Cummings, his backseat radar intercept officer.
“Just like old times, huh?”
“I don’t know how the hell I let you talk me into this,” Gator
muttered. “It’s not like I have to get five traps a week to stay
current.”
“Come on, you know you love it. Besides, no one else wants to fly with
me.” Bird Dog’s voice took on a plaintive note. “They think I’m
getting rusty.”
“You are. That’s why you’re scheduled for PAM flights every week.”
Gator’s voice was tart. “And I’m not so sure that playing grab-ass
with a sponge of MiGs is my definition of a FAM flight.”
“I’m entitled I’m on staff,” Bird Dog responded.
“Jesus, don’t you think I’d fly every second if I could? But
somebody’s gotta keep the big picture around here.”
Gator snorted. “You?”
“Yeah, me. What, you think that’s funny? Considering that the Cubans
have gone from a couple of lookie-loo surveillance flights every day to
full-scale combat patrols, I don’t find anything at all amusing about
the situation.”
“Considering I was teaching you to fly not three years ago, I damned
sure do. When I first met you, you were as raw and fresh-caught as
Skeeter Harmon was a little while ago,” Gator snapped, referring to the
young pilot who’d been their wingman cruise before last. Skeeter was
currently attending Top Gun school, honing the combat skills he’d
learned on their last Med cruise. “Now all at once you’re a military
genius?”
Bird Dog sighed and turned back to face forward. He ran through his
prelaunch routine automatically, consciously tensing and untensing his
muscles, giving his ejection seat harness one last tug to make sure it
was secure. Was he that rusty? No, he didn’t think so. And he’d
never been as raw as Skeeter the young black pilot might have shot down
a missile in flight, but so what? Bird Dog had more time in the
cockpit than Skeeter had in the chow line.
Still, the notable lack of enthusiasm among the RIOs on staff had irked
him. “Just like riding a bicycle,” he muttered.
“No it’s not,” Gator said sharply. “And if you think it is, you just
let me out at the next stop.”
Bird Dog signaled to the yellow shirt on the flight deck and tensed
himself for the catapult shot. “It’s damn sure not.
You can’t do this on a bicycle.” He snapped off a salute and waited.
The Tomcat jolted, started rolling forward slowly, and quickly gathered
speed. About 150 feet later, it was hurtling down the flight deck at
134 knots. Bird Dog heard Gator’s sharp intake of breath and
grinned.
His backseater always had been a nervous Nellie on cat shots, even on