CARRIER 10: ARSENAL By: Keith Douglass

For the last fifteen minutes, aviators had been kicking the tires and

lighting fires on a wide variety of aircraft. EA-6B Prowlers were

already spooled up and waiting on the catapult; their bulged cockpits

and forward radomes, coupled with the distinctive pods mounted aft atop

tail fins, marked them as EA-6B variants. The strange pods held both

receivers and antennas for the SIR group, a systems integrated receiver

for five bands of emissions. Other antennas were mounted on the fins,

below the pods, enabling the aircraft to cover all electronic emissions

from the A through the I bands.

The two J-52 turbojets flanking the fuselage were generating over

eleven thousand pounds of thrust each, and each aircraft was straining

at the tieback that held her shackled to the shuttle. The JBDS-jet

blast deflectors aft of the catapult shunted the wash from their

engines to the side, although the gaggle of fighters clustered farther

back on the flight deck was generating more than enough wind across the

deck.

Each aircraft carried three jamming pods, one on either side on a wide

pylon and one on the centerline fuselage hard point. Additionally,

AGM-HARM anti radar missiles graced their wings from the other

pylons.

Each aircraft weighed in at slightly over sixty thousand pounds.

Overhead, two E-2 Charlie Hawkeye airborne early warning aircraft

orbited, each under the protection of two F-A18 fighters. The Hawkeyes

and their escorts had launched an hour earlier, and were keeping a

close watch on the airspace in the vicinity of Cuba’s coast. Should

anything launch, either aircraft or missiles, the E-2 Hawkeye would

catch it on its ALR-73 PDS radar and relay it instantly to the carrier

Combat Information Center through a two-way Collins AN-ARC-34 HF or

ARC-58 UHF data links. Since the installation of the joint tactical

information distribution system (JTIS), the E-2 had become capable of

controlling and vectoring the air picture for any combat aircraft in

the U.S. inventory.

The catapult officer, a lieutenant who had been on board Jefferson less

than six months, shook his head as he looked at the cluster of aircraft

queuing up behind the JBDs. Even during workup operations, he’d never

seen so many turning at once, never had an opportunity to appreciate

the delicate ballet orchestrated by the handler and the yellow-shirted

deck crew. Most of the plane captains had already scampered away from

the hot tarmac, taking cover in the vicinity of the island to avoid

being inadvertently sucked down the throat of one of the screaming

engines.

“Get your head out of your ass. Cat Officer,” his earphones

thundered.

The lieutenant glanced up at the tower and nodded his head at the air

boss, invisible behind the dark glass. It all came down to this, the

one moment when he, the catapult officer, released the first aircraft

for flight.

Even from his position in the enclosed bubble protruding up out of the

flight deck, he could sense the tension.

“Roger, sir.” He made his words sound as calm as possible. In the

present mood the air boss was in, it wouldn’t do to irritate him

unduly. Not that he blamed the junior captain ensconced above hell,

they were all nervous right now.

The catapult officer shifted his attention back to the flight deck and

studied the Prowler straining at the shuttle in front of him. A plane

captain held up a grease-penciled Plexiglas board to the pilot, showing

the aviator his field state, weight, and weaponry. The pilot nodded,

and the catapult officer saw the control surfaces on the Prowler waggle

up and down. It was called cycling the stick, the last check of

control surfaces that a pilot made before being launched.

“Now.” The catapult officer authorized release of the aircraft on

deck. He saw the yellow shirt come to attention, snap off a quick

salute, and drop to his knees, pointing down the deck toward the bow.

The pilot in the Prowler returned the salute, then leaned back

slightly, bracing himself against the seat for the shot.

As always, it seemed to start impossibly slowly. The first few seconds

of a cat shot were a study in tension as the massive aircraft slowly

gathered speed. Soon, though, the expanding steam behind the shuttle

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