CARRIER 4: FLAME-OUT By Keith Douglass

hand anytime CAG or his staff were around.

“What’s my course?” Magruder asked. “This game’s a little out of my

regular line of work.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Harrison said with a chuckle. “The computer’ll

tell you where to steer.” He pointed to a display screen on the instrument

panel. “Keep lined up on this and everything’ll be great.”

Magruder nodded. His training on the Viking was coming back slowly. The

computer accepted instructions from the plane’s Tactical Coordinator, or

TACCO, who designated where he wished to deploy sonobuoys as part of an

overall search pattern. The computer marked the spot and guided the pilot

there. On reaching the chosen position the number and type of sonobuoys

selected for that location were ejected automatically from the rack in the

belly of the aircraft.

“Right,” he said. He grasped the stick. The Viking was the only jet

aboard the carrier which had duel flight controls. That allowed a pilot and

copilot to divide up the flying duties on a five-hour patrol. There were

other controls at his station in the cockpit besides the regular flight

instruments, since the copilot was also expected to assist the TACCO in the

sub-hunting part of the plane’s work. In fact Magruder was filling the slot

of COTAC, although his knowledge of the electronics was limited. “I’ve got

her!”

It felt good to be doing something at least, even if this wasn’t the most

challenging flying he’d ever been called upon to attempt. The S-3’s mission

was to range out beyond the screen of frigates and destroyers masking a battle

group and crisscross the ocean in search of enemy submarines. The sonobuoys

were the key to that. Each one was a floating module containing a sonar

transducer and a radio. Once deployed, they sent out pulses of sound which

were reflected back by obstacles–the sea bottom, whales, schools of fish, and

the occasional submarine. The radios relayed the results of the sonar

searches back to the Viking, where a crewman known as the Senso was

responsible for translating the arcane data into an approximation of what was

in a given stretch of ocean, and where.

The Senso had other tools at his command as well, from magnetic-anomaly

detectors to electronic-surveillance gear that monitored radio traffic to

FLIR, Forward-Looking Infrared Radar, which could detect the heat emissions of

ships and subs lying at or near the surface. But the sonobuoys were the first

and most important tool in the ongoing search for enemies lying beneath the

waves.

Harrison slumped in his seat, looking completely relaxed. “What d’you

think, Spock? Are we going to have anything to show our VIP this time out?”

From the rear compartment of the plane Lieutenant Commander Ralph Meade,

the TACCO, gave a cautious answer over the ICS. He was a tall, spare man who

bore more than a passing resemblance to the actor Leonard Nimoy, and that

together with his precise, measured way of speaking had earned him his running

name. “Hard to say, Skipper. SOSUS showed at least five subs filtering out

in the past week, but there’s no telling if they’re still hanging around here

or if they’ve moved on by now.”

That, Magruder thought bitterly, was the real problem with the

sub-hunting business. The arcane art of ASW work was at least as much an art

form as it was a science. Aircraft like the Viking had to fly long,

complicated patrol patterns searching for enemy submarines because as yet no

one had developed a reliable way to keep tabs on subs from a distance. The

first line of defense was SOSUS–for Sonar Surveillance System–a line of

permanent underwater microphones strung along the sea floor all the way across

the GIUK (Greenland-Iceland-United Kingdom) gap. The technicians in the SOSUS

control center back in Norfolk swore they could detect any sub that tried to

cross the line, but once a submarine had passed through the network of

microphones there was no way to keep further tabs on them except through

dedicated ASW ships, planes, and helicopters. Frigates like the Gridley,

helicopters off Jefferson and her escorts, the two submarines attached to the

battle group, even P-3C Orion aircraft out of Keflavik in Iceland, all played

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