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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