Berkshire nodded. “Right five degrees rudder,” he translated for the
after-steering crew.
Both men watched the repeater twitch, then move slowly to the right,
indicating the ship was responding to rudder control from after-steering.
They repeated the maneuver, using increasing degrees of left and right
rudder, until finally Berkshire was satisfied that they had control of the
ship.
“Now find me some wind,” the air boss ordered. “You know what we
need.”
“The easiest way to do that is to just start a turn and watch the
relative wind indicator until you get what you want,” Berkshire responded.
“I can do the calculations manually, but-”
“Do it the fastest way,” the air boss answered. He glanced up at the
sky, as though looking for Tomcat 201. “Let’s get those boys down on deck,
rearmed, and back in the air.”
1318 Local
Tomcat 201
“Will you look at that?” Gator said.
Bird Dog nodded and adjusted his own flight pattern to compensate for
the carrier’s movement. “Trying to get her nose into the wind, is she?”
“Looks like it to me. Bird Dog, since we’re the only damned aircraft
in this pattern, how about we settle in two miles astern? Save us some
time when we want to start making our approach.”
“Good idea.” Bird Dog relayed their plan to the air boss, then moved
the Tomcat back aft of the carrier. With no other aircraft in the pattern,
he started executing a lazy figure eight instead of the standard oval orbit
track.
The call came ten minutes later. “Tomcat Two-oh-one, you’re cleared
for final,” Bird Dog heard the air boss say.
“Ready, partner?” he asked Gator.
“As ready as we’ll ever be. Remember, we’re going to be getting on
board without an LSO. You keep a close watch on that meatball.”
“And you speak up if you see anything going wrong,” Bird Dog
responded. “Unless there’s anything else, let’s get it done. We’ve got
ordies with armament waiting for us on the deck.”
Bird Dog headed the Tomcat away from the carrier, taking it out to the
five-mile point. He slowly decreased his altitude, finally settling in
right on glide path two miles behind the ship. He headed for the boat,
keeping a careful eye on the stern, making minute course and altitude
corrections that his gut told him were right.
Finally, at the half-mile point, he got a clear visual on the
meatball.
“Oh, shit,” he swore. “Gator, the meatball is down.”
“What? You mean-”
“The last idiot out of the LSO platform turned it off. I’m not
getting any indications at all.”
Gator was silent for a moment. “How do you feel about making an IFR
approach?” he asked finally.
“I don’t see that I’ve got much option, do I? At least I got some
practice recently, over that damned island. Hell, landing on the carrier,
at least I can see it.”
“Okay, let’s go for it. They got power on the arresting cables?”
“Yes, the air boss said they were already set for us. I gave him my
final weight just a second ago.”
“Let’s do it.”
1311 Local
TFCC, USS Jefferson
Tombstone observed the large blue tactical screen in the front of TFCC
out of the corner of his eye. He tried to avoid giving Rogov any
indication that he was watching closely the events transpiring there. He
wished he knew what the hell was going on. He’d seen from the course
repeaters that the carrier had changed course, and that the wind over the
deck was now acceptable for most landings and takeoffs. Recalling the
lessons he’d learned while in the pipeline for commander of the carrier
group, he decided that the bridge–or whoever was in control of the
ship–must have shifted steering back to after-steering. The bridge itself
was clearly under the terrorists control, which he knew not only from what
he’d overheard over the radio, but by the rule-of-thumb approach he saw the
carrier taking toward good wind.
The symbols on the screen were virtually motionless, the carrier
moving so slowly that her track was barely perceptible. Only one other
symbol moved–that of a friendly aircraft. He watched it break out of the
marshall pattern and head for a holding pattern aft of the ship. His eyes