“meatball” that helped aviators estimate their height and approach path as they made the final drop to the deck. It was still indistinct at this range, and not very reliable until the range was considerably shorter. But visual acquisition of the meatball meant that Tombstone was ready to bring the Tomcat down.
“Mercury One-oh-nine,” he said over the radio. “Tomcat ball. Four point eight.” The signal told Jefferson who he was, what kind of plane he was flying, and signaled that he had visual sighting of the meatball with 4800 pounds of fuel remaining.
“Roger ball,” the Landing Signals Officer said. “Deck’s going up. You’re looking good.”
The meatball was designed to give the approaching pilot a visual indication of his position relative to the deck. If the center of the five Fresnel lenses was illuminated, the approaching aircraft was right on its glide path. It was high if one of the upper lenses was lit, too low if a lens below the midpoint glowed. But at a mile out one notch of the meatball represented thirty-two feet of altitude, so it wasn’t the most accurate way to judge the approach. Tombstone kept his descent constant at five hundred feet per minute and relied on the advice of the LSO, a veteran aviator with a much better perspective on the approach than Magruder had himself, to keep him on track.
“Remember, you’ll tend to fly low,” the LSO went on. The best LSOs were the ones who dropped hints without giving detailed instructions. If Tombstone screwed up the approach enough to become a real danger, the laid-back, friendly tone would change. Right now the LSO was simply a calming voice who worked with the pilot, not against him.
The square of white lights that defined the flight deck was like a hole opening up in front of the Tomcat. There was a tendency for pilots to feel they were too high at this stage of the approach, but it was an illusion. Tombstone eased up on his descent rate, conscious of the other potential hazard, that he would over-correct and come in too high. It might result in an embarrassing fly-by … or, if his hook caught a wire even though his landing gear wasn’t on the deck, it could end up in a messy crash.
Nearing the half-mile point, Magruder could see the carrier taking on a ghostly shape for the first time. Now he could use the visual clues that simplified carrier landings, including the meatball. There was the usual burst of confidence, and the usual quick realization that there was nothing to be confident about yet. As the last few seconds of the approach ticked away the impression that the deck was really just a square hole came back stronger than ever.
“Come down, Stoney. Down a little,” the LSO said urgently. Magruder could picture him getting ready to punch the button on the “pickle switch” in his hands that would signal a wave-off and send the Tomcat back in the air for another run. Tombstone compensated, knowing that too much correction could slam the plane into the ramp.
The landing gear hit hard as the Tomcat touched down, and Tombstone realized instantly that he had overshot the ideal touchdown point. Four arresting wires stretched across the deck, and the optimum landing was one that snagged the number-three wire. The F-14 had been high, and missed that one.
He shoved the throttle full forward, according to standard procedure, so that the Tomcat could get airborne again if it missed the “trap.” Even though it was common enough to botch a night landing he felt his face turning red with anger and embarrassment. For Tombstone Magruder, the great naval hero and the new Deputy CAG, to pull a bolter on his first approach …
But sudden deceleration caught him by surprise as the tail hook caught the four wire and the Tomcat jerked to a halt. “Good trap! Good trap!” he heard in his headphones.
They were down.
“Gotcha! I’ve got our boy nailed, compadre. Bearing zero-four-one, range eighty-three miles. He’s down on the deck. A hundred, maybe a hundred fifty feet.”
“Nice going, Malibu,” Batman replied over the ICS. He switched to his radio. “You got him, Tyrone?”
“Affirmative,” Powers replied tersely. The young pilot seemed determined to fly the mission strictly by the book.
“Hey, this dude’s really trying to catch a bodacious wave,” Malibu interjected. “He gets any lower and they’ll be scraping fish off the front of that thing.”
“Trying to duck our radar,” Batman said. “And maybe sucker us into taking a bath if we try to buzz him. Listen up, Tyrone. The Russkies always get a big laugh when they con some capitalist nugget like you into hitting water. You watch your altitude and keep it cool, got it?”
“Roger, Leader,” the other pilot replied.
Tyrone’s RIO, Lieutenant William “Ears” Cavanaugh, spoke up. “I’ve got the bastard too.” He gave a dry chuckle. “Don’t worry, Batman, I’ll keep the kid out of trouble.” True to standard practice, Cavanaugh was an experienced hand teamed with one of the squadron’s rookies. But Batman had seen the RIO in action during the intensive air wing training program at NAS Fallon in Nevada before deploying to the carrier. Ears was a topnotch RIO, but sometimes he was a little too eager.
“Question is, who’ll keep you out of trouble, Ears?” Batman responded. He didn’t give the others a chance to answer him. “Tango Two-fiver, Hound Two-oh-four. We’ve got him on our scopes. Going in to have a look.”
“Roger, Two-oh-four,” came the reply from the Hawkeye. There was a pause. “Mind your ROES, boys. It ain’t a shooting war.”
“Not yet,” Batman muttered. Ever since his first combat experience off North Korea he had mistrusted the limitations set by the Rules of Engagement. They had been designed to keep overeager pilots from precipitating an international incident in the heat of a tense encounter. But they also had the effect of hamstringing those same aviators. Often in modern air combat the first one to lock on and launch was the winner, and when the ROEs said not to fire unless fired upon …
Against the sort of opposition the United States had met in the past — the Libyans in the Gulf of Sidra, for example — it didn’t matter so much. Technological and doctrinal superiority had allowed American pilots to survive enemy attacks and come back swinging. But against first-class Soviet opposition the same might not be true. If the Russians planned on starting something this flight might be Batman’s last.
The dark thoughts flashed through Batman’s mind in an instant, but all he said aloud was, “Roger, Tango Two-fiver.”
He dropped the Tomcat into a sharp bank and started the descent. The Bear was low, but the Russians had underestimated the accuracy of American radar surveillance. Thank God for the Hawkeye, Batman thought. Without the E-2C the Russians might have been able to get much closer before they were spotted.
Bears were archaic by modern standards, but the Bear-D reconnaissance bird was still a deadly threat. That wasn’t so much because of the weaponry it could carry, but rather because it could help more sophisticated Badgers or Blackjacks to get a fix on American ships without exposing themselves to detection. And a Badger armed with stand-off missiles could play havoc with the battle group in a matter of minutes.
Each Bear hunt had to be treated as if it was the real thing. And if the reports from Norway were true, tonight the threat was worse than ever before.
He could feel the huge Soviet aircraft long before he saw it. The low, steady rumble of the plane’s four Kuznetsov turboprops shook the night sky like distant thunder. He strained to see ahead, looking for some sign.
“Tally-ho!” The old aviator’s hunting call came over the radio. Excitement made Tyrone’s voice shrill. “Eleven o’clock, Batman, and right down on the deck!”
Batman spotted it then, the constellation of red and green navigation lights that marked the Soviet plane. A red beacon strobed its anticollision warning. At least the Bear wasn’t coming in blacked out. That counted for something.
“Tango Two-fiver, Hound Two-oh-four. We have visual on the bandit! Closing now.”
“Two-oh-four, this is Domino.” That was CAG’s voice, relayed by the Hawkeye from Jefferson. “Go easy, but let that guy know he’s not welcome here.”
“Roger, Domino,” Batman replied. “Tyrone, hang back and cover me. Stay one mile out.”
“Roger,” came the laconic reply. Powers was shaping up as a steady hand after all.
Batman turned to port and circled lazily around the Bear, crossing the turbulence of the larger aircraft’s slipstream and falling into place alongside. Batman fought to control his heartbeat and breathing. He was in easy
