* * *
The external lights of a Hornet at full power came on, a signal to the deck crew the pilot was ready for launch. In the corner of the screen, however, Wilson noted the squadron troubleshooter with wands crossed over his head, the signal for suspend. He watched the Cat crew go through the suspend procedures and heard the Mini Boss make the radio call.
“Two-one-zero, you’re suspended.”
“Roger,” the pilot replied. Another first-cruise aviator, he kept his left arm locked in order to hold the throttles forward until given the signal to throttle back.
A groan went up from O’Shaunessy as he reached for the phone once more.
“Two-one-zero, we didn’t see a rudder wipe out. Let’s try it again,” the Mini-Boss radioed.
“Yes, sir,” the young marine pilot answered.
O’Shaunessy turned to the peanut gallery, his eyes searching for any pilot with a high and tight representing the Marine Hornet squadron. “Red River rep, you catch that from the Boss?”
“Yes, sir, he’ll be debriefed,” the major responded.
“Good, and you can apologize to the Spartan rep sitting next to you if we don’t catch one-oh-three,” said O’Shaunessy as he glared at the major. Just then his phone buzzed, and he turned to answer it. “Roger,” he spoke into the receiver, and raised his voice for all to hear. “Take one-oh-three over the top.”
With a sheepish expression the major whispered, “Sorry, man!” to the Spartan pilot who sat next to him, who then took it as an opportunity to extract payment from the Moonshadows.
“I think, when we get to port, a beer for the one-zero-three aircrew will make amends, and a beer for me having to stay here in this pressure cooker longer than I should have, and a beer for the maintenance department for keeping one-oh-three airborne on this shitty night, and for the CO for general purposes. Hell, just buy the whole squadron a beer, and we’ll call it even.”
“We ain’t that sorry!” the marine chuckled.
The PLAT screen shifted to the approach view and looked aft into space. Three aircraft showed on the screen as twinkling bundles of light set against the black. Two FA-18s followed 103, which was the largest bundle. They were all three to the left of the crosshairs, the lines in the middle of the screen that signified heading and glide slope. The ship was now on a 115 heading in the never-ending quest to put the winds down the angle.
As the pilots in Air Ops suspected, after what they had seen on the screen, the voice of the approach controller came over the radio loudspeaker with new coordinates: “One-zero-three, discontinue approach, maintain angels one-point-two, fly heading one-one-zero.”
