Most pilots made use of this type of compartmentalization. It allowed him to sit still in the ejection seat, with his hands making tiny corrections to the stick and throttles. His eyes rapidly scanned his HUD instrumentation, primarily centered on the needles. As he approached the glide path inside three miles, he pushed the nose over and pulled some power, and then reset it to hold the steep 800-foot per minute rate of descent.
“Four-zero-six, up and on glide path, begin descent,” said the CATCC contoller.
Sponge keyed the mike. “Four-zero-six.”
“Four-zero-six, going below, below glide path, two-point-five miles.”
Sponge corrected with deft movements of the throttle and stick. Once the plane was back on the four-degree glide slope, he reset power. This steep approach angle, where he was just able to see the ship over the nose, gave him the impression of peering down into a void from the opening of a well. He could see he was lined up right of course and nudged the stick to the left. Suddenly, the needles jumped left. The ship must be in a turn, he thought, a fact confirmed right away by CATCC.
“Mother’s in a starboard turn, turn left five.”
“Four-zero-six,” Sponge replied, with some exasperation.
Here, on the pass of my life, the ship jinks on me—inside three miles. He quickly put the thought out of his mind and concentrated on the HUD display. He slid his velocity vector to the left then recorrected once on course.
The sound of raindrops increased and beat on the canopy in great sheets. The rain also reflected light from the ship as it streaked aft on the smeared windscreen. The white noise of the rain added to his tension and caused his breathing to deepen and his hands to tighten on the controls. He worked hard to stay on glide slope and on centerline. Through the sheets of rain attacking his windscreen at over 150 miles per hour, he looked out at the ship and sensed he was lined up left, but the needles showed him on-and-on. Trust the needles! he reminded himself. His fuel indicator showed 930 pounds.
“Four-zero-six, on and on, one-point-five miles.”
“Four-zero-six,” Sponge acknowledged, and then he saw it.
The barricade was raised perpendicular to the landing area and looked almost like a solid swath of amber as it reflected the floodlight from the tower. It felt like a dive-bombing run, a dive-bombing run into the side of a chalky yellow cliff spread across the deck. He fought the urge to stare at it. The rain subsided a bit as he concentrated on maintaining glide slope, but his breathing rate picked up speed.
