Without warning, but accompanied by a muffled boom, he was jolted in his seat by something that slammed into his jet from behind. The airplane rolled right. Full left stick was useless to stop the roll. His headphones erupted into the cries of his airplane’s death throes, recorded by an impassive female voice: Flight Controls. Flight Controls. Engine Right. Engine Right.
Warning and caution lights, too many to comprehend and too many of them red, popped up on the digital displays and lighted panels. As the rotations got tighter and tighter, he saw that the scattered lights on the ground below were also spinning in his windscreen.
“Get out!” he heard someone call over the radio.
Yes, get out! he thought, at the same time he sensed his airspeed increasing. He tore the goggles from his helmet, dropped them on the console and found the handle between his legs. He grasped the handle with his right hand and grabbed his right wrist with his left as he was trained to do. With his back against the seat and elbows in, he pulled.
The pressure and cold of the 500-knot airstream roared into his cockpit void and gripped him hard as the canopy exploded off the airplane. For a moment, he wondered if the seat was going to ignite, but then was compressed into it as the rocket he was sitting on blasted him into space with deafening and painful force as the slipstream violently wrenched helmet and mask from his head. Legs and arms flailing, he tumbled through the darkness…
* * *
When Lieutenant Commander Jim Wilson opened his eyes in the early morning shadows, the first thing he saw was the rack above him in stateroom 02-54-1-L aboard USS Valley Forge, a carrier en route to combat in the Persian Gulf. Breathing deeply, he realized the ejection had been a dream. Just a dream. But as he slowed his breathing, he actually considered it a flashback to what could have happened to him that March night in 2003. Don’t fool yourself. It can happen next month, or even next week over Iraq. Then, just as suddenly, he berated himself. Stop thinking like this.
He looked at the clock: 5:52. Reveille in eight minutes, but he could go right back to sleep. Since he had a night hop scheduled, he could not break his 12-hour “crew day” by beginning his day too early, despite the fact that one could never escape “work” at sea.
He remembered yesterday’s hop in the Gulf of Aden, a functional test hop on a clear, blue day, one of those days when he still couldn’t believe they paid him to fly. He was the last aircraft to trap, and after shutting his jet down on the bow, he had taken a favorite route toward the carrier’s “island,” the towering six-story superstructure that housed the bridge that allowed him to enjoy the sunshine. As he had trudged down the flight deck in 40 pounds of custom flight gear, he had taken in the scene and wondered if this would be one of the last times he would ever experience it.
