Above and Beyond by Tony Wilson
Chapter 2
Following the demise of the twins I returned to my second true love (or should that be my third?) – my Hawker Hunter Mk6D. The D was for Display – a special designation given to all my Hunters – the single seat Mk6’s and the two seat Mk 7’s by the CAA, and confusingly named Lady S as well - if the President of the USA can call every aircraft that he fly’s in ‘Air Force One’ then I can go one better, everything that I am sat in/stood on (aircraft, ship, golf buggy etc.) is ‘Lady S’, but it now seemed that even she was starting to spurn me. The first time it was over nothing, or rather a ‘zero’, - on her altimeter. As my strength returned I started to return to my old habit of playing with the clouds, and then performing some minor aerobatics for the gathered throngs on a local deserted beach, but this day I spotted a cruise liner first. An acquaintance of Carol’s (Lady S’s Captain) told her that cruise liners were now altering course just on the off chance of seeing the ‘green diamonds’ at play, so it became an unwritten rule that anyone spotting a liner should give it a couple of minutes quality time, and so I decided to buzz this lucky one at fifty feet, although instead of indicating fifty feet I noticed that the altimeter read almost five hundred feet as I flashed by down its port side, which was very naughty of it. If I had gone straight from cloud chasing to aerobatics along the deserted beach I doubt if I would have noticed the difference when I set myself up for the ‘grand finale’ inside loop, of course using the altimeter, and I undoubtedly would have run out of ‘air’ before I bottomed out, and as the Hunter is not known for its amphibious qualities, the ‘sea’ would have been very unforgiving. After giving the liner a much reduced ‘treat’, I returned to El Campo trying not to look at the altimeter, although I quickly realised that it was a very ‘accurate’ inaccuracy.
John, my Aircraft Engineering Manager was perplexed, in all his experience he had never come across a fault quite like this one. When my aircraft had been upgraded by HHR to the ‘glass cockpit’ standard, a new radar altimeter had been fitted, along with the upgraded communications and GPS-aided Navigational suite, so in theory my aircraft had one of the most up-to-date cockpits in the aviation industry, although it was surrounded by a geriatric fifty year old airframe, but it had still been four hundred and ninety-five feet out, exactly, at sea level, but not throughout its entire range. Above four thousand feet it progressively became more accurate, and by ten thousand feet it was spot on, so if I had joined formation with other aircraft above that altitude I wouldn’t have noticed the inaccuracy. Not only was I, John and all my pilots worried, but so was the CAA (the Civil Aviation Authority) so everything that could be, was removed from Lady S, for onward transfer, via one of the specially modified drop tanks, into Gatwick Airport (south) terminal, home of the CAA. New components were then dispatched from the manufacturers in England, fitted into the Lady S, and voilà, after a check test flight I was back in business.
Two days later I decided that again I needed some Hunter therapy so I joined her at her new outdoor home. She was now kept on a small hard-standing all of her very own at the end of the main aircraft line, when she wasn’t in the hangar (I think Topsy, my new joint Director of all things Aviation, had put her there so that she wouldn’t clutter up his hard-standing). In truth it was to give the passengers on my new railway a ‘photo opportunity’ of her (and me when I clambered into her). I quickly kicked the tyres and lit the fire and was feeling that all was well with the world - or at least my little part of it, as I was marshalled forward. I lightly squeezed the brake lever to check that the brakes were OK (well ok’ish, perhaps she needed new pads), and then I was off, straight towards the rest of the aircraft, but all was not lost, a new white line had been painted on my tarmac to protect them, (I can call it my tarmac – because it is), all I had to do was follow it, simple. I wasn’t really going ‘too’ fast as I approached the bent strip of paint but I wasn’t hanging about either, so when a Plane Captain and his helper, who had just dispatched his aircraft off into the wild blue yonder suddenly started running towards me, signalling for me to stop, I stopped, or at least I tried to. Any pilot will tell you that if anyone - irrespective of what he/she does or who he/she is - whether he/she is the Station Commander or his/her driver, the postman/woman, or the dust cart driver signals you to stop – you stop – end of story. What I hadn’t seen was that my Plane Captain (ess) had been absentmindedly watching me taxi out, and the sun had reflected off something on my starboard (right) undercarriage, that shouldn’t have reflected, and it looked alarmingly like hydraulic fluid. She franticly waved to her mate (it is pointless trying to shout above an Avon), and pointed at me, with her thumb down. Chas (her mate) signalled me to stop, so I did, or rather, as I have already said, I tried to, but the brake handle, after a slight resistance, went all limp in my hand as I tried to squeeze the life out of it. I then continued serenely on towards the other aircraft, franticly shutting the Avon down as I went (unfortunately the Hunter does not have nose wheel steering). Chas’s helper was carrying two very heavy wooden chocks, with about three feet (almost a meter) of substantial chain link dangling from one side (to lock the two chocks together on a wheel) and dropping one he swung the other one around by the chain and flung it in my direction, ‘perhaps it was a new Olympic sport?’ I thought, and I also thought that he had missed me, but suddenly I heard a metal on metal screech - I certainly heard (and felt) that above the Avon, and Lady S started to safely go around in circles, until my engine lost its oomph. The chock had indeed missed my starboard main wheel, but the chain hadn’t – and it jammed itself between the brake unit and the undercarriage leg, locking everything up nicely. Once everything had been sorted out and a crane had given Lady S a lift home – into the hangar, the hard-standing was given a wash and brush-up, although strangely a blob of hardened araldite was found not too far away from the crime scene of the accident, which went into Johns desk draw. The chain had not only written off the undercarriage leg but it had also shredded a brake pipe, which everyone assumed had sprung a leak after most likely being damaged by a foreign object, probably a stone – not a Russian. FOD (surprisingly enough ‘Foreign Object Damage’) is not unheard of where aircraft are concerned - as with the hat that went down Arabella’s intake on our first visit to Farnborough - although it had been made in Bradford (not a good example, I know).
Although a new undercarriage assembly was fitted, and functionally tested in two shakes of a gnat’s tail - one of Topsy’s sayings - he wasn’t a very happy little bunny. He was no longer a shop floor ‘maintainer’; he was now ‘political’, as the departure of Teddy (my previous Director of all things Aviation) had caused me to have a major shake-up, aviation wise. Teddy’s job had been split into two and Natasha took on the overseeing and training of the Display team, and Topsy did the rest, organising the displays and generally viewing the ‘bigger picture’, which included ‘co-ordinating’ the two squadrons. Having one large (and getting larger by the day) squadron, was proving quite cumbersome so Natasha split it into two, promoted two Flight Leaders to Squadron Leaders, and I generally had a ‘cabinet re-shuffle’, but Topsy still tried to ‘poke his oar in’ whenever he could, and looking at the carnage on the undercarriage assembly he noticed that not only had one end of the shredded pipe been anti-locked, but the end of the locking wire had not been bent over either.
On aircraft, nuts and bolts, and all things that can vibrate undone, cannot be allowed to do so, so there is a ‘belt and braces’ method of stopping this happening. Nuts, bolts, pipe unions, lock-nuts, control wires, in fact anything that can come undone, are torque loaded, to make sure that they are neither too loose nor too tight, and then tied tightly together with ‘locking wire’. A flexible wire, that when inserted through pre-drilled holes in the head of a nut, bolt or union, would be twisted tightly to form a stronger, more rigid wire, and then threaded through the opposite part of the union, preferably at a right angle, pulled tight (in theory pulling the nuts even tighter), and then twisted for a further half a
n inch, snipped off and the end folded back on itself and pushed flush with the nut. Anti-locking is the same, but in the opposite direction, trying to pull them apart, and this is where the Supervisor, or a second Independent Supervisor on control cables, comes in. When mechanics are tired, cold, ****ed off, working upside down or even working blind it is an easy thing to do, but there is no castigation, just ‘oh dearie me’ and do it again. It is not unheard of to have two or even three attempts to get it right, but at every attempt the end would be folded back and pushed against the nut, after-all it would most likely be his/her hand that got stabbed by the sharp end if he/she didn’t. Topsy wasn’t too worried about the anti-locking, he reckoned that almost every aircraft, if stripped down to its component parts would have one or two that had slipped through the net, but what you wouldn’t find are unfolded ends, mechanics are a tight fisted lot, they don’t like giving blood away unless there is a free cup of tea at the end of it, but it was time for him to publicly congratulate the Plane Captains and Olympian ‘for preventing a very serious - and possibly fatal accident from happening’, so he pushed it to the back of his mind for the moment.
At the mention of ‘fatal’ Topsy automatically looked at me, and I thought ‘time for one of my ‘one liners’, so ‘don’t look at me’ I said, ‘I would have been four hundred feet away when she hit’.
‘Four hundred feet?’ Topsy quizzically repeated.
‘Yes, four hundred feet’, and I pointed a finger skywards. Another ‘modification to the standard Hunter Mk6 design was a Martin Baker Mk 10(L) rocket propelled ejection seat, recommended to be retrofitted to existing RAF Hunters back in 1980, with absolutely no structural re-designing needed, but never fitted, cost before pilots lives was the mantra then.
Every maintainer present thought – Rat deserting a sinking ship.
Every pilot present thought – you and me both.
I was starting to think that Lady S was perhaps having an affair, and trying to give me a gentle hint to ‘take a hike’, but no, she wouldn’t do such a horrible thing to me, although when I went to England a few days later, to have some quality time with Robin and family I was tempted to get David to put a concealed camera on her (and later wished that I had).
Three weeks later I was again sat in her, at the end of the runway, but pointing in the wrong direction. The wind was up so I had to take off into the wind, and then do a quick 180˚ turn. Most pilots would just circle right or left and go on their merry way, but not me, I liked to overfly El Campo at about seven or eight hundred feet and have a look around, and even try to look down the ‘volcano’ at Sheila, and this time was no different, until I had just cleared my lake and was heading, ‘straight and level’ towards the Mediterranean. I felt rather than heard an explosion and my aileron and rudder controls became useless accessories, and the elevator felt ‘funny’, but the Hunter being the Hunter - flew serenely on, did it give a jot – not a one. I passed Chalkie by in his ‘chicken coop’ and reckoned that if I shouted loud enough he might actually hear me, even above the Avon, but as this seemed to be a full blown ‘emergency’ I wanted everyone to know about it, not just him, so I was quickly on to ‘Guard’, the International Air Distress frequency (121.5MHz) channel, which was reserved for ‘emergencies only’, and so it was ‘MAYDAY, MAYDAY, MAYDAY, this is Lady S calling El Campo tower, I have just lost virtually all my flight controls, but I am at the moment in stable flight at 200knots.’ That got Chalkies attention, and after one brief interruption by a civil airport he was my point of contact. His new ‘enlarged’ chicken coop then earned its keep by playing host to just about every ‘air-side Manager’ and senior pilot that I had, and the first thing that had to be sorted out was, ‘had I any control over my aircraft?’
‘Only limited Elevator (up or down), and normal throttle (faster or slower)’, but there was no way that I could turn my aircraft, either by using the rudder or an aileron/elevator mix’. Then I had to recount what had actually happened, and I described what I had heard and felt, and then the radio went very quiet for what seemed like a life-time. They were then back on, requesting my heading and fuel state, which I was happy to give them, I knew that I had sufficient fuel to cross the Mediterranean and reach Algeria, until they told me the bad news - I was pointed up the Med and not across it. I was on a course to nowhere.
‘But what had happened to my aircraft?’ I asked, and Topsy said that the consensus of opinion was that a very small device (AKA bomb) had been planted near to the control mixer unit, which transferred my control rod inputs from my stick and rudder bar, to the mechanical linkages which went to the flight controls, but it looks as though it was only partially successful as I still had ‘some’ elevator control, and that raised another point, ‘was I in ‘manual’ or ‘powered’ controls’?
‘Manual’ I said, I just liked the feeling of ‘being at one with the air outside’, ‘why, should I switch them on?’ By the amount of ‘No’s’ that came over my radio I gathered that that might not be a good idea.
I asked them how they knew that it was a bomb - ‘because a portable transmitter has just been found in a skip in-between the hangars, still switched on, and the batteries still fully charged’. Apparently it was more than powerful enough to detonate a device as I flew across the airfield.
‘But why?’, I asked, ‘if someone wanted to blow me up in mid-air, there were almost limitless places that would ensure my destruction; all this would do was cause me to eject’.
‘Exactly’ said Topsy, ‘just like your brake failure the other week’. ‘John thinks that your ejection seat has been tampered with, and if you do eject it will look like a malfunction, not murder, as any evidence will have been destroyed, both on the seat as you hit the ground, and on the aircraft as it burned, (at the first attempt) or sunk to the bottom of the sea (today).
‘But why am I still breathing’ I asked, still trying to get it sorted out in my head that someone actually wanted to kill me, and most likely someone that I knew.
‘Because you were flying in manual, usually only idiots fly in manual if they have a choice, thank god you are an idiot’. ‘If you had been in ‘powered’ controls everything would have happened so fast, your control surfaces would have been all over the place, giving you only a split second to react, and pull the handle, exit Andrew Michaels’.
‘Thanks pal’ I said ‘remind me to fire you when I get back - and I’m sure that there are other IDIOT’S flying around in manual’, and then we got back to the problem at hand, and my options now seemed to be:-
1.Pray for a miracle.
2.Fly on until I disappeared into the sunset.
3.Eject – and probably die, the only positive point in its favour was that it would be over quicker, and
4.Ditch in the sea, then I remembered what it said in the pilots’ notes: - (A verbatim quote)
Page 98 – Item 103 DITCHING
a.Model tests of a clean aircraft indicate that a ditching in any but ideal conditions would be very hazardous.
b.It is recommended therefore that except in calm seas and air conditions combined with good visibility the pilot should abandon the aircraft rather than attempt a ditching.
I glanced at the four drop tanks under my wings and looked down at the very angry seas below and guessed that things were anything but ‘ideal’.
I had once asked Natasha why there was no ‘jumping out of the aircraft’ chapter in the pilots’ notes, ‘because you fly a Hawker Hunter not a Hawker Hurricane, if you did manage to stand up on the seat, you would be blown off and ‘around’ the fin - it is very sharp’.
Just as I thought that things couldn’t get any worse, a strange American accented voice came over my headset, ‘Lady S, this is CVN-77- USS George HW Bush, we have been monitoring your broadcasts and may just be in a position to offer assistance you’.
I was now back to Item 1. - pray for a miracle. Was George HW Bush the older or the younger? I didn’t much go for the younger, but beggars can??
?t be chooses.
‘This is Lady S’ – I was frantically trying to remember her proper registration letters – ‘please go ahead’, anything is better than nothing.
The USS George HW Bush is an American nuclear powered aircraft carrier, and had just finished one ‘joint exercise’ (bombing the crap out of some poor Country or other) and was starting another one mananã, so they were just pottering about having a bit of R&R (rest and recuperation), and whilst listening to my predicament a couple of ideas had been floated around. They already knew my course and speed, ‘can you slow down a bit please, it will give us more time to prepare’, and so I eased my throttle back slightly.
‘One hundred and seventy five knots, that’s perfect’ came the reply to the statement I was about to make, they must have even better radar that the Lady S (the floating one), and their first idea was that they would line up in front of me, and I could lower the Lady S onto their deck, and into their safety barrier, I didn’t like that one little bit, ‘what is the second one’.
‘An Osprey tilt wing aircraft will fly above, and in front of you, lower a cable and pluck you bodily out of your aircraft’, I thought of the fin and my family jewels.
‘Tell me more about option one’ I said – they had definitely watched ‘Air Force One’ a time to many.
As I slowly absorbed it, I started to like their plan –not a lot, but a little, but there was a slight problem, even their Radar wasn’t accurate enough to place the huge 102,000 long ton aircraft carrier within a few feet of the Lady S (and yes there is a short ton, the Americans use it so it would be 114.000 short tons), and this is where Natasha butted in, ‘have you tried your air brake, Arabella’s turns her a degree or so to starboard every time I flip it out’.
Now the Americans were totally confused, children talking on the emergency channel about their dolls hair, but I tried it anyway, and although I felt nothing the Yanks (sorry American gentlemen) spotted a movement, apparently it knocked me about a degree to port. ‘Huston I have control’.
The George Bush (HW) then took over my situation, and had obviously downloaded the F6 pilot’s notes from the WWW as they now knew that I couldn’t blip my belly air brake and have my undercarriage down at the same time, oops, ‘but’ I thought, ‘if my belly airbrake can do that, what about my flaps, will they push me off course slightly as well?’, so for what seemed like an age they had me doing all sorts of combinations of flaps, air brake, undercarriage, altitude and speed, until I said in exasperation ‘what if I slide my hood back and put my hand out?
‘OK, try your left one first’, then finally ‘Mildred’ had apparently gotten enough information, and was ready to talk to me.
‘Oh, you have lady sailors on board as well’ I commented.
‘Yes we do, but Mildred is a machine, what voice would you like?’
‘Errrr’
‘How about that sexy Spanish Controller when you had the undercarriage problem’.
‘Big Brother, or what’ I thought, and a machine, in the guise of my very sexy Spanish Air Traffic Controller took over, introduced herself, and told me to start jettisoning some fuel, and then switched to her ‘professional’ voice when I was down to ‘almost empty’. I could now safely slow to 130knots for touchdown, which I was doing as I slid over the round-down, thinking back to ‘those’ buttons, and the breaking strain of cotton thread. Now about that safety barrier, I was doing 130 knots at touchdown, the Carrier itself was doing 30 (plus) knots (I could tell you the actual speed but the page would then have to self-destruct) into a wind of 25/30 knots, so that left me with about 60 knots to loose, and what with her non-skid deck and my Maxaret units (anti-skid units on my brakes) I would have needed stout walking boots to walk up to it - did I mention that the Nimitz class of ‘super carriers’ are the largest capital ships in the world, and as such have an overall length of 1,092 feet (or 333 meters for the metrificated) - I could have had a total brake failure and still not reached the barrier.
After I shut down the Lady S they put the safety pins into my ejection seat, but wouldn’t let me get out, they kept me there to ‘steer’ her, as they didn’t have a ‘universal’ steering arm to fit (I think that the real reason was that if the seat had gone bang, then they wouldn’t have had to replace me, unlike one of their sailors). Even without the engine ‘burning and turning’ I still had enough pressure in the wheel brake accumulator for at least forty applications, which was OK - what wasn’t, was that they were pushing me backwards. As I was pushed out onto the side lift (elevator), with nothing behind me but angry seas, two children with chocks in their hands beside me, about fifty sailors, of comparable ages trying to push me over the side, and my sphincter working overtime, I finally came to terms with my age, perhaps I wasn’t twenty something anymore. Tying Lady S down temporarily they got me to dump the little remaining fuel in her tanks overboard (about 3½ cup fulls), the Navy (any Navy) doesn’t like AVTUR (Aviation Turbine Fuel) on board, apparently it has too low a flash point (I thought that was the idea of it – to burn), AVCAT (Aviation Carrier Turbine Fuel) was the only approved aviation fuel, for safety reasons. Finally as they pushed me into a corner of the hangar (as I said, the George HW Bush is very large, and the Hawker Hunter is very small, so there was no worry about not having folding wings) a swarm of maintainers smothered her in temporary lashings, warning signs stating ‘no undercarriage locks’ were placed around her and then Leroy Jethro Gibbs, NCIS Special-Agent-In-Charge, surrounded her with red and white ‘crime scene’ tape, I had forgotten all about that small point, and apparently that was why they had kept me in the cockpit, that was a crime scene as well.
Once Lady S was put to bed – with an armed guard to watch over her slumbers, I was shown to the bridge where I met up with an old friend. Captain ‘Chuck’ Upp USN had been the Captain of the US Navy Cruiser that had ‘escorted’ me as we had skirted Somalia all those years ago, and I had provided some R & R for him and his crew, and after thanking him, and everyone else on the bridge most profusely we watched a Bell-Boeing V-22 Osprey approach from head-on, circle around and alight lightly onto the deck, very impressive I thought, but I knew that the most experienced pilots on board the ship were at its controls. They would have had eight minutes to snatch me from the Lady S if Mildred (or I) had gotten it wrong (‘climb to one thousand feet, 180 knots, jettison your hood, unbuckle your harness, and wait’) – they made no mention of ‘crossing my legs’. I started to ask what ‘Mildred’ was an acronym for, but saw a Marine Sargent unbutton his holster and quickly changed my mind, and then we retired to Captain Upp’s sea cabin (please - I am a heterosexual male, and proud of it) where Agent Gibbs (‘please call me Agent Gibbs’) was waiting for us. Following directions given to him by Topsy he had removed the aircraft destructor panel on the port side of the nose (aircraft destructor panel? – WHAT AIRCRAFT DESTRUCTOR PANEL?) and using a video camera with a snake lenses he found the source of my problem, it was an explosive device, and there looked to be a large amount of forensic evidence about, but as ‘Abby’ would not be involved in this (British registered aircraft) he just closed and sealed the panel, but he did show us the video. I did contemplate asking him what ‘Abby’ stood for, but nope, I remembered the Marine Sargent and though, I really don’t ‘need to know’ that either. (NCIS followers will know WHO Abby is).
Then it was the turn of the ‘Air Maintenance Boss’, he knew that Lady S would be staying on board for a while (‘that’s more than I knew’, I thought) and so he needed undercarriage locks, tie down points and a steering arm as a matter of urgency, and with that a pipe came over the ships broadcast system, ‘Hands to flying stations, standby to receive yet another Hawker Hunter’. Topsy and Natasha had been one step ahead and knew what would be needed if I successfully landed on the carrier (if - was there any doubt?) and quickly had ‘portable store-room’ drop tanks fitted to a Mk7D twin seater. Inside them, along with what the Americans had asked for, were a complete set of aircraft blanks and (with a
bit of a squeeze) a boarding ladder.
With that the Air Boss burst in, (well knocked politely on the door) ‘who is this Natasha Shladakoff’, it sounds Russian to me’ he demanded.
‘She is, and if she is piloting the aircraft about to land’ I said, ‘then I can say with hand on heart that she will be the best pilot on board this ship, when it lands’.
‘Not THAT Natasha Shladakoff’, he said in awe, ‘I wonder if I can get her autograph’ and wandered away.
‘How many Natasha Shladakoff’s are there’ I thought, ‘AND WHAT ABOUT MY BLOODY AUTOGRAPH!!!’
I watched Natasha land on board from flyco (flying Control), every other vantage point was packed with rubber-neckers, most of them in flying overalls, and of course they didn’t rig the Crash Barrier for her (it must be a sexist thing). I then went down to greet her, after she was given the pride of ‘parking place’, but she was quickly enveloped in a throng – mostly aviators, as her reputation had well and truly preceded her. When things calmed down we emptied the drop-tanks, including a bottle or two of the Captains favourite tipple, and quickly had the tie down lugs, undercarriage locks and blanks fitted by Leroy Jethro’s assistants, Tony, Ziva and Tim, as we were not permitted to cross the crime scene tape, although Tony did try it on with Natasha over it – and I did like Ziva’s hair, thank goodness her name didn’t start with S.
After we’d had a chance to ‘wash and brush up’ we had lunch in the ratings mess hall (at my request) and then given a tour of the ship, giving me a chance to say thank you to everyone, and then the Meteorological Officer made a decision, ‘the sea was much too rough for us to take off’ (look out of the window porthole idiot – it’s almost calm now).
‘Oh dear’ I thought, ‘that means we will have to stay on board tonight, I must remember to pack a D.J. every time I go for a quick flight from now on’, and after a fair attempt at impersonating Marcel, by the cooks, we watched a movie – yes ‘Air Force One’, ‘just for you’ they said, and then had a quiet night before and early start ( I say we, Natasha seemed to have a procession of drooling pilots following her wherever she went, eat your heart out Topsy), their next exercise was due to start at noon.
Next morning we sat in Llewellyn on the stern of the of the USS George HW Bush (the one that should have been Llanfair-pwllgwyngyll-gogerych-wyrndrobw-llanty-silio-gogogoch {the Hunter, not the ship}, it’s a good job that I had changed it as Natasha would still be requesting permission to land on board) and I was not looking forward to what lay ahead one little bit. It wasn’t because of a hangover, I hadn’t had a drop of alcohol all night, US Navy ships are ‘dry’, it wasn’t the take-off, after all I had a shorter runway at El Campo, it wasn’t even the fact that at dinner in the Officers mess, one Officer had asked Natasha to give a quick display after take-off, and offered her $100 to a charity of her choice, and as other donations came in from around the table it was quickly over $5,000, and when it went ship wide, and after she had said that the charity would be ‘make-a-wish foundation’ it shot to $15,000. This morning she was going to give them a display that they would never forget for $56,800 (about ten bucks per head of crew) although I was tempted to double it, just for her to go straight home as I would be sat next to her, but that was where my malady was waiting for me, Marcel. As a conversation ‘filler in’ I had invited Captain Upp (and his crew) to stop off at El Campo for a spot of R & R on their way back home, and he had accepted my offer, Marcel would really be feeding the five thousand now, and I couldn’t even blame it on the drink.
The Flight Deck Officer raised his flag above his head (he had refused a bribe of an ‘almost new’ sports car to let his deputy do it), waved it in circles, and Natasha opened the throttle wide, and when the Avon was at maximum RPM she gave him the thumbs up (although it should have been a salute, I think) and he dramatically dropped to one knee and pointed his body (and the flag) down the angled flight-deck (more for the benefit of the hundreds of cam-corders whirring away, than us), just like he did with the big boys on the catapults, and then he waited, and waited, and waited and then finally he glanced up at Natasha, who blew him a kiss and released the brakes. The flag was later to fetch $87.25 cents at the Christmas auction, and the C.O. of the F/A-18E Super Hornet Squadron received a reprimand later that day for blowing a kiss at the FDO instead of saluting, but what about me, well I fell off the end of the angled flight deck, not really – but about three thousand Americans thought that I did. When I finally opened my eyes I wished that I hadn’t, we were under the bow of the Carrier, and about to shoot up in front of her, and then we disappeared into the high cloud cover, but only for long enough to collect twenty four more friends, and to get Sally patched into the flight decks broadcast system, she was circling high above in Zebedee, and then we put on the full Farnborough routine, was that worth $62,700, or what; but what was worth twice that much to me was when she cartwheeled down the deck, almost level with flyco, with me crimping my sphincter beside her.
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Following the demise of the twins I returned to my second true love (or should that be my third?) – my Hawker Hunter Mk6D. The D was for Display – a special designation given to all my Hunters – the single seat Mk6’s and the two seat Mk 7’s by the CAA, and confusingly named Lady S as well - if the President of the USA can call every aircraft that he fly’s in ‘Air Force One’ then I can go one better, everything that I am sat in/stood on (aircraft, ship, golf buggy etc.) is ‘Lady S’, but it now seemed that even she was starting to spurn me. The first time it was over nothing, or rather a ‘zero’, - on her altimeter. As my strength returned I started to return to my old habit of playing with the clouds, and then performing some minor aerobatics for the gathered throngs on a local deserted beach, but this day I spotted a cruise liner first. An acquaintance of Carol’s (Lady S’s Captain) told her that cruise liners were now altering course just on the off chance of seeing the ‘green diamonds’ at play, so it became an unwritten rule that anyone spotting a liner should give it a couple of minutes quality time, and so I decided to buzz this lucky one at fifty feet, although instead of indicating fifty feet I noticed that the altimeter read almost five hundred feet as I flashed by down its port side, which was very naughty of it. If I had gone straight from cloud chasing to aerobatics along the deserted beach I doubt if I would have noticed the difference when I set myself up for the ‘grand finale’ inside loop, of course using the altimeter, and I undoubtedly would have run out of ‘air’ before I bottomed out, and as the Hunter is not known for its amphibious qualities, the ‘sea’ would have been very unforgiving. After giving the liner a much reduced ‘treat’, I returned to El Campo trying not to look at the altimeter, although I quickly realised that it was a very ‘accurate’ inaccuracy.
John, my Aircraft Engineering Manager was perplexed, in all his experience he had never come across a fault quite like this one. When my aircraft had been upgraded by HHR to the ‘glass cockpit’ standard, a new radar altimeter had been fitted, along with the upgraded communications and GPS-aided Navigational suite, so in theory my aircraft had one of the most up-to-date cockpits in the aviation industry, although it was surrounded by a geriatric fifty year old airframe, but it had still been four hundred and ninety-five feet out, exactly, at sea level, but not throughout its entire range. Above four thousand feet it progressively became more accurate, and by ten thousand feet it was spot on, so if I had joined formation with other aircraft above that altitude I wouldn’t have noticed the inaccuracy. Not only was I, John and all my pilots worried, but so was the CAA (the Civil Aviation Authority) so everything that could be, was removed from Lady S, for onward transfer, via one of the specially modified drop tanks, into Gatwick Airport (south) terminal, home of the CAA. New components were then dispatched from the manufacturers in England, fitted into the Lady S, and voilà, after a check test flight I was back in business.
Two days later I decided that again I needed some Hunter therapy so I joined her at her new outdoor home. She was now kept on a small hard-standing all of her very own at the end of the main aircraft line, when she wasn’t in the hangar (I think Topsy, my new joint Director of all things Aviation, had put her there so that she wouldn’t clutter up his hard-standing). In truth it was to give the passengers on my new railway a ‘photo opportunity’ of her (and me when I clambered into her). I quickly kicked the tyres and lit the fire and was feeling that all was well with the world - or at least my little part of it, as I was marshalled forward. I lightly squeezed the brake lever to check that the brakes were OK (well ok’ish, perhaps she needed new pads), and then I was off, straight towards the rest of the aircraft, but all was not lost, a new white line had been painted on my tarmac to protect them, (I can call it my tarmac – because it is), all I had to do was follow it, simple. I wasn’t really going ‘too’ fast as I approached the bent strip of paint but I wasn’t hanging about either, so when a Plane Captain and his helper, who had just dispatched his aircraft off into the wild blue yonder suddenly started running towards me, signalling for me to stop, I stopped, or at least I tried to. Any pilot will tell you that if anyone - irrespective of what he/she does or who he/she is - whether he/she is the Station Commander or his/her driver, the postman/woman, or the dust cart driver signals you to stop – you stop – end of story. What I hadn’t seen was that my Plane Captain (ess) had been absentmindedly watching me taxi out, and the sun had reflected off something on my starboard (right) undercarriage, that shouldn’t have reflected, and it looked alarmingly like hydraulic fluid. She franticly waved to her mate (it is pointless trying to shout above an Avon), and pointed at me, with her thumb down. Chas (her mate) signalled me to stop, so I did, or rather, as I have already said, I tried to, but the brake handle, after a slight resistance, went all limp in my hand as I tried to squeeze the life out of it. I then continued serenely on towards the other aircraft, franticly shutting the Avon down as I went (unfortunately the Hunter does not have nose wheel steering). Chas’s helper was carrying two very heavy wooden chocks, with about three feet (almost a meter) of substantial chain link dangling from one side (to lock the two chocks together on a wheel) and dropping one he swung the other one around by the chain and flung it in my direction, ‘perhaps it was a new Olympic sport?’ I thought, and I also thought that he had missed me, but suddenly I heard a metal on metal screech - I certainly heard (and felt) that above the Avon, and Lady S started to safely go around in circles, until my engine lost its oomph. The chock had indeed missed my starboard main wheel, but the chain hadn’t – and it jammed itself between the brake unit and the undercarriage leg, locking everything up nicely. Once everything had been sorted out and a crane had given Lady S a lift home – into the hangar, the hard-standing was given a wash and brush-up, although strangely a blob of hardened araldite was found not too far away from the crime scene of the accident, which went into Johns desk draw. The chain had not only written off the undercarriage leg but it had also shredded a brake pipe, which everyone assumed had sprung a leak after most likely being damaged by a foreign object, probably a stone – not a Russian. FOD (surprisingly enough ‘Foreign Object Damage’) is not unheard of where aircraft are concerned - as with the hat that went down Arabella’s intake on our first visit to Farnborough - although it had been made in Bradford (not a good example, I know).
Although a new undercarriage assembly was fitted, and functionally tested in two shakes of a gnat’s tail - one of Topsy’s sayings - he wasn’t a very happy little bunny. He was no longer a shop floor ‘maintainer’; he was now ‘political’, as the departure of Teddy (my previous Director of all things Aviation) had caused me to have a major shake-up, aviation wise. Teddy’s job had been split into two and Natasha took on the overseeing and training of the Display team, and Topsy did the rest, organising the displays and generally viewing the ‘bigger picture’, which included ‘co-ordinating’ the two squadrons. Having one large (and getting larger by the day) squadron, was proving quite cumbersome so Natasha split it into two, promoted two Flight Leaders to Squadron Leaders, and I generally had a ‘cabinet re-shuffle’, but Topsy still tried to ‘poke his oar in’ whenever he could, and looking at the carnage on the undercarriage assembly he noticed that not only had one end of the shredded pipe been anti-locked, but the end of the locking wire had not been bent over either.
On aircraft, nuts and bolts, and all things that can vibrate undone, cannot be allowed to do so, so there is a ‘belt and braces’ method of stopping this happening. Nuts, bolts, pipe unions, lock-nuts, control wires, in fact anything that can come undone, are torque loaded, to make sure that they are neither too loose nor too tight, and then tied tightly together with ‘locking wire’. A flexible wire, that when inserted through pre-drilled holes in the head of a nut, bolt or union, would be twisted tightly to form a stronger, more rigid wire, and then threaded through the opposite part of the union, preferably at a right angle, pulled tight (in theory pulling the nuts even tighter), and then twisted for a further half a
At the mention of ‘fatal’ Topsy automatically looked at me, and I thought ‘time for one of my ‘one liners’, so ‘don’t look at me’ I said, ‘I would have been four hundred feet away when she hit’.
‘Four hundred feet?’ Topsy quizzically repeated.
‘Yes, four hundred feet’, and I pointed a finger skywards. Another ‘modification to the standard Hunter Mk6 design was a Martin Baker Mk 10(L) rocket propelled ejection seat, recommended to be retrofitted to existing RAF Hunters back in 1980, with absolutely no structural re-designing needed, but never fitted, cost before pilots lives was the mantra then.
Every maintainer present thought – Rat deserting a sinking ship.
Every pilot present thought – you and me both.
I was starting to think that Lady S was perhaps having an affair, and trying to give me a gentle hint to ‘take a hike’, but no, she wouldn’t do such a horrible thing to me, although when I went to England a few days later, to have some quality time with Robin and family I was tempted to get David to put a concealed camera on her (and later wished that I had).
Three weeks later I was again sat in her, at the end of the runway, but pointing in the wrong direction. The wind was up so I had to take off into the wind, and then do a quick 180˚ turn. Most pilots would just circle right or left and go on their merry way, but not me, I liked to overfly El Campo at about seven or eight hundred feet and have a look around, and even try to look down the ‘volcano’ at Sheila, and this time was no different, until I had just cleared my lake and was heading, ‘straight and level’ towards the Mediterranean. I felt rather than heard an explosion and my aileron and rudder controls became useless accessories, and the elevator felt ‘funny’, but the Hunter being the Hunter - flew serenely on, did it give a jot – not a one. I passed Chalkie by in his ‘chicken coop’ and reckoned that if I shouted loud enough he might actually hear me, even above the Avon, but as this seemed to be a full blown ‘emergency’ I wanted everyone to know about it, not just him, so I was quickly on to ‘Guard’, the International Air Distress frequency (121.5MHz) channel, which was reserved for ‘emergencies only’, and so it was ‘MAYDAY, MAYDAY, MAYDAY, this is Lady S calling El Campo tower, I have just lost virtually all my flight controls, but I am at the moment in stable flight at 200knots.’ That got Chalkies attention, and after one brief interruption by a civil airport he was my point of contact. His new ‘enlarged’ chicken coop then earned its keep by playing host to just about every ‘air-side Manager’ and senior pilot that I had, and the first thing that had to be sorted out was, ‘had I any control over my aircraft?’
‘Only limited Elevator (up or down), and normal throttle (faster or slower)’, but there was no way that I could turn my aircraft, either by using the rudder or an aileron/elevator mix’. Then I had to recount what had actually happened, and I described what I had heard and felt, and then the radio went very quiet for what seemed like a life-time. They were then back on, requesting my heading and fuel state, which I was happy to give them, I knew that I had sufficient fuel to cross the Mediterranean and reach Algeria, until they told me the bad news - I was pointed up the Med and not across it. I was on a course to nowhere.
‘But what had happened to my aircraft?’ I asked, and Topsy said that the consensus of opinion was that a very small device (AKA bomb) had been planted near to the control mixer unit, which transferred my control rod inputs from my stick and rudder bar, to the mechanical linkages which went to the flight controls, but it looks as though it was only partially successful as I still had ‘some’ elevator control, and that raised another point, ‘was I in ‘manual’ or ‘powered’ controls’?
‘Manual’ I said, I just liked the feeling of ‘being at one with the air outside’, ‘why, should I switch them on?’ By the amount of ‘No’s’ that came over my radio I gathered that that might not be a good idea.
I asked them how they knew that it was a bomb - ‘because a portable transmitter has just been found in a skip in-between the hangars, still switched on, and the batteries still fully charged’. Apparently it was more than powerful enough to detonate a device as I flew across the airfield.
‘But why?’, I asked, ‘if someone wanted to blow me up in mid-air, there were almost limitless places that would ensure my destruction; all this would do was cause me to eject’.
‘Exactly’ said Topsy, ‘just like your brake failure the other week’. ‘John thinks that your ejection seat has been tampered with, and if you do eject it will look like a malfunction, not murder, as any evidence will have been destroyed, both on the seat as you hit the ground, and on the aircraft as it burned, (at the first attempt) or sunk to the bottom of the sea (today).
‘But why am I still breathing’ I asked, still trying to get it sorted out in my head that someone actually wanted to kill me, and most likely someone that I knew.
‘Because you were flying in manual, usually only idiots fly in manual if they have a choice, thank god you are an idiot’. ‘If you had been in ‘powered’ controls everything would have happened so fast, your control surfaces would have been all over the place, giving you only a split second to react, and pull the handle, exit Andrew Michaels’.
‘Thanks pal’ I said ‘remind me to fire you when I get back - and I’m sure that there are other IDIOT’S flying around in manual’, and then we got back to the problem at hand, and my options now seemed to be:-
1.Pray for a miracle.
2.Fly on until I disappeared into the sunset.
3.Eject – and probably die, the only positive point in its favour was that it would be over quicker, and
4.Ditch in the sea, then I remembered what it said in the pilots’ notes: - (A verbatim quote)
Page 98 – Item 103 DITCHING
a.Model tests of a clean aircraft indicate that a ditching in any but ideal conditions would be very hazardous.
b.It is recommended therefore that except in calm seas and air conditions combined with good visibility the pilot should abandon the aircraft rather than attempt a ditching.
I glanced at the four drop tanks under my wings and looked down at the very angry seas below and guessed that things were anything but ‘ideal’.
I had once asked Natasha why there was no ‘jumping out of the aircraft’ chapter in the pilots’ notes, ‘because you fly a Hawker Hunter not a Hawker Hurricane, if you did manage to stand up on the seat, you would be blown off and ‘around’ the fin - it is very sharp’.
Just as I thought that things couldn’t get any worse, a strange American accented voice came over my headset, ‘Lady S, this is CVN-77- USS George HW Bush, we have been monitoring your broadcasts and may just be in a position to offer assistance you’.
I was now back to Item 1. - pray for a miracle. Was George HW Bush the older or the younger? I didn’t much go for the younger, but beggars can??
‘This is Lady S’ – I was frantically trying to remember her proper registration letters – ‘please go ahead’, anything is better than nothing.
The USS George HW Bush is an American nuclear powered aircraft carrier, and had just finished one ‘joint exercise’ (bombing the crap out of some poor Country or other) and was starting another one mananã, so they were just pottering about having a bit of R&R (rest and recuperation), and whilst listening to my predicament a couple of ideas had been floated around. They already knew my course and speed, ‘can you slow down a bit please, it will give us more time to prepare’, and so I eased my throttle back slightly.
‘One hundred and seventy five knots, that’s perfect’ came the reply to the statement I was about to make, they must have even better radar that the Lady S (the floating one), and their first idea was that they would line up in front of me, and I could lower the Lady S onto their deck, and into their safety barrier, I didn’t like that one little bit, ‘what is the second one’.
‘An Osprey tilt wing aircraft will fly above, and in front of you, lower a cable and pluck you bodily out of your aircraft’, I thought of the fin and my family jewels.
‘Tell me more about option one’ I said – they had definitely watched ‘Air Force One’ a time to many.
As I slowly absorbed it, I started to like their plan –not a lot, but a little, but there was a slight problem, even their Radar wasn’t accurate enough to place the huge 102,000 long ton aircraft carrier within a few feet of the Lady S (and yes there is a short ton, the Americans use it so it would be 114.000 short tons), and this is where Natasha butted in, ‘have you tried your air brake, Arabella’s turns her a degree or so to starboard every time I flip it out’.
Now the Americans were totally confused, children talking on the emergency channel about their dolls hair, but I tried it anyway, and although I felt nothing the Yanks (sorry American gentlemen) spotted a movement, apparently it knocked me about a degree to port. ‘Huston I have control’.
The George Bush (HW) then took over my situation, and had obviously downloaded the F6 pilot’s notes from the WWW as they now knew that I couldn’t blip my belly air brake and have my undercarriage down at the same time, oops, ‘but’ I thought, ‘if my belly airbrake can do that, what about my flaps, will they push me off course slightly as well?’, so for what seemed like an age they had me doing all sorts of combinations of flaps, air brake, undercarriage, altitude and speed, until I said in exasperation ‘what if I slide my hood back and put my hand out?
‘OK, try your left one first’, then finally ‘Mildred’ had apparently gotten enough information, and was ready to talk to me.
‘Oh, you have lady sailors on board as well’ I commented.
‘Yes we do, but Mildred is a machine, what voice would you like?’
‘Errrr’
‘How about that sexy Spanish Controller when you had the undercarriage problem’.
‘Big Brother, or what’ I thought, and a machine, in the guise of my very sexy Spanish Air Traffic Controller took over, introduced herself, and told me to start jettisoning some fuel, and then switched to her ‘professional’ voice when I was down to ‘almost empty’. I could now safely slow to 130knots for touchdown, which I was doing as I slid over the round-down, thinking back to ‘those’ buttons, and the breaking strain of cotton thread. Now about that safety barrier, I was doing 130 knots at touchdown, the Carrier itself was doing 30 (plus) knots (I could tell you the actual speed but the page would then have to self-destruct) into a wind of 25/30 knots, so that left me with about 60 knots to loose, and what with her non-skid deck and my Maxaret units (anti-skid units on my brakes) I would have needed stout walking boots to walk up to it - did I mention that the Nimitz class of ‘super carriers’ are the largest capital ships in the world, and as such have an overall length of 1,092 feet (or 333 meters for the metrificated) - I could have had a total brake failure and still not reached the barrier.
After I shut down the Lady S they put the safety pins into my ejection seat, but wouldn’t let me get out, they kept me there to ‘steer’ her, as they didn’t have a ‘universal’ steering arm to fit (I think that the real reason was that if the seat had gone bang, then they wouldn’t have had to replace me, unlike one of their sailors). Even without the engine ‘burning and turning’ I still had enough pressure in the wheel brake accumulator for at least forty applications, which was OK - what wasn’t, was that they were pushing me backwards. As I was pushed out onto the side lift (elevator), with nothing behind me but angry seas, two children with chocks in their hands beside me, about fifty sailors, of comparable ages trying to push me over the side, and my sphincter working overtime, I finally came to terms with my age, perhaps I wasn’t twenty something anymore. Tying Lady S down temporarily they got me to dump the little remaining fuel in her tanks overboard (about 3½ cup fulls), the Navy (any Navy) doesn’t like AVTUR (Aviation Turbine Fuel) on board, apparently it has too low a flash point (I thought that was the idea of it – to burn), AVCAT (Aviation Carrier Turbine Fuel) was the only approved aviation fuel, for safety reasons. Finally as they pushed me into a corner of the hangar (as I said, the George HW Bush is very large, and the Hawker Hunter is very small, so there was no worry about not having folding wings) a swarm of maintainers smothered her in temporary lashings, warning signs stating ‘no undercarriage locks’ were placed around her and then Leroy Jethro Gibbs, NCIS Special-Agent-In-Charge, surrounded her with red and white ‘crime scene’ tape, I had forgotten all about that small point, and apparently that was why they had kept me in the cockpit, that was a crime scene as well.
Once Lady S was put to bed – with an armed guard to watch over her slumbers, I was shown to the bridge where I met up with an old friend. Captain ‘Chuck’ Upp USN had been the Captain of the US Navy Cruiser that had ‘escorted’ me as we had skirted Somalia all those years ago, and I had provided some R & R for him and his crew, and after thanking him, and everyone else on the bridge most profusely we watched a Bell-Boeing V-22 Osprey approach from head-on, circle around and alight lightly onto the deck, very impressive I thought, but I knew that the most experienced pilots on board the ship were at its controls. They would have had eight minutes to snatch me from the Lady S if Mildred (or I) had gotten it wrong (‘climb to one thousand feet, 180 knots, jettison your hood, unbuckle your harness, and wait’) – they made no mention of ‘crossing my legs’. I started to ask what ‘Mildred’ was an acronym for, but saw a Marine Sargent unbutton his holster and quickly changed my mind, and then we retired to Captain Upp’s sea cabin (please - I am a heterosexual male, and proud of it) where Agent Gibbs (‘please call me Agent Gibbs’) was waiting for us. Following directions given to him by Topsy he had removed the aircraft destructor panel on the port side of the nose (aircraft destructor panel? – WHAT AIRCRAFT DESTRUCTOR PANEL?) and using a video camera with a snake lenses he found the source of my problem, it was an explosive device, and there looked to be a large amount of forensic evidence about, but as ‘Abby’ would not be involved in this (British registered aircraft) he just closed and sealed the panel, but he did show us the video. I did contemplate asking him what ‘Abby’ stood for, but nope, I remembered the Marine Sargent and though, I really don’t ‘need to know’ that either. (NCIS followers will know WHO Abby is).
Then it was the turn of the ‘Air Maintenance Boss’, he knew that Lady S would be staying on board for a while (‘that’s more than I knew’, I thought) and so he needed undercarriage locks, tie down points and a steering arm as a matter of urgency, and with that a pipe came over the ships broadcast system, ‘Hands to flying stations, standby to receive yet another Hawker Hunter’. Topsy and Natasha had been one step ahead and knew what would be needed if I successfully landed on the carrier (if - was there any doubt?) and quickly had ‘portable store-room’ drop tanks fitted to a Mk7D twin seater. Inside them, along with what the Americans had asked for, were a complete set of aircraft blanks and (with a
With that the Air Boss burst in, (well knocked politely on the door) ‘who is this Natasha Shladakoff’, it sounds Russian to me’ he demanded.
‘She is, and if she is piloting the aircraft about to land’ I said, ‘then I can say with hand on heart that she will be the best pilot on board this ship, when it lands’.
‘Not THAT Natasha Shladakoff’, he said in awe, ‘I wonder if I can get her autograph’ and wandered away.
‘How many Natasha Shladakoff’s are there’ I thought, ‘AND WHAT ABOUT MY BLOODY AUTOGRAPH!!!’
I watched Natasha land on board from flyco (flying Control), every other vantage point was packed with rubber-neckers, most of them in flying overalls, and of course they didn’t rig the Crash Barrier for her (it must be a sexist thing). I then went down to greet her, after she was given the pride of ‘parking place’, but she was quickly enveloped in a throng – mostly aviators, as her reputation had well and truly preceded her. When things calmed down we emptied the drop-tanks, including a bottle or two of the Captains favourite tipple, and quickly had the tie down lugs, undercarriage locks and blanks fitted by Leroy Jethro’s assistants, Tony, Ziva and Tim, as we were not permitted to cross the crime scene tape, although Tony did try it on with Natasha over it – and I did like Ziva’s hair, thank goodness her name didn’t start with S.
After we’d had a chance to ‘wash and brush up’ we had lunch in the ratings mess hall (at my request) and then given a tour of the ship, giving me a chance to say thank you to everyone, and then the Meteorological Officer made a decision, ‘the sea was much too rough for us to take off’ (look out of the window porthole idiot – it’s almost calm now).
‘Oh dear’ I thought, ‘that means we will have to stay on board tonight, I must remember to pack a D.J. every time I go for a quick flight from now on’, and after a fair attempt at impersonating Marcel, by the cooks, we watched a movie – yes ‘Air Force One’, ‘just for you’ they said, and then had a quiet night before and early start ( I say we, Natasha seemed to have a procession of drooling pilots following her wherever she went, eat your heart out Topsy), their next exercise was due to start at noon.
Next morning we sat in Llewellyn on the stern of the of the USS George HW Bush (the one that should have been Llanfair-pwllgwyngyll-gogerych-wyrndrobw-llanty-silio-gogogoch {the Hunter, not the ship}, it’s a good job that I had changed it as Natasha would still be requesting permission to land on board) and I was not looking forward to what lay ahead one little bit. It wasn’t because of a hangover, I hadn’t had a drop of alcohol all night, US Navy ships are ‘dry’, it wasn’t the take-off, after all I had a shorter runway at El Campo, it wasn’t even the fact that at dinner in the Officers mess, one Officer had asked Natasha to give a quick display after take-off, and offered her $100 to a charity of her choice, and as other donations came in from around the table it was quickly over $5,000, and when it went ship wide, and after she had said that the charity would be ‘make-a-wish foundation’ it shot to $15,000. This morning she was going to give them a display that they would never forget for $56,800 (about ten bucks per head of crew) although I was tempted to double it, just for her to go straight home as I would be sat next to her, but that was where my malady was waiting for me, Marcel. As a conversation ‘filler in’ I had invited Captain Upp (and his crew) to stop off at El Campo for a spot of R & R on their way back home, and he had accepted my offer, Marcel would really be feeding the five thousand now, and I couldn’t even blame it on the drink.
The Flight Deck Officer raised his flag above his head (he had refused a bribe of an ‘almost new’ sports car to let his deputy do it), waved it in circles, and Natasha opened the throttle wide, and when the Avon was at maximum RPM she gave him the thumbs up (although it should have been a salute, I think) and he dramatically dropped to one knee and pointed his body (and the flag) down the angled flight-deck (more for the benefit of the hundreds of cam-corders whirring away, than us), just like he did with the big boys on the catapults, and then he waited, and waited, and waited and then finally he glanced up at Natasha, who blew him a kiss and released the brakes. The flag was later to fetch $87.25 cents at the Christmas auction, and the C.O. of the F/A-18E Super Hornet Squadron received a reprimand later that day for blowing a kiss at the FDO instead of saluting, but what about me, well I fell off the end of the angled flight deck, not really – but about three thousand Americans thought that I did. When I finally opened my eyes I wished that I hadn’t, we were under the bow of the Carrier, and about to shoot up in front of her, and then we disappeared into the high cloud cover, but only for long enough to collect twenty four more friends, and to get Sally patched into the flight decks broadcast system, she was circling high above in Zebedee, and then we put on the full Farnborough routine, was that worth $62,700, or what; but what was worth twice that much to me was when she cartwheeled down the deck, almost level with flyco, with me crimping my sphincter beside her.
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