18
MARINE CORPS NIGHT FLIGHT
USS GUAM ■ JUNE 1979
The noise and red-lit instruments are nearly overpowering to your racing mind. The world seems upright but you just can’t tell by the feeling in your ass when the world consists entirely of the red glow in the cockpit and blackness outside the windows. You could be slicing toward the sea in a hard bank or going backwards or both. Or, everything could be as it was supposed to be, the aircraft level at 300 feet above the sea and holding the proper speed.
Outside the cockpit, the world is completely black, as black as if someone had thrown black paint over the windshield and your eyes were closed and you are screaming to yourself, “Oh God, I don’t want to be here! Let me be somewhere else, anywhere, don’t make me try to control this helicopter, let someone else do it because I can’t, I just fucking can’t tell up from down, right from left, the sea from the sky, the noise sounds like the helicopter is going to tear itself apart in the turn, Oh God,” but you say none of these things. You only stare at the familiar mass of instruments on the dash and fight the panic within. The rest of the aircrew has no idea what is going on in your head as you try to remain in control, except every one of them has felt, or is right now feeling, the same feelings. Maybe they feel them this time or maybe they don’t, but no one says anything and the helicopter moves in the darkness toward another landing on the ship.
All living ships have a hum that never stops. But, just like city noise, when you live aboard, you don’t really hear it, especially during the day; only at night when the other noises are quiet, you discover that it is there. All Navy ships also lean slightly to one side or the other. The USS Guam listed a couple degrees to starboard but unless you thought about it, you never noticed after you had been on board for a while. Like a pain you have had for years, you don’t really feel it any more even if it is always there. We swore the Guam was the worst of ships and made up acronyms to match the letters G U A M. “Go UA (unauthorized absence) man.” “Give Up And masturbate.” though truth be told, in retrospect, the Guam was a pretty good ship to live aboard and to fly from.
At sea, we speak in code, or actually shorthand, much like the verbal shorthand we use internally among the crew when talking over the radio. Altitudes below 1000 feet are broken down in 100-foot increments called “cherubs”—cherubs three would be 300 feet. One thousand feet and above are called “Angels.” the radio frequencies are color coded, i.e., red for the tower, purple for Center. The actual frequencies may change but the colors remain the same. The ship is “mother.” the TACAN, the radio beacon carried by larger ships, is “our Father.” the ship’s course is “BRC,” short for Base Recover Course. “Buster” means go as fast as you can, and “Pigeons” means the course from the aircraft to its destination. The most important is “State,” how much fuel you have left. State is given in “time to splash,” self-explanatory (most pilots subtract a little time as a “fudge factor,” say five minutes for the wife, and another five for each child). “Souls” are the number of personnel onboard the aircraft.
The men who work on the deck of a ship also dress in different colored flotation vests, called “shirts” even though they are really vests and matching color “cranials,” a protective helmet with built-in sound attenuator cups to protect their hearing. The numerous varieties of shirts allow everyone to see at a glance what a particular person’s role is. The yellow-shirted landing signal enlisted (LSE) stands in front of the deck spot where the helicopter is to land and gives hand signals to direct the pilot over the three painted squares where the helicopter’s wheels are to go. The LSE also directs the blue-shirted aircraft deck handlers who install/remove the chocks and chains to keep the aircraft from rolling on a moving deck. The men who refuel aircraft wear purple shirts. Medical personnel wear white vests with red crosses on them, while cargo handlers and the men who lead passengers to their helicopter wear plain white shirts. Squadron maintenance personnel wear green shirts. No one ever goes out onto the flight deck during Flight Operations without a cranial and vest, no one.
My squadron had joined the ship a week before as part of a marine expeditionary Unit, a MEU—pronounced “mew”—that would provide the landing force for the Sixth Fleet (LF6F) in the Mediterranean for the next six months. Our on-load off the coast of Beauford, North Carolina, was the usual controlled chaos and the usual success. Tonight is the first night that the weather has been even marginally within limits for the practice of night landings or Carrier Qualifications—CQs—required if the squadron is to remain combat-ready.
The aircraft we flew out to the Guam all had official names, military names like, the CH-46e “Sea Knight” or the AH-1t “Sea Cobra” or the CH-53D “Sea Stallion.” the “Sea” part identified them as Naval, or in this case marine Corps, aircraft. But, as always their crews called them less lovely, less aggressive names.
The CH-53D Sea Stallion is the “Shitter,” shortened from “Shuddering Shithouse,” in honor of the normal high level of vibration the bird produced when hovering, taking off, and landing. But the crews often just called it a “Hog,” because close in to the deck, fighting the wind bouncing off the island and up over the flight deck it wallows like a hog might do in the mud. Once, a CH-53 wallowed badly enough when attempting to do a normal landing on board the Guam, that the pilot hit the scupper (drain channel around the flight deck) with one of his main landing gear wheels hard enough to put a major dent in the scupper’s steel wall.
The AH-1t Sea Cobra is a “Snake” to its crews, slim and deadly, but wobbly over the flight deck spot and top heavy for its narrow skids. The missions of Cobra pilots does not involve the constant landings and take-offs that cargo pilots do, so they are sometimes not as proficient. The cargo pilots love to critique the Cobra pilots’ landings, particularly when we are flying out of a landing zone in the middle of nowhere.
The CH-46e Sea Knight is a “Frog” or “Phrog” to its crews and nearly everyone else. Sitting on its wheels it seems to be squatting, and when it ground taxies it looks like it is awkwardly trying to hop to the runway. The Frog is not lovely to anyone except its crew.
The UH-1N is just another Huey. All models of the UH-1 series have been called “Hueys” since the original Army models were delivered with “HU-1” for “helicopter utility model 1” stamped on their rudder pedals. The Huey is the most produced helicopter the United States has built and comes in many models. I flew the A, B, C, D, e, H, K, L, and m models, all single-engine versions.
My marine composite squadron that embarked on the Guam had 12 Phrogs, four Snakes, Four Shitters, and two Hueys, a normal mix for an MEU. The crews that flew the aircraft ranged from twenty-four-year-old lieutenants to the “old man,” the lieutenant colonel commanding officer at forty-four.
Just forward of the gray steel wall of the “island,” that part of the ship that sticks up above the flight deck on the starboard (right) side, on the 02 level (the level just below the flight deck), the crews gathered for their briefings and debriefings in ready room 2. The lights in the ship’s ready room 2 were supposed to be red during Night Ops so that the pilots’ eyes would have time to night adapt. But on the Guam, half of the lights were out and some of those that were working put out more white than red so the effect was not what was intended. It was just shabby, not like a place where men prepared to go night flying or to combat. In the front of the ready room, the red lights did not work at all so the operations duty officer (ODO) had the whites on so he could see to do his paperwork.
The ready room briefing chairs were covered in gray vinyl and very heavily padded, so that in theory at least, you could wait in comfort for the next mission. They were also like school desks from many years ago, except the chairs had gray metal frames instead of light colored wood and the swing-over side arms were metal too. No way to carve your name into them, but the paint was always missing in places, making them worn looking. When the reclining mechanism worked, the chairs could lean back at a comfortable angle, again so the crews could relax while awaiting their launches, ready to scramble to face the incoming enemy. But like the red-dark adaptation lights, some chairs worked and some didn’t.
There were two ready rooms side by side on the 02 (Oh two) deck, one used by the aircrews and the other by maintenance. Nine rows of eight chairs each with an aisle down the middle determined the seating capacity of the ready rooms. The one used by the aircrew was toward the stern of the ship. In the front of the ready room, toward the center of the ship, was the ODO desk with two telephones, and behind him were the boards, some Plexiglas-covered aluminum sheets, others chalk boards. The boards slid out, one after another to show weather, radio frequencies, aircrews and the aircraft they would fly, and other bits of information the pilots would need for tonight’s mission. In front, on the wall near the ceiling, was the 1mC, the ship’s loudspeaker system, and the five position speaker that was the ship’s entertainment system.
The briefing for night CQs was done at the time listed on the flight schedule, as were the morning briefing and the afternoon briefing. The aircrews did their Naval Air training and Operating Procedures Standardization Program (NATOPS—sometimes referred to by more senior aviators as “Not Applicable to Old Pilots”) briefs, and the first crews went up to the twilight to preflight their aircraft. The entire night CQ briefing process had the air of a Roman Catholic mass; the normal relaxed atmosphere of a daytime mission brief was not there, not for a dark night launch like tonight. The rituals that must be obeyed are the same whether day or night, but the rituals are more solemn at night. At night, they are more than pro forma. Checklists are recited like church hymns learned long ago, and like the hymns, the words the checklist called for were said only by rote, with nearly all meaning gone. And if the pilots did not follow their ritual, they would feel guilty, perhaps without even knowing why. But that did not happen at night, not in the middle of the Atlantic, on a hazy night with moderate visibility and fairly strong winds. This is too real for rote.
Following the prayers in the brief, the crews moved out onto the deck for the second ritual, preflighting the aircraft. Each aircraft panel would be opened, connections tugged on, bearings checked, oil and hydraulic levels checked, and so on until the pilots had checked the entire aircraft. Unlike fixed wing pilots who mostly just walk around to see if the panels are closed, helo crews check and re-check everything, even after the crew chief has checked it all before in even greater detail and signed the bird ready to fly. Helicopters do not have ejection seats and the crew does not have parachutes. Not that they would open anyway since helicopters almost never fly high enough for a parachute to work, so where the helicopter goes, also goes the crew…
On the Phrog, the HAC always does the bottom and inside of the aircraft while the copilot does the top. The HAC shines his flashlight into those places nearly invisible in the dim light that a fading day leaves inside the helicopter. Outside, he dodges the chains as he walks around the air-craft clockwise, from the crew door aft, checking the landing gear and fuel tanks and lower parts of the aircraft.
The aluminum helicopter skins are nearly always slick from spilled oil, hydraulic fluid, salt spray, and spots on top of the fuselage are worn shinny from the feet of the crew chiefs and maintenance personnel. Checking the top means the copilot must climb the side of the helicopter using the small, oily foot wells, to the top of the aft pylon, crossing his legs over each other until he is 18 feet above the steel deck. Because the aircraft are parked in the “bone” (the area where aircraft are parked on the deck between flights), with their sterns hanging out past the edge of the deck, the copilot is now 70 feet above the dark sea. Fading light and high winds add a difficulty factor and make it more interesting. After all the appropriate things are examined, pulled, tugged, etc., the panels would be closed up by the crew chief, whose movements are much more smooth than the pilots, with a grace developed from countless trips. Then the crew chief, using a stubby screwdriver, closes the deus fasteners (the large headed screws), securing the panels.
About 15 minutes before launch, the aircraft is moved from the bone-yard to one of the spots on the deck. A flight deck crew of four men comes with a yellow tow tractor and hooks the helicopter up, tow bar to helicopter nose wheel. The flight deck crew consists of a tractor driver and a Landing Signal enlisted person (LSE) or “yellow shirt” (since this is the color designated for this role) who will lead the entire process, and two wing walkers to walk beside the helicopter and signal it is clear of obstacles as it is moved across the deck. One or both of the pilots sit in the cockpit to release the brakes when signaled, and to lock and unlock the nose wheel as the LSE directs. When the aircraft is on the designated spot, the chalks and chains are replaced and the process of preparing for launch continues.
If not already strapped into the cockpit seats, the pilots do so now and begin the third major ritual of each flight, the checklist. Usually the copilot or H2P (helicopter second pilot) calls and the HAC answers, a responsive reading much like the psalms in church services. Light signals from the pilots to the LSE, standing clear of the rotor blades at the 2 o’clock position from the cockpit, are required for each major event, like starting the auxiliary power unit (APU), spreading the blades, starting the engines and engaging rotors. If they don’t already have them on when the APU comes on line, the crew puts on their helmets against the noise. If they weren’t al-ready, they now all become far more serious about their upcoming task.
Like all military aviators, marine pilots come in three classes: first—new guys, like the first-cruise lieutenants; second—confident, second or third cruise captains, tactical and proficient, with their reflexes at their sharpest; and third—the older field grade officers, majors and perhaps a few lieutenant colonels, with many cruises under their belts, but not flying as much as they once did, responsibility and age having caught up with them. Their eyes are now behind prescription lenses, maybe even bifocals and their reflexes are slower than ten years ago, not that they would admit it. “Age and treachery beat youth and skill,” they say, but they know in their hearts it is often not true.
The first crews would launch into “pinky time.” It is that time right after official sunset, a twilight that lets you still see enough to maintain some small level of comfort. Strapped into a sea of cockpit sound—the howling, shaking helicopters—the pilots lift off before it is completely dark. The time between official sunset and true darkness allows the first pilots to get their six landings that are required to keep current for Night Operations. The second and third copilots trade places with the preceding pilots, “hot seating,” and go from the semi-red lit ready room into the dim red cockpit, surrounded by complete blackness.
The first launch was usually reserved for two of the three classes of pilots, brand new guys on their first cruise, and field grade officers: the new guys, to make their training as tension-free as possible until they were ready for the hard stuff, and the field grade, because, well, because they were senior. The second and particularly the third—the dark-dark launches—went to the senior lieutenants and captains, the ones theoretically at the peak of their proficiency. The easy early launch in pinky time is called “field grade night,” in honor of the more senior officers flying then. The much more difficult dark launches or launches into shitty weather are “company grade night.”
I was a captain and left the ready room 15 minutes before my dark-dark launch. this was my third Mediterranean cruise and the 16th year I had been flying helicopters, all of which put me firmly in the second and third launch, “company grade,” category. And that is why I left early enough to try and gain some feeling of what the night held before it was my turn to fly.
The interior passageway, leading to the flight deck and on upward to the bridge and control tower, was marked by a shinny stainless steel door, a disguised hatch really. Normally the commodore (in the Navy, the commodore is almost, but not quite, an admiral), who commands the entire LF6F five-ship flotilla, uses this passageway, but because LPH’s like the Guam are relatively small, there might not be a passage exclusively for his use. Working the wheel that sealed the hatch closed, I opened it and stepped into the red darkness of the ladderwell. Up one level, I came to a black hole that was the way to the flight deck. Feeling my way between the flat black painted aluminum “blackout panels” that kept inside light from projecting into the outside blackness, I found the hatch onto the deck and opened it. Very effective, blackout panels—almost make you think you’ve gone blind.
As required by all the regulations and rules of the flight deck, not to mention basic common sense, I had on full flight gear, helmet, gloves, survival vest with built-in Mae West floatation vest, steel-toed flight boots, and zippered-up flight suit. The clear, plastic visor on my helmet was down against the wind that blew across the flight deck, and ear cups muffled the sound. I always felt somehow insulated from all the elements in full gear, disassociated from the reality of the deck, almost like watching a movie. The deck itself was awash in the normal vague red glow, marked here and there by the yellow flashlight wands held by the LSEs and the rotating beacons on the wall that show the status of the deck: green for ready, red for foul.
The blast of rotor wash from a landing CH-46e hit me as I opened the hatch and I had to hold on hard to keep from being blown off my feet. When the Frog settled unevenly on the deck, the wind died somewhat, and I stepped out onto the black non-skidded deck and secured the hatch behind me. Carefully staying inside the foul line, the painted white line marking the safe area of the flight deck from the operational area, and avoiding the chains lying on the deck, I walked forward past the Flight Deck Officers’ shack to the front bone. I found a spot near a tow tractor to lean on the steel wall of the island and watch Flight Operations.
Only one aircraft was on deck at that time. The steady dim of its position lights, a red glow from the cockpit, and two circles of greenish light from the Phrogs blade tip lights were the only light on the deck besides the dimness of the deck lights. A few red, anti-smash lights, off the port side in the sea of black beyond the red-lit flight deck were visible. No stars, no moon, no horizon, and only a hint of dim ship lights astern—a real “company grade” night, meaning that only the young and experienced need apply. The majors and higher, the “field grade” officers, got the moon-lit, cloudless nights.
Another CH-46 followed the LSE’s wands into Spot Five, wobbled over the deck, and finally settled onto the spot, more or less on the three-by-two-foot square white boxes painted on the deck that marked where the wheels were supposed to, but often did not, rest. If the wheels were exactly on the spot, there was more than adequate clearance between the rotor blades of the helicopters occupying the spots up and down the flight deck. Because it was so easy to miss the painted spots, the pilots often joked that they marked “weak spots in the deck and should be avoided at all times.”
To see the importance of this small clearance, you only have to walk to the area of the Guam’s deck between spots five and seven and look at the creases in the flight deck steel that still remain from the time, a few years before, when a CH-MKD drifted backwards into the turning blades of another Hog. When the first Shitter’s tail rotor hit the main rotor blades of the second, it crashed and rolled on its side before spilling out its fuel. Both aircraft burned, their flames lighting off the spilled fuel that ran down the side of the ship into the hanger deck. Men died in the crash and fire but prompt action by the ship’s crew kept it from being much worse.
Hearing the sound of the crash above them, and seeing burning fuel running down into the hanger deck from the flight deck, the crew responded exactly as trained and attacked the fire before it spread, successfully containing and stopping it. Both aircraft were destroyed and their crews killed, along with several of the deck crew, but the ship and crew were saved. Nearly all traces of the crash were removed years ago, but the faint creases in the deck where the rotor blades first hit remain.
Going for maximum aviator cool, I usually could maintain some semblance of calm when faced with night flight, but tonight was somehow different. The semi-vertigo was still there, and the early trip to the deck was not helping. The second Frog, the one on Spot Five (05), had its position lights on, flashing dim, the signal for chocks and chains to hold the aircraft still on the moving deck so that it could be refueled. Over the moderate roar of the flight deck, I heard the Boss call over the flight deck loud speaker for the next pilot for 05 to man the aircraft. That was me. With the wind pushing from behind, I walked down the slightly listing deck to spot four and the helicopter, feeling the flight suit flap against my legs as I walked.
The second launch pilot was just climbing out the crew door as I arrived at the aircraft. He took the long last step to the flight deck and grabbed my arm before he moved under 05’s rotor disk.
“Got a small beat (rotor vibration) but works OK,” he yelled over the noise of the aircraft. No mention of how dark it was. No reason to state the obvious.
I lifted my helmet bag up and set it inside the crew door. Grabbing the wire cable that kept the door from bending the hinges, I climbed up the crew steps on the right side of the aircraft, just behind the cockpit and into the red-lit interior of the helicopter. I banged the top of my helmet into the cabin roof. Without my helmet I am 6’ 4” and the cabin of a Frog is 6’2” so this was normal, as evidenced by the scrapes and dings on my helmet.
Climbing up into the small passageway from the cabin to the cockpit, I slipped a little on spilled oil or hydraulic fluid on the floor. Putting my left foot on the seat itself, I squeezed into the left seat, trying as hard as possible not to hit the flight controls or the engine controls or the fuel jettison switches. The climb into the seat was always difficult for someone six foot four; even without the flight gear it was a difficult entry, but all pilots try to look graceful getting in because the passengers tended to get nervous if they see the pilot fall down while climbing into the seat. Stiff from the cool flight deck air, I had to struggle a little more than usual, but the HAC in the right seat held his hand over the controls for the auxiliary power plant and fuel jettisons just in case I banged into them.
In at last, I felt for the seat belt and shoulder harness. Finding the ends, I moved my hands to the adjustments and let them out all the way. The last pilot was supposed to do that but had forgotten in his haste to leave the cockpit. No matter, I was too tense to let it bother me much. Strapped in now, I reached back to the space on the right side of the console and got my helmet bag. I put it on the left side of the center console where I could get to it easily in the dark. Pulling the red-lensed flashlight out of my survival vest, I hooked it on the snaps provided so that the red light would shine on the instruments if the helicopter’s electrical power failed or for some reason the lights went off.
The other pilot was calm and collected. He had been out from daylight through to darkness and had completely adapted. He knew I wasn’t and hadn’t, so he said, “I’ll do this one, Bob. Just follow along and call every-thing as briefed.” He then reached down and moved the heading bug (small pilot-adjustable indicator on the electronic heading indicator that high-lights a particular heading on the compass) on the Attitude Heading Reference System (AHRS—the electronic compass) so that it pointed directly down the deck in on the ship’s heading, 170 degrees right now. The ship would hold this heading during Air Operations since it was directly into the wind, making it easier for the pilots to land aboard.
The helicopter aircraft commander (HAC) gave the light signal to pull the chocks and chains. The yellow shirt LSE sent the blue shirt deck crew in to pull them off and then, as they held them up, he ran the wands down each one so that we could physically see that they were all off. If you lift up with a chain still attached, it may cause the helicopter to roll over and beat itself to death on the steel deck. The pilot signaled the count was good and the LSE raised the wands straight up to indicate the aircraft was clear to lift into a hover.
On the LSE’s signal to lift with the yellow wands, the HAC called, “Ready in the back?” and when the crew chief replied, “All set,” the HAC called, “three on.” I turned the Stability Augmentation System, the SAS, to “both,” the Automatic Stability equipment, the ASE, to “On,” and con-firmed the speed trims in “Auto” and replied, “three on.” As the LSE lifted the wands, the HAC lifted the aircraft into a smooth hover. I followed along on the controls, but it did not seem real, again it was like I was watching a movie of someone sitting in an aircraft cockpit and doing these things. As he held the Frog over the red-lit deck, I scanned the instruments one last time before the LSE gave us the launch signal with his wands.
Sometimes, if you were heavily loaded, and the wind over the deck was not very strong as you cross the deck edge, you start to settle toward the water. You can feel your aircraft sinking toward the sea but you have nothing left, no more power to pull, and the sea is only 50 feet away. You hold the controls as still as you can to conserve lift and think light thoughts until your aircraft shudders through translational lift and starts to climb and the water is left below. We were empty tonight so that wouldn’t hap-pen, we wouldn’t settle toward the sea—couldn’t happen.
“Gauges check good; holding 60% torque; cleared to go,” I called. When the LSE moved his wands in the cleared-for-takeoff signal, the HAC smoothly added power while sliding the aircraft to left, toward the blackness on the other side of the deck. As we cleared the port side of the ship, he pulled in more power and nosed the helicopter forward, committing us to the darkness. He was now flying only on the flight instruments. There was only blackness, deep, deep blackness through the windshield.
“Positive power, positive climb; airspeed off the peg; passing through 30 knots,” I called over the intercom.
“Airspeed 40; passing through 100 feet.”
“Airspeed 60; passing 200.”
“Airspeed approaching 80, 250 feet,” I called, continuing the constant drone of crew coordination night flight, particularly night flight over water. The compass showed we were still on the same course as the ship, the heading bug indicator at the 12 o’clock position on the AHRS.
The upwind turn we were about to make was the most critical part of night CQ’s. When pilots turn away from the ship, further into the blackness, they tend to unconsciously push the stick slightly forward putting the aircraft in a shallow dive. Starting from only KHH feet, a dive, no matter how slight, will put the aircraft into the water in seconds. Fifteen Marines died off Onslow Beach in North Carolina when a Frog pilot did just that. Reaching to change a radio frequency with his left hand instead of having the HJP do it, he pushed the stick slightly forward. In a second, the aircraft hit the water. The Marines in the back got tangled up in the seat tie-down straps and drowned as the wreck sank into Onslow Bay.
“Standby for Alt hold,” the HAC called back. I already had my hand on the switch.
“300, Alt hold on,” I said as I pulled the switch on the center console forward. On the Phrog, there are two kinds of altitude hold, radar and barometric. The barometric hold (baralt) is used over land because the constantly changing altitude of the land below would have the aircraft hunting for the altitude you have set. Over water, the level of the sea is more or less constant, so radar altimeter hold (radalt) can hold you exactly where you want to be.
After I turned the radalt hold on, we both relaxed, just a little, as the automatic control, coupled to our radar altimeter, took control of our power and held us at 300 feet, the traffic pattern altitude. It would hold us wherever we set it by increasing or decreasing power as dictated by where we moved the helicopter’s nose to adjust speed. As long as the radalt hold was on, we would have to really screw up to crash into the dark sea below. In fact, it would be nearly impossible.
After a few seconds, the HAC called, “Coming left,” over the ICS. In the back, the crew chief looked out into the blackness and replied, “Clear left.”
The HAC rolled the Phrog into a left hand, 15 degrees of bank standard rate turn. I kept my eyes on the flight instruments and called, “Flight instruments look good; twenty degrees to go.”
The HAC lead the roll-out by ten degrees and smoothly rolled out on heading, 180 degrees opposite the heading of the ship. The heading bug was now at the 6 o’clock position on the AHRS. The airspeed stayed pretty close to the 80 knots traffic pattern speed we should be holding. Outside, straight ahead and to the right, there was nothing except blackness. I took a look to the right and could dimly see the red glow of the ship’s deck and the position lights on the superstructure.
In a few seconds the HAC transmitted, “tower, 05 is abeam, right seat.” When he called “right seat,” the tower passed the word to the deck crew and the LSE moved to position himself so that the pilot in the right seat would have the best view of his lighted wands as the aircraft approached the flight deck.
“Roger, 05. Cleared Spot 4. Wind is port 20 at 15,” the tower replied.
“Alt hold off, coming left,” the HAC called. “Alt hold is off,” I replied as I moved the switch on the center console back. I kept my eyes glued to the instruments as the HAC rolled the aircraft into a standard rate turn of 15 degrees of bank giving us three degrees of heading change per second to the left. He lowered the collective slightly to start us down the 250 feet we had to lose before landing. A fixed-wing carrier pilot told me once that he thought it was insane to do a descending turn from 300 feet at night, but that is the way it’s done in helicopters. Concentrate on smooth, slow, carefulness and don’t think about the fact that you are seconds from water impact if you screw up.
Port winds at 15 knots meant that the combination of the ship’s for-ward speed and existing wind had created a wind that was 15 degrees off the bow of the ship and would be blowing us toward the ship’s superstructure. to keep from hitting the steel wall with our rotors, we would have to get the airspeed down and carefully watch our closure rate to the ship’s deck to make sure it was under control and we were not coming too fast. Sometimes if you are too fast, you can do a side flare to lose the speed, but not at night. You might lose sight of the ship if you flare too much.
I called the airspeed and altitude as we came down the glide slope, watching for high rates of descent, “60 knots 200 feet, 50 knots 150 feet…” I moved my eyes from the red-lighted dash to the windshield. The dim red patch in the blackness was the ship, coming into view.
“Go visual,”
I called. The HAC looked up from his instruments and called, “Deck in sight.” It was still more a red glow in the darkness than the distinct lights of a flight deck.
As we closed the remaining distance, the deck seemed to get much bigger than that first dull red glow but still, it remained small compared to the darkness all around. But we did not look at the darkness, we only looked at the red glow. The lighted wands of the LSE came into view as he raised them above his head to show us where he was.
“75 feet, closure looks good,” I called.
From the back, the crew chief called, “Over the deck,” as we crossed the ship’s rail and life rafts on the port side at about 60 feet above the water and 10 feet above the deck.
Watching the wands and judging his position by the dim line of lights built into the flight deck, the HAC stabilized the helicopter, more or less, in a hover over the spot. Although the controls did not appear to move very much, the HAC was working extremely hard. Like always, he was trying to anticipate the movements of the helicopter and counter them before they happened, a process made all the harder by the darkness, wind, and tension of night boat flying. In these moments, you grip the stick so hard your arm aches afterward as you try once again to squeeze the “black stuff out of the plastic” of the cyclic.
As the HAC lowered the collective to put us down, I could see the LSE giving “body english,” trying to will our wheels onto the three painted spots. We hit hard, but well within the design limits of the aircraft, as nor-mal a landing as any, especially at night. If you hit too hard, say above 3.5 gee, and the interior “crash” lights come on automatically, there isn’t a sign that you have damaged anything, but it’s embarrassing nonetheless.
Because we were doing CQ’s, the blue shirts did not bring out the chains to tie us down to the deck. The LSE kept his wands crossed and held low, indicating we were to remain on deck until the tower cleared us. The HAC pushed the collective all the way down, past the normal position to hold the aircraft more firmly on the deck. He turned to me and said, “ASE and SAS off. You’ve got it.”
After turning off the automatic control systems, I took the controls, not sure I was ready to fly but not really having a choice. I knew, as I cleared the deck, the blackness would return but I would not see it, could not see it. All I would see would be the red glow of the instruments in front of me as I concentrated: attitude-altitude-airspeed-heading, attitude-altitude-airspeed-heading; climb, climb to 300 feet; altitude hold on, turn left, roll out, hold heading-hold speed.
“05, We’re going to put you in the carrier-controlled approach (CCA—the afloat version of a GCA radar approach) pattern for a few turns,” tower called.
“Roger,” I replied. They must be going to turn the ship or maneuver somehow. I would have time to get used to night flying before I had to land. After takeoff, we would climb into the marshall pattern, one of the three holding patterns oriented around the ship, and hold therere until they brought us around for a carrier radar-controlled approach, a CCA, up the stern.
The LSE held one wand up in a “thumbs up” signal. I asked for three on and the HAC reached over and turned on the ASE, SAS, and speed trim auto. “three on,” he replied. From the back the crew chief called, “All set in the back.”
The LSE’s other wand came on and holding them out to the sides, he raised them in an “up” motion. Holding the stick just slightly back, I lifted the collective up and brought the helicopter into a hover, about ten feet over the deck. The LSE gave a hold sign as he looked toward the bow to make sure there was no other aircraft that we could collide with, and then he gave us the launch signal, pointing his wand off into the darkness.
“Gauges good, cleared to go,” the HAC announced.
I applied more power and moved the stick to left. The aircraft started up and sideward at the same time. As we cleared the deck edge, I took out the sideward movement and applied a little forward stick to get us into forward flight. I had put in enough power to get the aircraft rapidly climbing so by the time we reached the end of the deck, we were through 100 feet and our speed was up to 50 knots; attitude-altitude-airspeed-heading. As we approached the bow, the lights of the deck were gone and all was blackness again.
The HAC now made the calls that I made on the first trip around, air-speed, altitude, and so on, but this time the alt hold did not come on when we passed 300 feet. We continued to climb to “Angels one point five,” 1500 feet the altitude for the CCA pattern.
“05, switch Purple,” the tower called.
“05, switching.”
“Switch Purple,” I told the HAC. He already had his hand on the radio switch to change us to the frequency of Center, the ship’s air traffic control. The tone indicating that the radio had been changed to the new frequency sounded as he withdrew his hand.
“Up Purple,” he said.
Still concentrating on keeping the helicopter at 80 knots airspeed and in the climb, I depressed the ICS to the transmit position and said, “Center 05.”
“05, Center. Say state and souls,” Center replied.
“Center, 05 is one point zero to splash, three souls on board.”
“05, Center. Climb Angels two point zero and proceed to marshall three. Report level.”
“Center, 05. Roger,” I replied.
“Passing 1000, everything looks good,” the HAC called.
Center was moving us around to the holding pattern on the starboard side of the ship, a “marshall,” in this case marshall One in Navy speak. The idea was to sequence us into the pattern so that we would not interfere with the other traffic.
I could feel vertigo building in me as I concentrated on the flight instruments—vertigo and a mild sense of panic. It was a sense of being completely disconnected from reality and dizzy at the same time. I concentrated as hard as I could on the gauges, my eyes moving from altitude to airspeed to rate of climb to attitude to altitude and around again. A side glance at the engine, transmission, and hydraulic gauges to see they were all steady, no impending failures of critical systems, and then back to the flight instruments—attitude-altitude-airspeed heading-attitude-altitude-airspeed-heading.
The voice of the controller called for us to go to marshall two and I moved the helicopter around the TACAN’s line to the new holding point: attitude-altitude-airspeed heading. The vertigo faded as I concentrated on attitude-altitude-airspeed heading. In a few minutes we were in position and we vectored into position for a CCA: attitude-altitude-airspeed-heading. On course, on glide path, on course, on glide path—look up, there is the red glow of the deck lights in the blackness and the yellow wands of the LSE. With a bump, we land on the spot after a wobbly hover, then back up again to complete another five landings. The vertigo is gone. Finally, after another 30 minutes in the air and the required landings, we get the signal for chocks and chains and then the shutdown signal, the wand across the LSE’s throat.
Across the deck and back into the red lights of the ready room. No racing mind now, just a feeling of fatigue and weak legs. I am very, very tired. After the flight’s debrief, I walk to my room through the darkened ship. my flight gear is much heavier than it was on the way to the launch. On my bunk is a small brown paper bag, two illegal airline-sized nips of brandy, compliments of our flight surgeon. Rules or no rules, he under-stands—understands the absolute drain of tonight’s flight and the need for the pilots to spool down.
After finishing the second little bottle, I lay back on the bunk in the glow of the red dark adaptation lights above my rack, listening to the sounds of the ship and thinking, “luck and superstition, that’s all that lets us cheat death one more time…”