The Trojan Sea (23 page)

They all walked to the edge of the parking ramp to watch the Lightning take off. Shanker tuned his handheld radio to the tower frequency for the TV crew as Stuart shifted his weight from foot to foot. He envied his father and brother their cool calm as worry nagged him, eating away at his confidence.
Eric is my only child,
he thought, now sorry that he’d let him go.
I
should
be worried.

“Did you see that kid smile?” Shanker said.

Maggot laughed. “See it? I heard it all the way over here.”

The TV camera dutifully recorded their remarks. “Can you tell me what’s going on?” the reporter asked.

Shanker shrugged as if only an idiot wouldn’t know what was happening. “They’ve taken the active runway, and we should hear the tower clear them for takeoff.” On cue, the tower cleared them. “Chalky’s running the engines up and should release brakes about now.” The Lightning started to move, slowly accelerating. A sharp crack echoed over the small group when Seagrave lit the afterburners. “He’s stroked the reheats,” Shanker explained as the Lightning rapidly accelerated. “Reheat is bloke talk for the afterburners. At a hundred and fifty knots he’ll pull smoothly back on the control column—there he goes—and come unstuck between one seventy-five and one eighty knots.” The men watched in silence as the jet lifted off and the flaps and landing gear came up.

Shanker nodded in approval, his face a study of envy, pride, and remembrance. “Watch this,” he said. The Lightning pitched up into a steep climb and disappeared through a big hole in the clouds. “He’s climbing out at four-fifty knots, point nine Mach.” With the Lightning out of sight, the cameraman focused on Shanker’s face. “His initial climb is probably around fifty thousand feet a minute, but he’ll lose that real quick. He’ll level off around thirty-five thousand feet in about four and a half minutes.”

“I’m impressed,” Maggot muttered under his breath, also a little envious. He flew A-10s, and while he loved the jet, the Warthog did nothing fast.

They listened to the radio as the tower cleared the Lightning to switch frequencies to Norfolk Approach Control. “What happens now?” the TV reporter asked.

“He’ll head out over the ocean, perform a few flight checks, probably give Eric a little stick time, and then come back down for some pattern work before landing.”

“How long will they be up?” the reporter asked.

Shanker ran the numbers. “We topped off the internal and wing tanks, no external fuel tanks, so that’s ninety-one hundred pounds of fuel. Probably be on the ground in forty to forty-five minutes with sixteen hundred pounds of fuel remaining.”

“That doesn’t seem like a lot of time,” the reporter said.

Shanker gave him a condescending look. “This isn’t an airliner.”

I’ve got to trust them,
Stuart thought. He scanned the sky and frowned. The high ceiling seemed much more ominous than just a few moments before. “Maggot,” he muttered, “the clouds seem thicker. How’re they gonna get back down?”

“No biggie,” Maggot said. “If he can’t find a break to descend, he can call for an instrument approach with Norfolk Approach. Piece of cake.” The cameraman never swung his Betacam around, but he did record the conversation.

The Lightning tipped and rolled as Seagrave put the jet through its paces, never flying straight and level for more than a few seconds. The old skills came back with a rush and, for a few moments, he was in a fighter pilot’s heaven. “Wow!” Eric shouted over the intercom when the horizon was finally where it should be.

“You want to try it?” Chalky asked. Eric nodded, and Seagrave turned the controls over to the boy. “I’ll talk you through an aileron roll.”

“Can I do that?” Eric asked.

“Sure, why not? You’re not an airline pilot, are you?” Eric shook his head, his smile a mile wide under his oxygen mask. “It’s real easy,” Seagrave explained. “Hold the stick lightly, that’s it, and snap it smartly to the right, always holding a little back pressure to keep the nose up, but don’t hold it over, and you need to center it back up so the old girl will stop rolling. Okay, you do it.”

Eric moved the control column to the right, and the Lightning performed as advertised. “I can’t believe I did it! It was so easy!”

“That’s because the Lightning is very maneuverable,” Seagrave explained. “It’s like we’re balanced on the point of a needle.”

“Doesn’t that mean it’s unstable?” Eric asked.

“Instability is the handmaiden of maneuverability.” He hoped the boy understood.

“I get it,” Eric said. Before he could say more, Seagrave held up a hand, cutting him off. The generator caption light was glowing red on the standard warning panel. The
TURB
,
AC
, and
GEN
warning lights on the auxiliary warning panel flicked on, then off, then on again. Seagrave throttled back smoothly and flipped the generator switch to standby. Now the
CPR
—cabin-pressure warning—caption on the standard warning panel caught his eye.

“We have a burst air duct,” he told Eric. Nothing in his voice indicated his worry. He immediately switched the generator to the emergency position, knowing this would tell him where the air duct had burst. Fortunately, the inverter had gone to standby, so his MRG—master reference gyro—was still on-line. He selected the inverter to its standby position, hoping that it would continue to function.

“Well, Eric, like the astronauts say, ‘Houston, we have a problem.’ Let’s just say it’s semi-serious. But we don’t panic. While I sort it out, would you take a look at the flip cards I gave you? Then we can double-check all my actions.” Eric reached for the packet of Flight Reference Cards in his flight-suit pocket while Seagrave ran the emergency checklist from memory, one of the abilities that mark a fighter pilot.

The generator light on the standard warning panel had gone out, which confirmed his gut reaction that they had a burst air duct. Checking, he noted that after switching the generator to emergency, he still had
TURB
,
AC
, and
GEN
warnings on the auxiliary warning panel. This was bad news, for it meant the reheat nozzles would be fully open, giving him a power loss of some 40 percent. While this was no sweat with both engines running, it was something he could have done without. Now he took action for the AC failure: pressed the
AC
reset.
Damn, no joy.
The warnings remained.

The inverter and pitot heater were set to the standby position. He didn’t want the ASI—airspeed indicator—to fail due to icing when he penetrated the cloud cover below them. Off with the autopilot master switch, radar off, and now scan the standby ASI. At least that was working.
What else?
No speed strip, Tacan lost, IFF failed, fuel-vent heaters not working, no windscreen heaters. The canopy blower for demisting was out, along with the JPT—the jet-pipe temperature controllers that automatically regulated the exhaust temperatures.
Must keep a careful eye on engine temperatures,
he reminded himself.

When he was done, Seagrave had Eric read the checklist from the flip cards just in case he had missed an action. But he’d gotten it right the first time. “You’re the cool one,” he told Eric, paying the boy a true compliment.

Seagrave was about to key the radio when the generator light on the standard warning panel flashed on. The doll’s-eye warning indicator for the inverter flickered, and the master reference gyro tumbled. He immediately pressed the generator reset, but there was no response. Now they really had problems—just battery power to get them home. He immediately dumped all the main electrical loads, the DC fuel pumps first, and switched the pitot heater to standby power.

Now Seagrave made his only mistake. He should have declared an emergency with Air Traffic Control. But his experiences with the British Civil Aviation Agency had made him distrustful of all bureaucrats, and he didn’t want the U.S. Federal Aviation Agency using this emergency as an excuse to ground the Lightning. He owed the Gray Eagles at least an effort to avoid that. Besides, if the situation got any worse, he could declare an emergency then. And his being a fighter pilot, there was no doubt in his mind that he could safely land with minimal assistance.

He keyed the radio. “Norfolk Approach, Lightning One RTB at this time for a precautionary landing.”

Shanker turned up the volume of his handheld radio the moment he heard Approach Control answer Seagrave’s radio call announcing he was returning to base. Because of the range, he could hear only Approach’s transmissions and not what Seagrave was saying. The TV reporter caught it immediately and told his cameraman to focus on Stuart. “This could be hot,” he said under his breath before moving next to Shanker so he could pick up the radio calls.

“What’s wrong?” Stuart asked.

“We don’t know yet,” Maggot answered.

The radio squawked at them as the approach controller asked for the nature of the problem. “Copy you have a burst air duct and AC turbine failure,” the approach controller repeated.

Stuart was almost screaming. “What’s that mean?”

“Electrical problems,” Maggot answered. “Take it easy. Happens all the time. Chalky can handle it.” He looked at Shanker and motioned him to step away to where they could talk in private. The cameraman zoomed in on them, wishing he could pick up the sound.

When they were out of microphone range, Maggot asked, “What’s he lost?”

“He’s lost his AC bus,” Shanker explained, “which means all his nav aids and the IFF.” He ran down the list of AC-powered electrical systems the Lightning had lost. It was extensive. “The generator has picked up some of the load.”

Maggot shrugged, a perfect reflection of his father. “No sweat.”

Shanker’s lips compressed into a straight line. “We’ve been having generator problems lately. It checked out okay last time, but if he loses the generator, he’ll lose the master reference gyro.”

“Which means he’ll lose his altitude indicator, right?”

“Yeah, and he’ll be on battery power.”

“Not good,” Maggot said. “What systems will he have to shut down?”

“He’ll shut off the main radio and DC fuel pumps first thing,” Shanker said. “They really suck up the power, and he has to conserve power for his basic instruments. There’s another problem: With the DC fuel pumps off, he’s gravity-feeding the engines.”

“Fuckin’ lovely.” Maggot muttered. He looked at the sky. “He’ll be okay if he can get below that cloud deck so he doesn’t have to rely on his instruments.”

“The quicker the better,” Shanker said. The two pilots scanned the sky, neither one liking what he was seeing. “Langston’s Legend is a real hot rod,” Shanker said, hoping Maggot would catch his meaning. He did.

Maggot ran over to Hank Langston, who was standing next to the TV reporter. “Hank, I need to borrow your body and the Legend.” Hank looked at Maggot, his eyes wide, not knowing what to say. “We need a chase plane to bring them down.”

To Hank’s everlasting credit, he never hesitated. “Let’s go.” He and Maggot ran for the Legend.

“What’s happening?” the TV reporter shouted.

“The Lightning needs a shepherd to get him down,” Hank called back.

“Can my cameraman go in the backseat?”

“Not unless he can fly formation,” Maggot shouted.

Hank felt his stomach flip-flop at the word “formation.” But he never stopped running. He was panting when they reached his plane, and he paused to catch his breath. “You ever flown formation?” Maggot asked. Hank shook his head. “Dual controls?” Hank nodded this time. “Good,” Maggot said, giving him a push onto the wing. “You fly in the front seat.” Hank slipped into the seat as Maggot crawled in behind him. “
Go-go-go
!” he yelled.

Hank reached up and pulled down the canopy, flicking the latches to the locked position. His fingers hit the battery switch and flew over the front panel. In less than two minutes the turbine engine was on-line, and they were fast-taxiing for the runway. Maggot worked the radio and requested an instrument departure to VFR on top. “We’re going after Lightning One,” he advised the tower.

The tower controller was aware of the Lightning’s problem and cleared them for an immediate takeoff. “Climb runway heading and contact approach for radar vectors to on top.”

“Cleared for takeoff,” Hank radioed. He moved the prop lever to full pitch and fed in the power. The Legend sprang forward like a Thoroughbred racehorse out of the starting gates. It took only six hundred feet to reach seventy-five miles per hour and Hank pulled back on the stick. He immediately sucked up the gear and climbed out at thirty-five hundred feet a minute. Unfortunately approach control wasn’t as fast as the tower and delayed their instrument climb through the clouds.

“Maintain runway heading and VMC,” approach ordered.

“Rog,” Hank answered. He climbed straight ahead and punched into the clouds at exactly five thousand feet.

“Jesus H. Christ,” Maggot said over the intercom, his voice amazingly calm, almost conversational. “VMC means visual meteorological conditions. I can’t see shit.”

“Your eyeballs ain’t my eyeballs,” Hank answered, now well into the clouds. But the cloud deck was much thicker than Hank had expected, and when they didn’t punch out in a few hundred feet, he broke out in a dead sweat. He started to pant heavily.

“Keep your instrument scan going,” Maggot said, his voice a cool fountain of reassurance. “Control your breathing. Don’t hyperventilate. You’re looking good. Don’t fixate on one instrument. Lookin’ good. Ain’t no one else flying around in this crap. Think big sky, little airplane. You’re doing fine.” After what seemed an eternity, they broke out on top at fifteen thousand feet. Hank kept the climb going, and exactly eight minutes after he’d hit the battery switch for engine start, they were level at seventeen five and headed for the Lightning.