My scariest night was the night I thought I was gonna miss midrats due to the usual number of bolters by the jet guys.
LOL....that reminds me of my worst night "in the barrel". In 1982, Admiral Tuttle had USS America way up North of the UK provoking the Soviets so "Operational Necessity" dictated that we flew in very dark, very heavy seas with water coming over the bow. Scary enough in the day when they launch you as bow buries itself and spray shoorts up...supposedly the bow will be up by the time you reach the end of the cat. Took a lot of faith during the day and was downright spooky at night launching into a black abyss with the fluid in your head going every which way.
Our launch got off OK and we did our mission and dreams of Midrats filled our heads as we settled into the Marshall stack awaiting our push time. First down the chute the sacrificial A-7s that could seemingly fly forever. Toms came next. As expected, the A-7s were waved off, but we were surprised that all the Tomcats were ultimately waved off with no explanation. The last A-7 of the prior launch was being positioned on Cat 4 when a freak swell caused the launch bar to get wedged out of position so it was stuck fast unable to launch or be taxi forward and out of the way. The LA was fouled big time. Waveoff after waveoff ensued and now way too many aircraft were in the penalty box after pushing with more arriving every minute. CATCC was repeatedly asking for fuel states and began sending aircraft to tank.
The recovery tanker started hawking the deck knowing it wouldn't be long before his services were needed and an Alert Tanker was launched as we were Blue Water Ops with no option other than to land on Mother.
They finally used a crash and salvage saw to cut the launch bar off and got the LA clear. But instead of "Roger, ball" then we heard calls of "Clara" and LSOs trying to talk aircraft down before waving them off while we entered the "penalty box" and watched the lights of our fellow hapless souls as they moved around awaiting to be slotted back into the landing pattern. Only one Tomcat pilot was able to land and we heard the LSO ask when he picked up the ball. We heard an ominous "I never had a ball". Several jets were declaring emergencies of one kind or the other. Everyone was earning their pay this night. We were even more mystified at that point as to why the there was no ball, but even more pressing was the fact that we were now in serious need of more petrol.
We finally were told to head for "Texaco" and switched freqs and checked in with the KA-6D tanker. It was the A-6 skipper and not only was he a legendary warrior, he was the guy you wanted passing gas on a dark and stormy night and did take on tanker hops that required varsity hands. I said a silent prayer of thanks as he showed up right in front of us. What a guy! However, the basket was pretty beat up and not fully lit and moving around. Trying to plug was an ordeal and before long, both low fuel lights were illuminated. For the first time, I considered the prospect of an ejection over frigid seas with no chance of being picked up due to sea state and fact helo couldn't launch under the prevailing conditions. We had wetsuits in that time period and they were toasty warm most of the time, but I felt ice cold beads of sweat going down my back. This couldn't be happening. I stared at the glowing low fuel lights and remembered the RAG lecture that said how inaccurate the gauges were when the lights came on. We weren't really sure how much time we had before we ran out of "go-juice". I wasn't worried about missing Midrats any more and I didn't want to leave the comfort (relative) of the cockpit. After endless stabs at the basket we finally got it and the totalizer finally started climbing slowly as fuel began flowing into our thirsty Tomcat. We didn't get much as others were also in need, but it was enough to extinguish the low fuel lights and give us a few more shots at the deck. When we checked back in, we found that aircraft were finally being recovered despite a few bolters.
Because the recovery had taken so long, the LSOs barely had enough time to compose themselves before the next recovery started, which turned out to be a 4.0 event. Everyone landed on the first pass without any bolters or waveoffs. Amazing. Our cycle was plagued by the stuck A-7 and compounded by its wing obscuring the ball, which was not evident to the LSOs but really apparent to those trying to call the ball and seeing nothing. I never had a closer call or saw two low fuel lights again...well, maybe once, but it wasn't at sea.
), but it was my impression that AOB/sink rate/pitch attitude/etc. could pile up fast and leave you up the proverbial creek.
