Aviation Brief XXIII: Landing

1.    Take turns coming into the break to land.
2.    Open canopy with canopy lever when entering fuel pits; in case of fire, get out quickly.
3.    Hot refuel.
4.    Taxi to flightline.
5.    Wait while plane captain chocks airplane.
6.    Wait until plane captain signals, ‘Cut engine’
7.    Cut engine.
8.    Get face curtain pin out of pin bag and put it in to ‘safe’ seat.
9.    Climb out of plane and on to deck.

Aviators brief hops so the unexpected is expected. All involved know who comes into land first--usually the flight leader. An emergency such as bingo fuel might change that, but other routines prepare for anything not routine.

The canopy is opened before going into the fuel pit because the risk of fire exists and someone somewhere wasn’t able to get out of a burning plane on the ground.

The plane captain chocks the plane then signals to cut the engines because it helps to have hands and eyes on the ground to do and see what the strapped into the seat cannot.

The aviator turns off the engine and makes sure the one very important pin safes the ejection seat from ejecting an aviator too close to the ground. Good to have control of your own life and power.

In marriages we need to brief each other on the expected and be prepared for the unexpected.   Who’s the flight leader? Are there any emergencies? Are there fires in the fuel pit? Do we need to make sure the plane doesn’t run over our plane captain?

I confess I tend to take care of a lot of our life missions. Somedays I believe I briefed the hop as the flight leader only to realize Andy didn’t get the brief. He wants to take care of everything. Tension.

Except when he doesn’t. Sometimes he wants someone else to take charge. Tension again.

 When it’s tough--the kids are misbehaving, the money’s tight, work is frustrating--then I want him to take charge and he wants me to be the flight leader and lead the way to a safe landing. I want to be refueled without fires and explosions. I want someone else to chock my plane and let me know I can cut the engine. So does he.

The hard part is making sure we don’t just brief each other once--like 36 years ago when we married and I thought he was the next best thing to a god on earth. We have to keep briefing and re-briefing and looking out for our wingman.

We all want a safe landing and to be able to climb out of the high-performance fighter jet that is our life on to solid ground.

Aviator Brief XIV: Loss of Consciousness

A necessary piece of an aviator’s equipment while flying a high performance aircraft was a G-suit worn over the flight suit. The aviator inflated the G-suit by connecting it to the bleed air from the turbine engine. It prevented the blood in the brain from pooling in the toes. Brains do not work well without a blood supply; they black out, experiencing LOC--loss of consciousness. Hard to keep a plane under pilot’s control if the pilot has ‘checked out’ or ‘taken a nap’. When pulling G’s--increasing the pull of gravity from earth normal to up to 10 times earth normal--the valve in the suit connection sensed the onset of G, opened, and the bleed air filled the suit, pressing air bladders in the torso and legs to keep the blood from the extremities. A pilot helped this evolution by grunting, holding air in his lungs, and bearing down--all actions reminiscent of taking a dump. Not romantic, but neither was crashing and burning.

Mike Flood, an FNG lieutenant known as Flash, was flying a 1v.1 ACM hop, which called for a neutral start engagement. As the two F-4s arrowed straight toward each other, radome toward radome, Flash--trying to look good at the field and impress the lead plane’s veteran pilot, Fog--made a high G bat turn at the pass--a very quick, instantaneous turn--to the left, but it was too high G a turn, at least a G or two above his G tolerance. Neither Flash nor the G-suit could compensate quickly enough. Flash checked his six--looked behind the plane--over his left shoulder and promptly ‘took a nap’.

The airplane came off the turn doing odd things, like rolling over and falling out of the sky. Steamboat Willie, Flash’s RIO, tried to get his pilot on the ICS--the Intercom System. No response. The plane continued doing weird things, departing from controlled flight. Steamboat Willie saw the pilot’s head flopping to either side. He called out, “Mike? Mike!” As the plane pointed nose down, passing 10,000 feet above sea level, speeding toward the center of the earth, the wise backseater called, “Eject! Eject! Eject!” turned the T-handle, and command-ejected both of them. From all reports, Flash didn’t come to until he floated in his chute, about to hit the water, with absolutely no clue where he was or how he got there.

Turned out to be one of the first documented cases of sudden loss of consciousness. Not documented before this because, in most other suspected incidents, the pilot, the plane, and the RIO hadn’t survived. As part of the accident investigation, they put Flash in a centrifuge, spun him up to a certain amount of G-force, had him look back over his shoulder and he blacked out. When he came to after they stopped the centrifuge, he had no idea where he was or how he had gotten there. In the interest of scientific inquiry--and maybe to fuck with the young pilot--the investigators had the centrifuge cranked up twice more. Flash turned his head and it was, “Say sayonara, baby” all over again. The video was a cult hit at squadron parties for weeks afterward.

On the day of the accident, once the helo had plucked the crew out of the water and flown them to Miramar, after determining both were safe and uninjured, Snatch called Flash’s nineteen year-old wife. Squadron protocol dictated contacting the wife or next of kin before the wrong story came from unreliable sources--i.e. Other wives.

She answered the phone.

“Now, Mrs. Flood, Mike’s been involved in an aircraft accident and had to eject over water. I called to tell you he’s okay and uninjured.”

A pause.

Snatch was sure she’s going to cry, panic, or faint following the words ‘accident’ and ‘eject’--all normal and justified reactions to the survival of an ejection by a loved one. Wives tended to be hysterical when reminded how dangerous their husbands’ jobs were. “The helo’s picked him up and they’re bringing him back to Miramar. He’ll call you himself as soon as he can.”

“Oh. Okay.” Her voice burbled bright and bubbly. “Tell him I’ll be at the beach.”

Unconscious and Unconscious’s unconscious wife.

No fear.

I’ve never been that person. For awhile, I felt safe from loss. All the pilots I cared about were good at their jobs--good sticks. But I have always been a cautious person, thinking ahead to carefuls, watchouts, and don’t go theres. If I climbed a tree, I knew it was sturdy. If I stood on a cliff, I stood well back from the edge. And I warned my friends, husband, children and students. They didn’t always listen.

Risk without fear is foolishness. Risking while knowing all can be lost is a quiet kind of bravery. Some days I am braver than others.

Caution or risk? How do you balance them?

Aviator Brief III: Squadron Jobs (continued)

The Ops O--Operations Officer--held a lot of power in the squadron because he wrote the flight schedule. Everything depended on getting as many hops--flying the planes--as possible.

The AMO--the Maintenance Officer, Aircraft Maintenance Officer--held a position of respect. As stated before: Everything depended on getting as many hops as possible. If planes were broken, they couldn’t be flown. A good relationship with the man in charge of the troops who fixed the planes the pilots flew was therefore essential.

The Safety Officer’s job also involved keeping planes flying--safely. The ASO--Aircraft Safety Officer--had done his job when there were no accident reports for the quarter, the year, or so many hours of planes in the air. Somehow, AMOs and ASOs had different ideas of how to accomplish this objective. A Safety Officer who micromanaged every little hydraulic fluid leak and stuck valve into a downed airplane created negative attitudes in the AMO, the pilots who wanted maximum hops, and the troops. An airplane taken off flight status meant a pilot and a RIO not flying it. It also meant the troops had to work longer hours repairing it.

Colonel Mike Sullivan maintained, “If twelve aircraft takeoff down the runway everyday, nothing else matters.” Corollary: When all the planes fly, the troops are happy--because when planes are in the air, they don’t have to be fixed, loaded, unloaded, or fueled, and ordinance guys could lift weights and the maintenance guys could jaw-jack, shoot the breeze, and bullshit each other--what they liked to do when all the planes were in the air.

As a Marine wife, I had my own planes to ready for takeoff down the runway everyday--my husband and children. In the early days, I didn’t work outside the home--notice I did not say I did no work--and so my squadron job was support for the troops, my troops, my guy and our three little girls.

I already knew how to bake bread and make cookies, but learning to cook a family meal took a very different skill set and little praise. Many would ooh and aah over homemade wheat bread. Cookies? The cook was a hero who made cookies. But no one applauded casseroles and baked chicken. More likely they’d whine, “Macaroni and cheese tuna casserole, again?” or “I’m allergic to succotash.” No one was really allergic to corn or lima beans in my family; they’d just break out in a bad case of the I-don’t-want-to-touch-those-with-these-lips-itis.

I turned to my main resource of support and information--just like the squadrons are supported by H&MS--other wives. Potlucks are the best way to acquire new recipes--they’re time-tested, family tested, and almost always easy. Besides, at a potluck there was lots of food, but I only had to make one thing; and there were lots of sympathetic ears.

Food to eat and friends to listen. Can’t get much better than that.