Aviator Brief XX: Quick Change #3

When the Change of Command ceremony was held without a marching band or printed programs, presided over by the frown of the Group Commander, and with the outgoing CO conspicuously absent, did Duke Lynne, the brand new CO, feel any need to knock wood, cross his fingers, or light a candle in the base chapel?

Duke had been on the schedule to fly well before the emergency change in squadron leadership. What better way to celebrate, or mourn the ouster of a friend, than to launch into the sky? The flight of two prepared to take off on their briefed, low-level navigation mission. Unfortunately, Duke’s plane did not cooperate in the celebration. It broke in the chocks seriously enough that Duke and the plane were grounded.

The FNG pilot in the other plane asked if he could continue, flying the briefed mission solo. Duke saw no reason both should suffer from his bad luck. He cautioned the new lieutenant, on the radio, to stay above 5000 feet--although the original brief had been down to 1300 feet above ground level.

Perhaps the radio was broken, too.

The FNG lieutenant returned and landed--miraculously--at MCAS El Toro in an A-4 that had its canopy and tail sawn almost in half by 90 to 100 feet of high tension wire. No ceremony was held for Duke’s ouster.

His tenure as a CO? Six hours.

Sometimes shit happens through no fault of our own. In the Corps, the final responsibility rests with the Commanding Officer. I hope Duke went on to live a long and happy life regardless of his tenure as a CO of a squadron.

I know I have not been a perfect wife or an infallible mother. I wish I could have been better at either task. But no one gave me a training manual! I never had the equivalent of carrier quals. Flying the ball in a marriage with teenage daughters is landing without an LSO, the ball, or a hook on a pitching deck in a howling gale at night.

So I am working on accepting that I did the best I could--just as my dysfunctional parents did the best they could. Each day I try to make the world a bit better for someone else. I can’t fix what I did. I can live each day forward while hoping I am not trailing high tension lines.

Aviator Brief VII: No Guts, No Glory

On a day of such crappy weather even the seagulls stayed grounded on the grass between the runways, Colonel Sullivan turned for takeoff from Runway 7 at MCAS El Toro. Pushing forward the throttle and kicking in the afterburner, he lifted off from the surly bonds of earth into a flock of seagulls startled by the decibels of an F-4 turbine.
 

Three hundred seagulls funneled into a jet engine were a problem of compressibility. Blood and feathers, guts and bones don’t pack well into the relatively small space of a Phantom’s engine.
With one turbine destroyed and unsure of the damage to the other, the colonel looked at the land near the base. If the jet stopped being able to fight gravity and he had to jump out, the hunk of steel and explosive jet fuel would twist and burn into homes, schools and/or stores. Not a good option.
 

Good pilots make good decisions in the worst of circumstances. He pointed his radome south and flew the crippled bird with its many mangled birds to Yuma, Arizona, where he managed to land safely.
 

The CO of the squadron appreciated the decision to divert, preventing a potential public relations disaster. He also appreciated the skill of the pilot in preserving a valuable piece of machinery. Engines could be replaced. A plane crashed and burned was unrecoverable.
 

Yuma, the day Col. Sullivan landed, had a high of 105-degrees. Yuma registered 105-degrees the next day, too. The plane, with its multiple bird strike, FODded engine, sat on the flight line in the heat for two days.

Then the maintenance officer, Snatch, flew to the desert to inspect the extent of the damage to the engine.
 

The guys in Yuma working on the tarmac were happy to see him. A wide area had been cleared around the colonel’s aircraft. No one wanted near the miasma of gull guts rotting in the gutted turbine blades. 

Neither did the hapless maintenance officer.
 

Snatch got the guts. Col. Sullivan the glory.

I never thought about this story much before re-reading it this week, but the troops were the ones who had to use the pressure hoses and replace the engine in the Yuma heat with the smell to high heaven. The AMO would have supervised, and had to deal with the smell, but the guts were on other hands. Snatch says the plane still stunk for awhile afterward, which would have made the airframe one of the least favorite to win in the “What am I flying today?” lottery.

So who am I in my life? Am I the person who in the nick of time and with derring-do flies a plane away from those who could be hurt by it if it crashed and burned? Am I the maintenance officer who has to supervise the rotting guts of the disaster and repair it to fly again? Or am I the troop on the ground who actually gets my hands dirty fixing what the magic flyboys wreck (even when it is no fault of their own?)

I’d never have made a good pilot. My reaction time is slow in an emergency. I don’t panic, but I don’t automatically react with split second decision making. In a disaster, time slows waaa-aay doowwwnnnn. I usually get to a good solution, but I’m afraid the plane might be in twisted bits if I were at the controls. I’m no Col Sullivan.

I would have made a good maintenance officer. I like to know how things work and I like to fix my life and those of my friends. I’d much rather tell someone else how to fix things than get seagull guts all over me. I don’t much like taking orders.

So I’d probably not make a very good troop. God bless them for what they do and the shit they take. The troops help keep the derring-doers and the other pilots like my husband up in the air and back down again for safe landings.

So who are you? In your life and relationships do you fly through bird flocks, but recover well? Do you analyze a situation and figure out how to fix it? Do you like to give orders or just follow them?