June, 1968....  The day we reported to the Marine Aviation Detachment to begin flight training, the Lexington  was at sea.  A week later, as we were coming back from an afternoon at the beach, we saw her unmistakable shape off to the west, across the waters of Pensacola Bay.  No doubt about it... .The boat was in,. and this was our first chance to see her.   We drove back to the base as quickly as we could. 

 

Like every other flight student who saw it for the first time, my impression of a structure so big that it was sometimes referred to by locals as  .Building 16,. was one of total awe.  It was the U.S.S. Lexington... CVT-16, the Blue Ghost, the Lady Lex... and it was huge.  Even though she was an Essex Class carrier and relatively small by the current standards, sitting there tied up to Lexington pier at NAS Pensacola, she looked enormous.  Wide-eyed and open- mouthed with wonder, we stood on the pier and gawked.  

 

I clearly recall the  flood of thoughts that raced through my mind as I stood there that day, .... up on the island, all her campaign ribbons have been painted on the side...higher up, the radar antennae are turning...And there, along the sides, you can see what used to be gun mounts.  Empty for a long time, no shots fired in anger for a lot of years now...She.s no longer the terror of the Pacific.  She.s no longer slicing through the waves with a bone in her teeth, launching Hellcats, Dauntlesses, or Avengers .  No longer proceeding at flank speed to dodge enemy torpedoes or filling the sky with anti-aircraft fire to knock down kamikazes.  No more turning into the wind to recover shot up aircraft returning from raids on the Marshalls, the Marianas , or the Gilberts.  No, no more of that.  Now, they only use her for training.. 

 

.The Lexington is the only carrier in the Navy dedicated to training, and, for all I know, maybe the only training carrier in the world.  But that makes no difference, she is an aircraft carrier and she is real.  This time, I.m not reading a book about Butch O.Hare or Jimmy Thatch or Joe Foss or watching a movie with Gary Cooper or Sterling Hayden.  I am here, a mere 100 yards or so from an aircraft carrier, a ship that airplanes actually take off from and land on and it is awesome, just awesome.!

 

Resting there so majestically like a sleeping grey steel leviathan, she was an imposing and hypnotic sight to someone like me who had never seen anything larger than a ferryboat.  The Lady Lex  had cast her spell.  I was totally mesmerized.

 

.Can we do it?.  The question came from my companion standing next to me. We had only met the week before but had already begun to form a friendship that has lasted over 30 years now.  .Do what?. I quizzically replied, still entranced by the sheer magnitude of .the boat..   .Land on that thing., he said, pointing to the ship.  .Carrier qualify... hitting the boat they call it..   .You know we have to do it to become Naval Aviators.  Landing on carriers is what it.s all about. That.s what we.re here for.. 

Without hesitation I responded,  . Sure we can.  Like you said,  we have to.  Anyway, look at the size of that thing.  It shouldn.t be too much trouble landing on .something as big as that..

 

I was trying my best to be cool... not cocky or arrogant, just confident and self-assured.   Thinking back, I.m not at all convinced that my new found friend was impressed.  From the expression on his face,  he was harboring a few small self doubts like me.  But, also like me, he had to put up a cool front of his own.  Being cool  was part of the image.  It went with the territory for newly-minted but nonetheless studly second lieutenants like us.

 

 .Yeah., he said as he turned his eyes back to the Lexington, .You.re right.  No sweat landing on something as big as that. No sweat at all..

 

                                                     *********************                        

 

February, 1969...  Eight months and 125 flying hours later.  I had successfully completed the prescribed  syllabuses (or is it syllabi ?)  of Pre-Flight, Land and Water Survival, Training Squadron 1 (VT-1) and finally, Training Squadron 3 (VT-3) which flew out of South Whiting Field over in Milton, Florida..  With the .Red Knights. of VT-3,  I had built up slightly less than 100 hours in that formidable flying machine, the North American T-28 .Trojan..  

 

Not to be confused with the early model T-28s flown by the Air Force some years previous, the much more powerful Navy models had a performance that information sheets from the Public Affairs Office described  as .comparable to some early WWII fighters..  Whether those early WWII fighters were the Grumman Wildcat, the Bell Airacobra, or perhaps even that flying coffin, the Brewster Buffalo, they never said, so we never knew.  We did know with absolute certainty however,  that the T-28 was a challenge to fly, a real handful.  It was a procedurally complex aircraft  and very demanding from a performance standpoint.  Flying it well was a source of justifiable pride.

 

After transition, instruments, and formation training, night flying was the last phase at Whiting Field.  The next step was Training Squadron 5 (VT-5) back at Saufley Field.  Saufley was where we had all started off in the first place, flying Beechcraft T-34 .Mentors. in VT-1.

 

We finished VT-3 about 2200 one night and were told to report to VT-5 no later than 0900 the next morning. 

 

                *********************************************************

 

VT-5, the .Tailhook Tigers., was the carrier qualification squadron for students in the prop and helicopter pipelines.  After this phase of training, the Navy and Coast Guard prop students would head down to Corpus Christi to fly the Grumman S2F .Tracker..   After a short stop at VT-6 for some pre-helicopter instrument training, everyone else, especially we Marines , would be headed crosstown, to Ellyson Field and our first exposure to helicopters.

Of course, it is axiomatic that carrier landings are what separate Naval Aviators from the rest of the pilots in the world.  This was impressed upon us repeatedly from the very first day of Pre-Flight.   We were told over and over again how special it is to be carrier qualified  and that  .hitting the boat. would undoubtedly be the high point of our flight training experience.   The scuttlebutt  said it would be an event each of us would remember for the rest of his life... the most fun we would ever have with our clothes on.

 

For a variety of reasons, the scuttlebutt had it right.

 

After  administrative processing, the first order of business at VT-5 was orientation and classroom introduction to carrier landings.  This consisted of instructors lecturing us on how the syllabus was structured  and what to expect from it.  We also sat and watched over two solid hours of carrier crash flicks.  Starting back in the 1920s and progressing up to contemporary times, we saw films of crash after crash after crash.  Motivator movies, they were called.  Sort of an .OK, guys, this is what you don.t want to do., type of  learning experience.  The message was loud and clear....Don.t do it right, and this is what can happen to YOU!. 

 

We saw quaint  footage of biplanes cracking up while trying to set down on the old Langley, the Navy.s first carrier.  There was the often seen WWII shot of the Hellcat careening into the island and breaking neatly in half just behind the cockpit with the pilot none the worse for wear, and the Helldiver whose nose slams into the deck and cleanly breaks the engine off at the firewall.  We watched a Corsair torque roll into the water along side the ship while attempting a full power wave-off after being caught low, slow and stupid.  (Defined as when a pilot runs out of altitude, airspeed, and ideas, all at the same time!)  There were several spectacular shots of  F7U Cutlasses, the notorious .Ensign Eater. smashing into the ramp and exploding into giant fireballs and one of  an F8 Crusader showering sparks everywhere as it screamed along the flight deck after its landing gear collapsed. 

 

For the final half hour or so, we were shown films of student crashes.  The others had been operational crashes, most of them old, some quite old,  and we had understandably  watched them in a rather detached frame of mind.   The student crashes, on the other hand, were shots of guys like us and we watched them with an intense personal interest.  I was particularly impressed by one clip of a T-28 going into an approach turn stall as it passed through the 90 degree position.  In a twinkling, it rolled over and spun into the sea.   As it rolled, the film went to slow motion and  the image was magnified into a grainy close up.  .Look at the flaps., said the instructor at the back of the room.  They  were just starting down.  Apparently, the student pilot had not realized his flaps were still up until it was too late. 

 

The instructor then informed us that the student we had just  watch die in slow motion had been self-medicating with a popular over-the-counter cold medicine.  The subsequent investigation had found out from his pregnant widow.  It was one of those medicines whose package said,  .may induce drowsiness. and warned against the operation of machinery while taking it.   .Gentlemen., the instructor said, .I realize you have been told this at least a dozen times before, but let me repeat, flying and medicine DO NOT MIX!  NEVER, ever try to self medicate yourself.  If that young man had gone to sick bay he would more than likely have been grounded for a week or two.  But, he would probably still be alive today.  Any questions?. 

 

 The point was made.  There were no questions.

 

In less than a week we were flying.   Initially, we were given several introduction flights out of Saufley, and Wolf Field.  During these first flights the instructors introduced us to Field Carrier Landing Practices (FCLPS) and showed us how to fly the T-28 on the back side of the power curve.  After successfully completing those flights, we began to drive out to Barin Field on a daily basis to do our FCLPs solo. 

 

Barin was located about 20 miles west of Pensacola near the small town of Foley, Alabama.  It was one of a host of naval aviation training bases that were built in the area during WWII. Although Barin had been deactivated shortly after the war ended, it was put back in to operation during Korea and remained an active base well into the late 50s.  Even so, by my day, some ten years later, not much was left except the foundations of demolished buildings, several derelict cadet barracks, and the asphalt runways of the east and west fields.   The east field was used for FCLPs while the west field continued to crumble away.

 

Rumor was that during WWII the base had been known as .Bloody Barin..  Supposedly, this was because  the training pace back then was so frenzied that there was an average of one death per week due to training accidents.  I have never been able to confirm it, but the gossip columnist, Walter Winchell, was said to have lost a son there during the war. Reportedly, he was the one to bitterly tag the place .Bloody Barin..

 

We drove out to Barin on Highway 98, known locally as the Lillian Highway.  Just before it crossed over Perdido Bay, Highway 98 passed by Bronson Field where the students in the jet pipeline practiced their FCLPs.  The pattern at Bronson, which was another deactivated WWII training base,  was full of North  American T-2  .Buckeyes. from VT-4 over at Mainside.  Each time I drove by and saw them in their pattern, doing the same thing we were doing at Barin, I invariably thought about how frenetic things must have been around the Pensacola area during WWII.  The skies must have been absolutely saturated with aircraft from the multitude of training bases.  In addition to the old Mainside, which, back then, was named Chevalier Field, there were sea-plane ramps on the beach just a quarter of a mile south, Corry Field was several miles north, Saufley Field, not many miles north of Corry, and Ellyson Field over on the east side of town.  Then there were  Bronson  Field, Barin Field, and Whiting Field.  Each of them within an easy 25 mile radius of NAS Pensacola, and each of them with 200-400 aircraft, conducting an intensive program of training flights at a relentless pace, often flying seven days a week. 

 

And yet, as exciting as those times undoubtedly were, with that many SNJs, SNVs, SNBs, N2Ss, N3Ns, OS2Us, and even PBYs buzzing around and compressed into a comparatively small training area, the accident rate, at least by current standards, must have been staggering.  To me, it was always a wonder that Barin was the only base to be called .bloody..    

 

At Barin, a recently constructed sheet metal building served triple duty as the ready room , a small admin office, and storage for the portable landing lens system... the mirror.  Outside on the ramp were a dozen or so well-used  .Charley. model T-28s.  We had flown quite a few Charley models back at Whiting during the transition stage of our training, but their tailhooks had been removed and the handles wired in the up position.  The T-28 Charleys of  VT-5  were equipped with fully functional tailhooks.  Long, thin, and surprisingly fragile looking, they were painted with black and white stripes.     

 

As in any military training situation, there was a lot of .hurry up and wait. at Barin.  So, along with a great deal of card playing and novel reading, two stray mongrels which had been informally adopted by the maintenance personnel, provided some welcome diversion and a measure of comic relief.  Named .Meatball. and .Clara., the mutts had easy lives.  They were occasionally obliged to run and catch an old tennis ball or a maybe even a frisbee, but mostly their days consisted of  lounging around the area  mooching handouts and taking naps.  Good duty for Meatball and Clara.  

 

Along with four Navy students, I was assigned to .Wildcat Flight..  Our Landing Signal Officer (LSO) was LCdr Flynn, a short, slightly rotund Irishman who always reminded me of Lou Costello of .Abbott and Costello. fame.  Having begun his flying as a cadet back in 1947, Mr. Flynn had reached his terminal rank and was on his twilight tour.  Unlike some instructor types in the training command, he was a likeable man and pleasant to be around.  Even so, he took his LSO job quite seriously, and let us know up front that he would tolerate no foolishness in his landing pattern.  His first fleet assignment had been in F4U .Corsairs. with several tours flying ground support in Korea.  Later, he had flown the AD .Skyraider..  With a background flying such piston powered, propellor driven brutes as those aircraft were, you might well imagine that he was a skilled virtuoso with the T-28.  

 

One afternoon, when the thermals were particularly bad,  he went up to do a pattern check and treated us all to a dazzling display of low level acrobatics.    Of course, it was against the rules.  But, in addition to being the senior officer present, he was a salty old sea-dog and a short-timer too!  What were they going to do, make him retire?

 

Another time, while we were waiting for the weather to clear, Mr Flynn told us about his first flight in a Corsair.  Since there were no two seat Corsairs, his very first flight was a solo.  It was literally a case of being advised on Friday to study the F4U manual over the weekend because he would be flying one on Monday. 

 

 As Mr. Flynn told it, he was number four for takeoff.  The first two pilots made the classic mistake of firewalling the throttle as they had habitually done in the SNJ, and sliding off the left side of the runway about halfway down.  Number three made it into the air OK.  When it was his turn, Flynn did what the manual said to do and what number three had done successfully.  He added power in increments waiting for increases in speed to make the rudder correspondingly more effective.   As the rudder became more effective, he would add more power and get more airspeed.  The tremendous torque from the Corsair.s  R-2800  power plant which produced more than 2,000 hp,  made this the best, if not the only way, to take off in the bent wing beast.  Fortunately for us, the T-28 was not quite so difficult to take off.

 

The routine at VT-5 was  well established.  We would phone the schedules office after 1900 to find out when we would fly the next day.  Undoubtedly due to the lack of locker space and dressing room facilities, driving back and forth to Barin in flight gear was permitted, but we were not allowed to stop anywhere enroute.  Under no circumstances were we to be seen in public while in flight gear.  All sorts of dire consequences were promised if we were so much as seen pumping gas into our cars at some rural Alabama service station while in flight gear.  Back then, the rule was hard and fast...flight gear, and that included our treasured leather flight jackets,  was for the flight line...nowhere else.  There was no flexibility. 

 

The ultimate threat for a transgression  was loss of those treasured leather flight jackets.  As heinous as that sounds, we were told that such punishments had indeed, been visited upon a number of  miscreant students who foolishly chose to flaunt the flight gear rule and were caught by some hardline lifer.  Not me, I wasn.t about to risk the loss of my flight jacket.   In the first place, I had worked too hard to get it.  In the second place, for me at least, without a salty leather flight jacket covered with colorful patches and esoteric insignia, the mythos and mystery of naval aviation were incomplete.  

 

Arriving an hour before scheduled launch time, we would be briefed by Mr. Flynn, man our aircraft, fly six or seven FCLPs on the mirror, which usually took anywhere from 30-40 minutes, get debriefed by Mr. Flynn, secure for the day, and drive back to Pensacola.  Then, weather and aircraft availability permitting, we would do the same thing the next day.  It was good duty.

 

I distinctly remember being canceled early one Friday morning due to weather.  It was a grey, wet day, with gloomy, low hanging clouds forecast to be around all day.  The squadron C.O. walked in to the ready room and cheerfully told everyone to secure and enjoy a three-day weekend.   A short time later I was back at the warm and cozy two bedroom mobile home I shared with my best friend.  While sitting in the easy chair, sipping hot chocolate, reading .The Sand Pebbles.  and listening to my favorite radio station, I paused, looked around contentedly, and said to myself, .Man, it just can.t get any better than this!.  It was really good duty.

 

                                                   **************************

 

Like all good things, sooner or later the really good duty had to end.  Factoring in weather, aircraft availability, and scheduling issues, it took just about a month to complete the required 13 FCLP flights.  By the time I finished CQ-13, I had a little more than 9 hours in the FCLP pattern and had amassed a total of 80 field carrier landings.  CQ-14 was the real thing...actually going out to the Gulf and .hitting the boat..

I called the schedules number on a Thursday night and was informed my flight had a mid-afternoon overhead time the next day.  The Lex would be out in the Gulf waiting for us. 

 

It hit me shortly after I set the phone down.  This was it...the real thing.  No more practice...no more FCLPs.  In less than 24 hours I would fly an aircraft, solo, and that meant all by myself,  out over .the big wet.,  and attempt to land on an aircraft carrier, not once mind you, but five times.  By this time tomorrow, I would be either carrier qualified and on my way to the next phase of training,  or I would be ignominiously waiting for orders sending me back to Quantico to attend the Basic School and a probable assignment to the infantry.

 

To a large extent, what happened at the boat tomorrow would determine whether my future in the United States Marine Corps  would take place in a cockpit or a rice paddy. 

 

It was intimidating, but at the same time, exciting... very, very exciting!

 

Yet, as exciting as all this  was, I had two small concerns .  For several days I had felt a cold nibbling at me.  I really didn.t feel bad and it didn.t seem to be anything serious, just a runny nose, more of a nuisance than anything else.  Next, the rumor mill had it that anyone who didn.t make it to the boat and get qualified by the next day, would end up in a pool for a couple of months.  The word was that after she secured operations on Friday, the Lex was heading for drydock over in Mobile and would be there for at least six weeks undergoing some much needed repair work.  That being the case, I was not about to go to Sick Call and risk being grounded.

 

Because an instructor under training (IUT) would be going out with us, there were six aircraft in the flight.  We were directed to launch out of Saufley and recover at Barin.  I blew my nose one last time before taxiing out of the chocks and joining the single file of T-28s headed for the run-up area.

 

Back in the previous September, while going through VT-1and getting my 20 hours in the T-34 , I had watched with envy as flights of outbound T-28s muscled their way through the taxi areas.   While serving my required time as Assistant Runway Duty Officer, I had been more than just a bit intimidated by the radial engine monsters as they took off in a roar or blustered in for landings within a few yards of where I stood.

 

No more! I had been steadily paying my dues since the previous June and now it was my turn.   Now I got to arrogantly taxi past the T-34s and smugly listen to Saufley Ground Control broadcast, .All VT-1 aircraft, hold your positions and yield to the outbound flight of T-28s taxiing through the throat..  Now it was my turn to be high and mighty.  It was my turn to look down with contempt at the VT-1 pukes while they sat there helpless in their puny .Teenie Weenies..

 

That.s right, I said .pukes..  Good natured tradition that went back many, many years, held that you were a puke to anyone who was ahead of you in the syllabus, and anyone behind you was a puke to you.  So, everyone was a puke to someone else at some time in the cycle.  Such had always been the natural order of things in the Naval Air Basic Training Command.

 

Holding short of the duty runway, we pivoted into our runup positions.  As I looked off to my right and then to my left to check my alignment with the other aircraft, once more I beheld six burly T-28s lined up close abreast, wingtip to wingtip, canopies open,  radial engines rumbling, and propellers turning.  It was an impressive sight... one that never failed to fill me with pride and wonder.  Pride in that I was actually a part of something as historic as Naval Aviation, and wonder in that I had actually made it this far.

 

When the last throttle was reduced to idle, signifying that all the runups were complete, the pilot in the lead aircraft gave thumbs up to the aircraft on his left.  The pilot in that aircraft nodded and turned in his seat, giving thumbs up to the aircraft on his left.  This dominoed down the line until the pilot in the last aircraft gave his thumbs up signifying that all aircraft were up and ready to go.

    

At that point, the flight was cleared onto the duty.  The lead aircraft taxied forward for a few feet then pivoted hard to the right and approached the runway threshold.  The remaining five followed in sequence and took the duty in single file with no more than 10-12 feet separating each one, nose to tail. 

 

The lead aircraft went to the far side of the runway centerline and taxied forward some forty yards before stopping.  Number two took the near side and taxied forward until his nose was abreast the lead aircraft.s tail.  Number three went to the far side, behind the lead and stopped with his nose abreast number two.s tail.  The rest of the flight followed suit until all six aircraft were lined up in a staggered arrangement, three on the far side and three on the near side of the runway. 

 

Within a few seconds after the last aircraft took position, the lead, number one, added power and began his takeoff roll.  Number two held position until he saw that number one was safely airborne and had started to retract his landing gear.  At that point, number two added power and began his takeoff roll with the remaining four aircraft sequentially following suit.

 

The duty runway was 36 so we took off to the north.  When clear of the field.s boundary, we turned gently to the left, with each aircraft performing a running rendezvous to join up with the others.  By the time we rolled out on a heading of 180 degrees, number six had pretty well joined up and the flight was complete.

 

Although the ceiling and visibility were sufficient to conduct operations, it was a chilly, overcast  day as we flew south in echelon right formation.   My aircraft number was 54 and I was number 5 in the flight.  When we crossed the beach, the IUT who was leading the flight, called  feet wet.  At that point  we changed radio frequencies, began the climb up to cruise altitude, and set course for our rendezvous with the boat.

                    

                       ******************************************************

It couldn.t have been more than a five minute flight before we saw the Lexington.  Even at a distance, the large white 16 painted on the island was clearly visible against the grey superstructure.  Similarly, the white foam .V. coming from her bow contrasted clearly with the Gulf.s grey water under the grey skies.   It was an impressive sight.

 

The IUT made the inbound radio call and the flight got an immediate .Signal Charley. with a .green deck.. This was simply permission to enter the pattern and commence landing operations.  The message also contained the FOXTROT CORPEN, a thoroughly inexplicable term that indicated the magnetic course the  boat was steering.  While descending to break altitude of 1000 feet, the flight made a wide left turn to line up with the ship and fly directly overhead before breaking into the landing pattern.

 

We had been told to look sharp at the boat, that flying tight formation going into the break was a matter of pride.   With this in mind, I was concentrating on flying a good, tucked in position on No. 4, and didn.t have much time to scope things out or eyeball the area.  Accordingly, I don.t have much recollection of looking down and thinking the classic thoughts that so many others have articulated, about being expected to land on .that postage stamp down there..  One thing was certain though, the Lexington didn.t look nearly as big from the air as it had from the pier those many months back.

 

Being number 5 for the break was a good deal in one respect.  I would have a considerably long downwind leg in which to get established in the pattern and squared away in terms of airspeed, altitude, abeam distance, etc..  We went into the break at 1000 feet and 170 knots.  After breaking, each aircraft had to go into landing configuration,  descend to 325 feet, slow to pattern airspeed which was 82 knots, establish a downwind distance of 1,000-1,200 yards from the ship, and maintain this until abeam the LSO.s platform, the 180 degree position. 

 

For a student pilot, every good landing starts off with a squared away downwind leg.  If you are not correct in terms of airspeed, altitude, and position on the downwind, you are already behind when you start your turn off the 180.   This is especially true in a carrier approach.   Even when the carrier pattern is flown correctly, you are as busy as the proverbial one-armed paper hanger.   Fly the pattern incorrectly, and you are forced to play catch-up.  Old salts can do it and get away with it.  Some can even make it look easy.  Students have an infinitely more difficult time and are well advised to hit all the checkpoints on the down-wind leg.

 

We had been briefed that the first approach was to be a touch-and-go, with the hook up.  This was standard procedure.  Flying a touch-and-go allowed the LSO to check you  for any unsafe practices before you attempted your first trap.        

 

As I was going through the downwind motions and approaching the pattern altitude of 325 feet, I took a few seconds to really check out the Lex.  Coming at me about 10 degrees off my nose, she was really a beautiful sight.  It struck me how good she must have looked to the pilots and crews who were shot up and/or running low on fuel, and searching for her in the vastness of the Pacific Ocean during WWII.  While looking down intently, I began to apply some back pressure to the stick to slow down and level off.   Since I was so far upwind, I was sure I had plenty of time. 

 

As it turned out, I had a little too much time and I got a little careless.

 

Still looking at the ship which was by now about 60 degrees ahead of my left wing, I continued to apply back pressure on the stick to slow down to 82 knots.  In a heartbeat, my reverie came to an abrupt end and my attention was drawn rudely back into the cockpit. I had felt the aircraft shudder like it does just before entering a stall.  Instinctively relaxing the back pressure on the stick, I checked the airspeed indicator.  It read 85 knots.  .What in the world is going on?., I thought to myself.  .This thing isn.t supposed to stall at 85 knots.  We fly the approach at 82 knots..  

 

I checked the power settings.  They were OK, right where they were supposed to be.  So, very gingerly, I eased the stick back ever so slightly.   More shudders!!!  Damn...what now?  I couldn.t believe what was happening.  I had never had anything like this happen before and I didn.t know what to make of it.  .What.s wrong?  What is going on??.

 

I knew that the boat  was closing with me.  She was doing at least 20 knots and I was doing 85 knots in the opposite direction.  With a closure rate of more than 100 knots, I obviously didn.t have much time.  The long downwind leg that I was so glad to have was getting shorter by the second.  I had to do something and do it quickly.

 

 Resorting to a technique that I had used before with some success, I began to talk to myself.

 

.OK, calm down.  Do what you.re supposed to do, what you.ve been trained to do.  Remember,  you have been told time and time again, if something doesn.t feel right, the first thing to do is go over your landing check list.  There it is, on the instrument panel.  Do it!.

 

1.  Harness......Locked

2.  Blower.......Off

3.  Mixture......Rich

4.  Hook..........Up

5.  Canopy.......Coming up

6.  Wheels........3 down and locked

7.  Propeller.....Full increase

8.  Flaps ........dow...OH LORDY, the flaps are still up. 

 

The realization that my flaps were still up hit me like a knife in the guts.  I believe fighter pilots call such a sensation a .klong. and define it as a cold shot of urine straight to the heart.  I.m not sure it was caused by the urine but, I swear, my heart froze in mid-beat.  In a flash, I could see myself spinning into the Gulf of Mexico, going down to a watery grave just like the guy in the film clip we had watched during orientation.  

My left hand departed the throttle and hit the flap switch faster than it had ever moved before.   In contrast, the flaps themselves seemed to creep down with an agonizing slowness.  It seemed like an eternity before the indicator finally read full down.  Just as it did, a very authoritative voice in my earphones said in distinctly measured tones, .Attaboy,54.  Now... open your canopy..

GOOD GRIEF,  not only had I not lowered my flaps, I had not opened the canopy and the LSO had seen it all.

 

I was flying like a total dork.

 

How had I missed the canopy too?  It was right there on the landing check list...just like the flaps were right there on the landing checklist.  How had I missed them both?  How many approaches had I flown?  How many times had I said .Landing Check Complete.?  How had I done something so monumentally stupid?  How had I had started off with my head so far up my rear that I needed a glass navel just to see where I was going?

 

No answers, I had simply screwed up.  Looking back, I don.t know which hurt more, screwing up so blatantly, or having the LSO see it all.

 

Still, I was determined not to blow the whole thing by completely losing my composure, and continued to talk to myself.  The one-sided conversation and no small amount of good luck,  seemed to work.   As I approached the abeam position, I was in pretty good shape.  Airspeed was 82 knots, altitude was 325 feet and holding steady.  The flaps were down and the canopy was opening.  Shivering a bit from the cold air which began to stream in, I double-checked to make sure the tailhook was up.

 

When the LSO.s platform was directly off my left wing, I began the downwind turn.  Adding a little power to hold altitude, I picked up and called the meatball about the 70 degree position, started down in the groove, held a good, center ball, took the cut signal, closed the throttle, flared, felt the tires make contact, retracted the speed brake, added take-off power, roared down the angle deck, and climbed out.  It worked just like it was supposed to.  The only words I heard from the LSO was when I called .54, Meatball., and he responded, .Roger Ball..  I was feeling rather pleased with myself.  Not bad for a dork... not bad at all.

 

I climbed out thinking that the approach had been a good one and that I had redeemed myself with the LSO.  Maybe, just maybe, I had shown him that I wasn.t a total dork after all.

 

Climbing out at 90 knots, I turned slightly to the right, to the FOX CORPEN, then took my interval on the aircraft in front of me.  I even remembered to make the upwind turn a pork-chop turn to compensate for the angle deck touch and go.  A standard 180 degree turn would have put my abeam distance much too far away from the ship.  

 

Downwind, I double and triple checked everything.  This time the hook was down and I was ready to catch a wire.  My altitude was a little low when I turned off the 180 and I lost a little more in the turn.  Passing through the 70 I did not pick up the meatball and anxiously called .54, Clara..  The LSO responded, .Roger, Clara, you.re just a bit low.  Leave your power on and hold what you.ve got..  I did as I was instructed and, sure enough, a few seconds later, the meatball was there on the low side of the mirror.  As it moved to the center of the mirror, I reminded myself of the cardinal rule of never taking off power once you get in close,  reduced power and started down the groove. 

 

At this point, my scan was reduced to the basic pattern of... meatball, line-up, airspeed...meatball, line-up, airspeed...meatball, line-up, airspeed.   The only comments from the LSO were, .Looking good, in the groove, looking good..  I was doing it right and the system seemed to be working as advertised.   Imagine that!

 

In close, I was anticipating the cut lights and suddenly, there they were.   Since this would be my first fully arrested landing, I really didn.t know what to expect when I closed the throttle and flared.  What I definitely did not expect was the clearly distinguishable and surprisingly loud metallic PING, PING, PING, as the tailhook skipped across the deck between the wires.  No sooner did I realize what was happening, than the LSO.s voice came over my earphones, .BOLTER, BOLTER, POWER AND GO!. 

 

I couldn.t believe it...my first real approach and I get a bolter, a blankety-blank bolter.  .This can.t be happening!., I thought to myself.  . The downwind fiasco with the flaps and the canopy wasn.t enough.  Now I get a bolter on my first pass...a @#**%** bolter..  I was dumbfounded, flabbergasted, astounded and half convinced that I was destined for that rice paddy after all.  It was obvious to the most casual observer that I had to get my act together and rather quickly at that.  

 

Now, in a training situation, a bolter is really no big deal.  It occurs when the tailhook hits the deck in a certain spot and skips between the arresting cables.  It.s not necessarily the result of bad flying or poor technique.  It.s something that just happens occasionally.  Every carrier pilot has his share of bolters.  It just happens. 

 

Be that as it may, the knowledge that it just happens didn.t make me feel any better as I advanced the throttle to take-off power, thumbed up the speed brake,  roared down the deck and climbed out for the second time.  Actually though, I was so busy flying the aircraft that I didn.t have much time to dwell on it and get too far down on myself.  On the other hand, I wasn.t exactly feeling like Pappy Boyington either.

 

Another pork-chop crosswind turn after taking interval on the aircraft in front of me.   This time, I worked hard to get everything right on the downwind leg.  When I turned off the 180, I was squared away with exactly 325 feet on the altimeter and 82 knots on the airspeed indicator and a proper abeam distance.   I picked up a good center ball coming up on the 70, called the ball and got a roger from the LSO.

 

In the groove, scanning ...meatball, line-up, airspeed...meatball, line-up, airspeed, and no comments from the LSO.  I had this one nailed and coming in close, got ready for the cut signal.  I don.t  recall if I was tensed up waiting for another bolter.  I.m sure the thought that it might happen again was there, but I don.t remember any conscious concern about it.  As I said, too busy, much too busy. 

 

Anyway, when the red lights flashed, I took the cut, chopped the throttle, flared, and a split second later had come to a breath taking full stop.  I do not exaggerate when I say it was a bizarre sensation.  Piloting an aircraft that went from 82 kts (over 90 mph) to a complete stop in the space of about 30 feet, was unlike anything I had ever experienced and difficult to adequately describe.  My body tried to keep going forward but was restrained by the harness.  My eyeballs, on the other hand, had no harness holding them back.  The forward tug on them was a complete surprise.  For a second, I thought they were going to pop out of their sockets.  A second later, they felt normal again.  Bizarre, really bizarre.

 

I remember thinking .YES, YES, YES!!!. I had caught the wire and made my very first trap, an arrested landing aboard one of the most historic ships in the Navy...the U.S.S. Lexington.  I had become an instant member of an elite aviation fraternity.  I was a tailhooker!!!

 

There was however, no time to celebrate.  We had been briefed very thoroughly in that regard.  Once the aircraft has stopped, we were to take no time to congratulate ourselves or eyeball the area.  Immediately, and that means immediately, we were told to raise the tailhook, thumb the speed brake up, look out between the nose and the right wing of the aircraft, and pick up the taxi director.

 

This had been drilled into us relentlessly.  Any delay in this process might well create problems for the aircraft behind you in the pattern.  Carrier training operations are very carefully choreographed and timing is critical to a smooth and orderly flow of aircraft.  The launching aircraft should be leaving the deck just about the same time the landing aircraft is coming in over the ramp.  Simultaneously, the next aircraft in line should be already turning or just about ready to turn off the 180.  Should the launching aircraft not take its position when and how it is supposed to, the landing aircraft is forced to take a fouled deck wave off and the rythym of the pattern is disrupted. 

 

Such disruptions have been known to thoroughly tick-off the ship.s Air Boss, and a thoroughly ticked-off Air Boss was reported to be not a pretty sight.  There were stories of Air Bosses on the Lexington actually kicking students out of the pattern and banishing them back to the beach.   Should that happen, woe betide the student, as his dreams of becoming a Naval Aviator were gone forever.

 

With that in mind, I looked out to about the 2 o.clock position.   There he was, right where he was supposed to be,  wearing a yellow  sweat shirt, and  motioning for me to turn to the right and taxi forward.  I was being positioned for my first deck launch.  No catapults for the mighty T-28.  Whenever 52" MAP  was applied to the Wright Cyclone R-1820 engine with 1425 horsepower, the big black propeller blades seized the air with instant authority and pulled you down the deck with a roar.

 

I followed his directions until he held both hands up crossed in the HOLD signal.  At that point, he handed me over to the Launch Officer by pointing to him and snapping me a salute when I nodded in acknowledgment.  

 

The Launch Officer, was also wearing a yellow sweat shirt and standing  just off my right wingtip. When our eyes met, he held his left hand up in a clenched fist and  rotated his right hand in circles with the index finger pointed up.  This was the signal to run up the engine while holding position.  In response, I advanced the throttle while holding the toe brakes down.  Procedures said that when the throttle reached 30" MAP, we were to scan the gauges, check the temperatures and pressures, and give a nod to the Launch Officer to let him know that everything was as it should be, i.e., that all the temperatures and pressures were within normal limits.   

 

I have no recollection of any readings of any of the temperatures and pressures.   Nor has any of my contemporaries with whom I have discussed it over the years.  For all of us, the gauges may have been reading precariously  high or dangerously low.   In fact, they may as well not have even been there.   All any of us remember is seeing 30" MAP and giving the nod to the Launch Officer. 

 

At 30" MAP, I nodded down to him.  He nodded back and continued the run up signal.  As I continued to advance the throttle, it took every ounce of strength my legs had to hold the brakes down.   The aircraft was shaking and straining as his right index finger made little circles that were tighter and tighter.  He was listening to the engine, waiting until he was satisfied with my power setting and the sound it produced.  The muscles in my thighs were starting to quiver as the engine growled ever more powerfully.  My eyes were locked on his goggles and it seemed like an eternity before he finally dropped his left arm to his side and pointed down the deck with his right arm.   This was it...LAUNCH!!!

 

Gratefully, I dropped my heels to the cockpit floor.   This  released the brakes, and I felt the aircraft literally try to jump out from under me.  While certainly not the same sensation as a cat shot must be, it was still a tremendous sense of power, almost as big a rush as the trap had been.  Feeding in all the right rudder that was there, I advanced the throttle to the maximum allowable MAP of 52.5" and roared down the deck.     

         

My one-sided conversation continued.  .Remember now, they said not to rotate the nose until coming up to the No.1 elevator, and it.s coming up fast.  Remember too, they said not to look at the airspeed indicator as you lift off the deck cause it will scare ens out of you.  Just rotate the nose to the take-off attitude and hold it there.  The airplane will fly itself off nicely if you hold the attitude..

 

When it looked like the No 1 elevator was under my nose, I applied back pressure to the stick,  pulled the nose up to the take-off attitude, and saw what was left of the deck disappear under me.  They were right, the airplane flew itself off nicely.  Good thing too, as all I had under me now was the grey waters of the Gulf of Mexico. 

 

Climbing out, I spotted the aircraft in front of me.  He had not yet begun his crosswind turn.   Once more it looked as if I would have plenty of time to get set up in the pattern.   I reduced power to level off at 325 feet and put the nose down to pick up the 90 knots that was prescribed for the upwind leg and crosswind turn. 

 

Just as instructed, I had not checked the airspeed during take-off and initial climb-out.   Now, however, I was up and flying, so my scan dropped to the airspeed indicator and.... WHAAAAAAT?...What in the.... is that?   Not sure I was seeing what I thought I was seeing, I looked more closely.  The closer look confirmed it.  The face of the airspeed indicator was covered by a thick, green, oozy glob of something.    What was...how in the...? 

 

Without even thinking about it, I took my left hand off the throttle and touched the blob of whatever it was.  Then, I took a closer look at it and...AW, GROSS  MAN...YUCK!!! IT WAS SNOT!  My airspeed indicator was covered with SNOT.  That.s affirmative...SNOT, nasal mucus, phlegm, nose oysters, thick, pale green SNOT.

 

I couldn.t believe it...I just couldn.t believe it.  It was incredible.