Clara Ball

Instrument Panel

The Leader Board

The Brief

Launch & Rendezvous

Spain

Critical Fuel Level

The Pattern

Clara Ball

Hawk was over by the squadron's leader board considering his ranking among the other squadron pilots. The USS Nimitz (CVN-68) would leave Naples and head out into the Mediterranean for operations for a few weeks. There would be a ceremony on our way back to port held in the forecastle and the top pilots with the best landing grades were selected into the Top 8. It was a prestigious list to be on, and Hawk was nearly always on that list.

The forecastle was also the place where the last rites were paid to those who had lost their lives at sea. They had left the ship by cat shot, but their log books were missing an arrested landing. An Air-Wing search followed for several days, but these comrades were nearly never recovered. I had watched an approach turn stall at the 45-degree position in the pattern, the unmistakable slicing nose, the cataclysmic destruction, followed by water and airplane parts on the deck. So, this was the fate of many of my friends somewhere on a lonely ocean with no witness. I found this to be the most difficult part of the job.

We had just finished our preflight brief and I was in the Pararigger shop suiting up. Picked up my harness, zipped up my G-suit, and grabbed my helmet and oxygen mask. The walk up the ladder to the flight deck was quick and found myself surrounded by the Mediterranean blue with the salt in the breeze over the deck. Usually, our mission would be to rendezvous ahead of the ship and head out to bomb our smokes in the water. After our 30-degree bombing practice, the flight would separate. In separate sectors, we would perform Surface Subsurface Surveillance Coordination (SSSC) and track down ships. On a prepared index card, we would note type, direction, and speed. Taking pictures of these vessels gave us a reason to come low and close for a dramatic photo that might win us "Picture of the Day".

One day after winning the picture of the day with a "dramatic" photo the Skipper passed by it in the squadron area. When he returned to the ready room he asked me how high I had been. There was a squadron minimum of 500 feet. I said, "The minimum Skipper." He replied, "The masts of that ship are well above the horizon in the picture Salt!" I had this way of trimming the aircraft into a slow-rising turn making small adjustments with my knees letting the auto-rewind get a stream of pictures through the maneuver. Yeah, I had started just above the water for that roll.

But today would be different. Our task was to meet with two A-6s at a target located in Spain and act as referees for their radar bombing qualification We would spot their hits. Hawk and I were flying A7s. The A7 was a Vaught Corsair, a single-seat, visual, high-precision light-attack aircraft. It could carry six 2,000 "iron bombs" and 10,200 pounds of jet fuel for a cat shot at a total of 42,000 pounds. I say it was a precision bomber because I went head-to-head with an F-18 in mid-1980 and came out of the bombing derby with a slightly higher CEP.

I was taxied to cat 4 behind the jet deflector. Soon after that I was airborne and joined my lead who was heading to the target in Spain. When the target came into view I was amazed at its quality. It was a groomed target, not like the ones we bombed in the States. We took our position at a few thousand feet above the rings. The A6s would be doing low-level radar bombing runs. They were probably somewhere between 200 to 500 feet above the target. The lead scored the hits and the A6s headed back to the ship. It was too beautiful of a target not to do some 30-degree diving runs, and so with permission, we jumped into the pattern. We were pressing our fuel and so we too headed back to the ship. Seemed like a perfect ending to a beautiful day.

As we picked up approach control on our radio we heard that they were sending aircraft to the IFR holding pattern. I was on my leads wing when he came up on the squadron frequency and asked my fuel status. Emergency fuel for the A7 was 1200 pounds of fuel. I was at 1400 pounds, Hawk was lower. The next call was to approach where they told us to hold with the other aircraft. "Approach that will not be possible, we need to land now."

Approach cleared us in to the VFR pattern, but advised that the ship was currently in a

Downpour.