On Gonzo Station, Part Ten

OK, I lied. This is even stranger than I thought. As it turns out, the original version of the Air Show story was buried in a binder in the archives. This will be the dance-off for this story, which is very much “TBD” as we wait to see if Syria, Iran, Israel and Saudi Arabia contribute to an October Surprise that could influence the US Presidential election. That would be the continuation of what is now a long story, one that has stumbled forward long enough that my sons in the business are now eligible to be part of the fight. I am not going to tell the story of EAGLE CLAW, the rescue attempt to spring the hostages from the Iranian students. It was the first real Special Operations Command operation that Dean-the-Dream helped to plan, and which went so horribly awry on 24 April 1980.

Midway was in dry dock in Yokosuka and I was long gone. In fact, I had made it back to America and was headed west again through San Francisco for my next duty station in sunny Seoul, Republic of South Korea. The news hit me pretty hard, but I got on the airplane to the Peninsula anyway.

That was a long time ago. The word is that someone is going to do something again just as bold in concept at EAGLE CLAW. I don’t know if it will happen, or whether it will be the October Surprise that people have been talking about as a wild card in the election. I guess we will see, won’t we?

As always, archaic terms should be read in the context of their times and are retained only for historical accuracy.

THE GREAT GONZO AIR SHOW

It was incredible. The last brief had gone down. For me, anyway.

Call it a crisis. I talked about how fucked up oil Minister Moinfar is, His disastrous policies and the inescapable ruin of Iran’s key industry.

I waxed long and persuasive on the possibilities of Bani Sadr. His motivations and his relations with us. . . the Great Satan.

I slipped in another arch reference to the latest in the series of atrocities in Afghanistan: the Russians who sat in their APCs and watched the loyal Afghan troops mowed down by the rebels.

Muffled shouts from inside the vehicles: “Long live the Socialist Revolution! Be proud to die for the New Model Revolution, cause we ain’t!” I noted to the captive audience wearing green smelly Nomex zoom bags and flight boots.

Oh, I was glib and funny, heavy on the irony as Ghotbzadeh assailed the Canadians for violating International Law in smuggling the six yanks out of Tehran. How do you smuggle Americans out of a hostile Muslim nation, I said? “It’s easy, You just teach them to say, “HI, I‘m from Windsor Ontario, eh …”

I covered the negligible operational stuff; 25 nautical mile closest point of approach to Iran, be cool, watch the meaconing, jamming and intrusion.

“India,” I said gravely, “means Mode IV if you are around Texas today. The ROE is exactly as it was graven upon the stone and brought down from the mountain by the Staff, and shouted, by we, it’s prophets through these last 80 days! And other than that, if there are no questions, Gentlemen, that is all l’ve got.

For once and for all.

Call it a Crisis, gentlemen, we’re outta here.

I covered my notes and the day was done. The briefing mantle slipped from my shoulders. No longer was I going to be the Voice of the World, the theoretically infallible speaker of the dooms and shouting about the huddled masses and their hostages, dancing in weird cadence. I am going to turn it over to Grits, that handsome, balding mountain of a man who will fill this vacuum.

Dean-the-Dream, the other half of the whirling circle of briefs, is history even as I write. He was a lucky one and flew off a couple weeks ago. All that terror and loathing, the tingle at the bottom of your guts that felt either like the spiders of amphetamines, or the realization that it was all real and going to come down on you in great brown glops.

So serious about facing our own weapons in the hands of the Islamic Republic: the improved Hawk missile- the dread I-HAWK- and the F-14 Tomcats- not to mention the awesome thrust of the Harpoon anti-ship missile popping up from the racing La Combatante patrol boats and hurtling toward Midway’s 02 level, and all those stereos and gimcracks we own.

All that I own. Fuck it, Gentlemen. We are gone.

One last evolution to perform is the Airshow. The Great Gonzo Station Airshow.

For the troops, to let the Snipes crawl up the long metal ladders from where the hunched demons whirl and steam floods like the white shroud of hell. So they can see why we were here for so long, and to so little purpose. A last evolution for the Voice of Airwing FIVE, to wit, me, to climb to the tower and sit in the Air Boss’s chair, and speak sweet platitudes from the I5 MC to the shutterbugs below.

No practice for this one.  Just load up the Mk 82s and go for it, Same script as usual, Part of the daily air plan, no sweat, Just do it, and off we go.

I get up early and listen to the brief. “Remember, more people have been killed in Airshows than in Combat. Be careful. If it doesn’t feel good, just don’t do it.

“Remember! Safety of Flight is paramount.” That line is one of my get-out-of-jail-free cards in the briefings. I am glad these briefs aren’t televised or recorded on video-tape.

The aircrews shuffle out. “Ya think the VT fuzing on the bombs is going to work?”

“Sure, why not?”

“Who is the spare and who is the Go? Give me your names so I can put it out on the P.A.” They tell me and I copy them down industriously. It doesn’t matter who is actually in the airplane, just so long as I have got the right number of names.

The weather is dog-shit. There is sand blowing from Iran. It blows so hard that there are discernible tracks on the flight deck as the aircraft pass.

Sand adheres to the paint finish on the birds. The horizon is not there. You can see up, but anything else vanishes into a haze blue at less than five nm. The Soviet IL—38s are in- bound again. Nimitz has got the intercept responsibility. It is starting out just fine.

WEAX just below min, the Soviets coming in the middle of it, We have been here too long. Suppose the unthinkable happened today, the last day? Jesus!

It is cold outside. The north wind has brought the chill of the Iranian winter with the sand. The sea is choppy and white capped. The deck is moving around. It is not like situation normal. The steps to Primary Flight Control are steep, and the long stint from not running leaves me breathless. The Air Boss and the Mini-Boss are hunched behind the console, looking down as the airplanes light the fires and prepare to go do it. It is surreal.

The Mk 82 500-lb bombs look gay with the varicolored tips, The A-6 Intruders seem as though they will never fly. Just two of the bug-eyed things can carry 22 of the MK-82s apiece. It is absurd that they will fold the improbable little hinged wings down and be hurled from the safety of the ship and not have them scatter everyone with glowing white hot death.

The Boss is in his element, Speakers are crackling around him, phones are ringing, the C.O. is buzzing. He grasps the I5 MC and screams for the Flight Deck Crew to get into complete Flight Deck Uniforms. I shuffle the script in my hands. The Il-38s are coming in fast.

One of the cats goes down with a fully loaded A-6 on it. It is something to do with the accumulator, which in turn has a relationship with the steam that drives the catapults from the bowels of the ship.

This is all so complex I am amazed it works so well.

Will the cat come back up in time for the launch? How much gas is in the air? No one seems to know.

CAG Ops turns to me and says “It looks like a great airshow. They will have to suspend the launch because the Russians will fly through the pattern, the starboard cat will stay down, and the weather will get worse.” He smiles his lean smile.

I clear my threat and light up another smoke.

The IL-38s appear out of the haze and fly across the stern, “Where are the F-14s? Did anyone see an F-14?” CAG Ops and I walk out on the Boss’s patio and watch the Russians disappear again into the sand cloud. I catch a wing flash somewhere above them.

“Looks like they are there, all right, but they sure gave the Rooskies some nice shots of Midway without a US Navy airplane in them.”

“Wonder what the Russian Photo Interpreters will think when they see all those MK-82s hung on the racks?“  We go back inside the island. The Launch is going on. The Intruder still sits on the starboard cat, but the C-2A has gone away and the E-2B is up and cooling down his system. The A—7s are lined up behind the JBDs waiting to go. Heavy shots for the bombers today. The Intruders will be going off at 57,000 pounds. Heavy.

At last they are all gone, and the starboard cat and the recalcitrant accumulator is working happily. The crowds are beginning to come up from below for the show.

Navy legend has it that on Ground Hog’s Day, if the Snipe sees his shadow, it means another six weeks on station. It is not a funny joke, but it provokes nervous titters of laughter from the seasoned killers. The IL-38’s come back, this time with the Tomcats stepped up on their wings as God and AIRPAC meant it to be.

They turn their wings in towards the ship in true airshow fashion. I am tempted to announce them, very professional in my disc-jockey voice: “And there you see it, gentlemen, the First event of the Gonzo Airshow, comes courtesy of Air Detachment  Bravo, out of Aden, and a part of Soviet Long Range  Aviation Squadron 27. The Pilot in command for today’s flyby is Flight Lt. Sergie Yomomasov, and his co-pilot is Ivan Belinko.”

I’m short, but I’m not that short. Larry, the departed CAG AI, had the same sort of situation when he was The Voice of the flight demonstration. The Sultan of Oman brought his Jaguars out to Play, and they roared past the ship with the Saudi Admirals waiting on the island catwalk.

C’est la vie, in the airshow business.

I get the Boss’s seat with four minutes to push. The monolog begins with 30 seconds to go, I smoke another cigarette in exactly three minutes, CAG Ops gives the count down on button six. The fighters finish tanking and check in. Time to roll. I push down the mike button and we’re off to the races.

There is a long introductory phase where I talk from the script about all the many splendored facets of Airwing FIVE and Midway team. I race through it a half the time, CAG Ops   tells me to slow it down.

The introductory shock is over and the show resumes a more sedate pace. I am just reaching the intro for Event One, when Event Three, Two and One motor by at fifteen second intervals, The Eagles of Attack Squadron 115 come by first in a diamond, with the KA-6D tanker in stately pursuit. The drogue is hanging thirty feet in front of the probe from the EA-6A. The A-7s of the Ravens and Phantom fighter fly-by diamond is seconds behind.

Now that the show is off to being really fucked up, I relax. There is nothing I can do about it now, and I actually start to have fun.

The low speed/high speed phantoms are the responsibility of the World Famous Fighting Switchboxes of VF-151 this time. Rocket Robinson comes by with his hook, flaps and gear down. The nose is pitched up at about 30 units. He is just hanging in space.

The object is to then have Fox, the new XO, come by abeam at about warp eight, and overtake him exactly abeam the island to demonstrate the high and low speed properties of the F-4 weapon system. Not a sign of the XO. I just keep talking. Rick motors on down the line of ships and finally cleans up his airplane and goes away. The XO is still in the haze behind the procession, but suddenly breaks out, clean configured without the standard center-line drop tank so he can cook.

It is the first time I ever saw a Phantom get shot off the bow in Military power rather than zone six afterburner. First time I ever saw a Phantom go off in Military Power on the cat-shot instead of full burner.

He will have a tanker waiting for him when he climbs up off the pass, and I hope he hits it first pass.

The XO grows from a speck to a real aircraft, booming along, 650 knots, then 700, and BOOM he leaves transonic and shatters the sound barrier abeam. No slow man was there to demonstrate the relative speed differential, but still great.

There is no humidity to speak of, unusual, so the shock cone does not appear visible. Then up he goes supersonic, twisting around and around, the plumes of his open fuel dumps making a delicate sugar candy twirl as he vanishes upward, out of the ken of the deck-bound hoi-paloi.

Then the bombs. The bombs are always the high point. The smoke markers are dropped by the Champs of VA-56, and they put them about four hundred yards to starboard. Very close.

Buzz, the Eagle’s C.O., is on the box before the smoke is off the water. The phone in front of me buzzes urgently. The Boss reaches over me and answers: “Yes Sir?”

“Double that,” sez Midway’s skipper Hoagie Carmichael, and the word is passed out on button six, If the bombs fell that close there would be shrapnel on the flight deck.

The A-7s come around with eight bombs apiece. The VT fuzing is haywire. Two airbursts.

A nice string of hits exactly double the distance as the smoke. The airbursts might have killed the aircrews if they were low enough. Now, they are just pretty pyrotechnics. The blast from a 500 pounder is an orange flash, and a gray cloud. At eight hundred yards the sound does not reach us for seconds, and it is all like a silent movie. Then the great sound washes over the ship, and the concussion hits with a palpable wall of air.

The second string on the smokes is a dud.

Then the A-6s run in. They are strapped down with 22 x 500 pounders each. The splashes make a neat line parallel to the ship. The linked crumps of the weapons going off is quite nearly orgasmic. Over four tons of high explosives say goodbye to the Gonzo. Outside the displaced air is enough to move you back in your tracks. Usually, there is cheering.

CAG Ops cancels the strafing. That is too bad. I was looking forward to the sound of the fart from hell, the sharp “blatt” of the M-6I Vulcan electric cannon, but there is not enough time today. In the last airshow the eager pilots nearly put the deadly hose right across the stern of the ship. It is not to be, today.

I flash on the stories about the USS Ranger Airshow that has gone down in history: A demonstration of the AIM-9L Sidewinder air-to-air missile goes awry and accidentally shoots down the photo helo.

I can imagine only too well the announcer’s conundrum. “And following the shoot-down of the helicopter, Ladies and Gentlemen, we will have the A-7s strafe the flight deck! Heads up!”

The simulated landing passes happen, and the unexpected tail wind blows the airplanes off schedule. Instead of waving it off, the RF-4 of the Cadavers has to take it around the starboard side of the ship, “It’s cool folks, he’s just demonstrating the ability of photo recon to go both ways…”

The big diamond fly-by, as they parade by in elegant formation.  Grace at two hundred knots. The airshow flies into history. “That concludes our Aerial Demonstration on the 8Ist day of our contingency deployment. The CVW·5/ USS Midway team invites you all to “say Gonzo!”

(The Air Boss sits to the left, the Mini to the right on CV-41).

I relinquish the mike to the Mini-Boss and stand over next to the green couch smoking a cigarette with Scotty, or Mr. Sluggo, his alter-ego, the Switchbox Maintenance Officer. The person you are talking to depends on how Night Check did with getting his jets up to meet the flight schedule. We both exhale for the first time in months.

It is all over now, all the labors and the three or four hundred sweating briefs, and the mountains of sinister messages of blood and terror and instability. Are the Soviets moving today? What’s new, Vic?

No more: “First brief at 0300 tomorrow.”  Better get some sleep, forget the endless line of paper coffee cups stretching to infinity, the hundreds of crumpled cigarette packs. Done and done.

Man, I am tired but my nerves are still twitching in random flashes.
It occurs to me our Flight Surgeon Doc Fogelman is probably hanging out in Sick Bay. With all our work done, I wander on down to ask him a purely hypothetical question.

“Hey, Doc,” I say when I see him. “What is a common industrial injury that has no apparent symptoms except acute pain and can be medicated successfully?

Doc Fogelman screwed up his brows. “Well, lower back pain is common, and something that we can dispense a few Percocet for,” he said.

I thought about the transit to Subic and a week to sleep, if I could. “You know, Doc,” I said. “That is funny. My back is killing me.”

Copyright 2012 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com