“Strike, three-zero-two is south of Mother. I can’t see! I’m blind! I need someone to join up on me and guide me!”
After an eternity of silence, the controller answered. “Roger, three-zero-two, mark your posit.” The routine request for position sent an already stressed Trench over the edge.
“Strike, dammit, I CAN’T SEE to tell you my position! I’m south about eighty miles. I think I’m heading north.” Even in his panicked state, Trench could sense the controller on the other end of the radio transmission had never heard a call from a pilot with this problem. Willing himself to calm down, Trench fought to remain patient with the only lifeline he had.
“Ridgeline three-zero-two, Strike, looking… can you squawk seventy-seven hundred?”
In front of Trench at the top of the instrument panel was the Up Front Control, a keypad for all his avionics. This included his IFF transponder that broadcast a code that controllers could use to identify specific aircraft with course, speed, and altitude. Without it, Trench’s Hornet was just a mark on a scope. His left hand moved to the UFC to change the code as he had done hundreds of times before — and he froze. The IFF pushtile under the UFC was marked, but he couldn’t focus on it!
Which one is it?
Once again, Trench felt the frustrating dread of not being able to do the simplest of tasks. In the back of his mind, he considered ejecting.
“Strike, three-zero-two, stand by.”
* * *
Annie in 305 and Big Jake in 307 were forty miles west of Coral Sea, low on the water and playing with the bathtub toys they had found in their personal playground.
In combat spread formation at 360 knots, they were approaching a fleet of about ten fishing trawlers spread over a few miles of ocean. They were small craft, no more than forty feet long, all painted white, some with outriggers deployed. On the northern horizon she picked up the silhouette of an unusual looking vessel, a large ship with a huge crane-like object aft. Once they finished with these little fishermen, Annie would lead Big Jake north to check it out.
As they came upon the fishing fleet wallowing in the swells and appearing dead in the water, she concentrated on one of the boats as she thundered over it. She and Big Jake were freelancing after dropping their practice bombs on smokes they had laid down, killing time as much as honing their skills before the scheduled recovery in thirty minutes.
“Three-zero-five, Alpha Sierra.” Annie was surprised to get a call from the ship surface search controller.