“Trench, Annie. Can you select IFF? Under the UFC, second pushtile from your left.”
With his XO’s helpful reminder, his thumb found the IFF pushtile—of course! — and Trench pushed it. With his peripheral vision his saw the display illuminate, and then punched in 7700 on the keypad by feel: left row, bottom, seven, twice; center row, bottom, zero, twice. Out of habit, and by feel, his mind guided his thumb to hit ENTER.
“Ridgeline three-zero-two, Strike. Radar contact on Mother’s one-six-five for seventy two.”
Roger, Strike. Say my angels!” Thank goodness, a relieved Trench thought. They’ve got me!
“Three-zero-two, you are at seven thousand, three hundred feet.”
“My heading?”
“Three-zero-two, you are heading zero-five-zero.”
Annie realized that Trench was moving away from them. “Strike, three-zero-five. Can you get him to turn north toward Mother?”
Trench could turn the aircraft left, and maybe use the sun overhead to gauge a general heading, but he needed help until Annie showed up. He still didn’t know his airspeed — he felt like he was fast — so he pulled the stick into him a little. When he felt a few g’s on his body, he figured he had at least 300 knots. Annie called to Strike again.
“Strike, three-zero-five. Bogey dope to three-zero-two.”
Strike responded that Ridgeline 302 bore 160 degrees at 65 miles, and gave them a heading of 140 to intercept. They still needed to get 302 heading north.
“Three-zero-two, Strike. I’m going to call your turn. At a standard rate turn, turn left.”
Rolling left, Trench did his best, by feel and what sense of the horizon he had, to hold 30-degrees angle of bank. He waited for Strike to tell him to roll out, using a procedure he had learned in flight school and had never used since. He was beginning to gain confidence despite blinking his eyes hard to snap out of the loss of sight. Nothing.
“Stop turn.”
Trench did as he was told. “What’s my altitude now?” he asked.
“Angels six-point-eight,” replied the controller. Trench added power and eased back on the stick to stop his shallow descent.
C’mon, XO! Get down here! he cried to himself as his panic returned.
(USS Coral Sea, underway 225 miles northwest of Barranquilla, Colombia)
Wilson sat in the back of the ready room with the briefing guide open on his lap as he led Ghost through the conduct of their upcoming flight. Killer, the duty officer, walked up to them with a grave look on his face.
“Sir, Air Ops says Trench in three-zero-two is reporting he’s blind and trying to find his way back.”