“What do you think happened?” Annie continued.
“I was rigging a boat. On the second pass I lost sight…. May have been a blinding laser.”
Annie felt a chill as she let this sink in. Lasers… out here.
Word of the recall to Coral Sea was out, and as other air wing aircraft returned to her, they clobbered Strike frequency with their voice calls. If Annie was going to “fly” two airplanes, she had to have a clear radio frequency. She called to Strike.
“Strike, four-zero-five is joined on four-zero-two. We need to get off this freq and over to approach so we can minimize frequency changes.”
Strike approved the plan. “Roger, three-zero-five, go button one.”
“Three-zero-five. Ridgelines go button one.”
Now Annie had to get Trench to change his radio, and if she lost him, it could spell trouble. She called to him on aux. “Trench, on Comm 1… turn the knob two clicks counter-clockwise.” After waiting a few seconds, she called.
“Ridgeline, check Comm 1—”
“Trench is up!” In their cockpits the Firebird pilots let loose a collective sigh of relief that they were still communicating on both radios, their only lifeline.
“Roger,” Annie answered, then called to approach. “Approach, Ridgeline three-zero-five with you on Mother’s one-three-five for thirty, angels eight, low state five-point-oh. We are holding hands with three-zero-two who is incapacitated due to blindness. Need to set up for a Mode One.” The approach controller answered with the plan.
“Roger, Ridgelines, Mother is conducting an emergency pull forward. Expected BRC one-four-zero. You are cleared aft at ten miles. Take angels one-point-two.”
After Annie acknowledged the instructions, she visualized the ship heading southeast. She had to set up behind it, or to the northwest, and to do that Trench had to turn — and descend. Here goes, she thought as she keyed the mike.
“Okay, Trench, we’re gonna turn. Easy turn left.”
After a moment, Trench moved his stick left with Annie’s coaching.
“A little more angle of bank…. Good… hold that…. Mother is twenty-five miles off the nose…. Okay, roll out. Back to the right. Good. Let’s pull some power now, and bunt the nose down…. Too much. Pull it back up a little…. Twenty-four miles.”
And so it went. Big Jake, in loose formation behind them, watched for traffic while Annie flew next to Trench and guided him down. Her calm voice carried over the radio to his brain where the message was transferred by his hands to the flight controls. This came with an inherent lag, but Annie still had to anticipate one step ahead.