Firebird
three-zero-two is at four miles. Stand clear of the foul line!”
Trench let his hands rest on the stick and throttle, feeling them move under the data-linked commands sent from the ship. With his limited peripheral vision, all he could discern was water and sky. In two minutes, he was going to be aboard — hanging from a parachute — or dead. He sensed this was it, the end of his flying days, the end of his military career, not that he had ever wanted one. But now he did, and would stay for thirty years if he could just see. Please God! he cried in his mind, begging to wake up from his nightmare, begging for a second chance. Damn yacht! He had to warn the others. Approach kept the calls coming.
“Three-zero-two, approaching tip-over. Up and on glide slope at three miles.”
“Roger,” he acknowledged. He felt the airplane lunge as the throttles moved back, then forward to keep 302 on speed. He was now on glide slope, an imaginary 3.5-degree ramp that would take him all the way into the wires, and he couldn’t even see the ship’s wake. Annie reassured him on Comm 2.
“Looking good, Trench. Deck’s clear. You’ve got a centered ball. Gear down, hook down. You’re all set.” Trench nodded, then keyed the mike to warn everyone.
“It was a yacht, about a hun’erd miles south. I was rigging it, and it blinded me. White yacht, heading west.”
“Three-zero-two, approach. Say again?”
“I’m telling you, it was a yacht!” an exasperated Trench boomed. “With a blinding laser. Now you know, so get me aboard!”
In Air Ops, Wilson and Matson exchanged glances. CAG stepped over to the console and picked up a phone. Wilson went back to the PLAT display, helpless to do anything more.
“Three-zero-two, roger. On glideslope, on course…. Two miles.”
To Trench, the controls seemed to be working hard to keep him on glide slope, and he was fearful they would “kick him out” of the ship’s data link control. He had no choice but to ride and wait.
* * *
All eyes looked aft at the formation of Hornets, knowing that a blind pilot was in the lead aircraft. They also knew this approach could end in a fiery crash, and the Air Boss had instructed nonessential personnel to go below. Descending from her cockpit on the bow, Macho asked Chief Hauber, the squadron flight deck chief, what was going on.
“Three-zero-two is coming back. He’s blind.”
Stunned, Macho asked, “Who’s in three-oh-two?”
“Lieutenant James,” he answered.
With her mouth hanging slack from disbelief, Macho saw the formation of Hornets on final. Blind? Trench? How? What was he doing?