25 Kilometers East of Caipiriha,
Brazil
1000 Meters ASL
29 August
0200 Local
The
old bird was acting a bit sluggish. The
rear gear had kissed the deck at about where the Number Three Wire would have
been deployed. It would have been a textbook take-off. The bang of the gear hitting the deck
followed by the roar of the twin afterburning turbofans blasting him away from
the deck was then followed by another, more distant and totally frightening
sound. It felt as though something had
hit his aircraft.
Flight
Lieutenant Ricoletto Adonja knew that he would have to sit down and have a very
long debriefing with his crew chief and the flight crew that serviced his
aircraft. His brain spun, trying to
think of what might be the problem. His
eyes flashed to the three large multifunction displays and then all of the
instruments in the darkened cockpit. He
cautiously waggled the flight stick and knew that something was wrong. It was almost as if something was stuck in
one of the large elevators at the rear of his two seat Brazilian Navy F-18B.
“Bull
Base, this is Simon Two Two Three,” Adonja spoke into the oxygen mask that was
affixed to his face. Now came the part
that he dreaded.
“Simon
Two Two Three, this is Bull Base, over,” came the deadpan voice of the American
Naval air controller sitting in his air-conditioned
workstation 10 miles away, in the heart of the mammoth USS John Adams.
Adonja
hated even the appearance of weakness or incompetence in his personal life and
he, like the majority of his countrymen, positively despised it in the face of
foreigners, much less American naval personnel.
He was currently participating in Operation Southern Resolve XI, a joint
American, Brazilian and Argentinean air and naval exercise that had been held
every spring for the past eleven years.
Southern
Resolve exercises had begun in the late 1990’s and although they weren’t even consecutively
numbered until Resolve VI, they were a good chance for the Brazilian and
Argentinean navies and air forces a chance to meet and greet with their
neighbors to the north. The Americans
typically sent one of their newest carriers, equipped with the latest aircraft
and showed off to the less advanced officers and men of Brazil and Argentina. The exercises typically involved some war
games, exchange of some officers and crew to see how the other navies
performed, and some flight exercises.
Adonja was currently involved in the latter. His flights of four F-18’s were practicing
landing on the large, flat expanse of Adams’s
flight deck. The Adams was the newest American aircraft carrier, a Ford class and
recently commissioned. The Adams was the
thirteenth in a line of what soon would be fourteen of the mightiest military
vessels ever to see service.
Unfortunately she was now dwarfed by even larger cruise ships. Adonja
was always amused that the newest cruise ships might be twice the size of the
floating city that slowly diminished behind him. The Adams
was nicknamed “The Bull”, after her famous namesake. The Adams
displaced approximately 104,000 tons and with the aid of two nuclear power
plants was able to perform approximately 50 knots under the right
conditions.
The
Adams was the first super carrier to
incorporate stealth into her design. Her
massive bulk, although identical to the other twelve Nimitz class carriers in
the American fleet, was almost featureless.
She had a relatively small sloping superstructure that rose ten meters
above the flight deck. There were as few
right angles on the Adams as the
naval architects could manage. The huge
vessel was a study in angles and curves.
Her hull painted a faintly mottled grey color, appeared to blend into
the haze, even on a moderately clear day.
“Bull
Base, Simon Two Two Three, I am experiencing a bit of delay in my control
surfaces. Situation is not critical, but
am calling off touch and go for this mover, requesting vector to Bravo Base,”
Adonja said, hoping that the sound of his teeth grinding in embarrassment
wouldn’t be heard by the air controller or anyone else on the frequency.
“Understood
Simon Two Two Three, vector is one eight five, range two five kilometers. Transmit telemetry to us on Freq Two Alpha in
five. Over.”
Adonja’s
fingers flew over the controls. In an
instant he has transmitted the output of his avionics and diagnostic computers
to the American aircraft carrier. He’d rather have the damn Yankee just let
him head back to his own carrier, the Brazilian Navy’s Minas Gerais, which was currently steaming twenty five miles to the
south.
Adonja
detected movement in his peripheral vision.
His fingers reflexively tensed over the appropriate controls that would
arm his aircraft’s single AIM-9T missile, and the massive 20mm Gatling gun in
the nose of his old bird. His head snapped
around and he caught a glimpse of the source of the movement. There it was – behind, a bit lower and about
ten kilometers distant from him. He
immediately recognized as one of the Adams’s
F-35B fighters. Adonja quickly estimated
that the approaching fighter was moving supersonic, as he was flying at about
three hundred knots, and the American fighter was rapidly closing the
distance. Adonja could not help but
admire the deadly beauty of the fighter that approached. It was the successor to the F/A-18 series of
fighters that had served the American navy for so long. Stealthy and fast, the F-35 was the envy of
most the world’s navies and air forces.
“Simon
Two Two Three, we are vectoring in Jolly One One to your position to visually
inspect. Our diagnostics are showing no
failure in avionics or fly by wire.”
“No
shit,” Adonja thought. His own on board
instruments had told him that. “That
concurs with my data, Bull Base. I am
maintaining heading, speed and altitude, have Jolly One visually.”
“See-moan
Two Two,” The Yankee’s drawl was almost nauseatingly stereotypical. Adonja had the fortune of being an exchange midshipman at the Untied States Naval
Academy and had grown to both like and
loathe the US Naval Aviators. The little
humility amongst the American flying class had done little to endear some of
them to Adonja during his four years at Annapolis and two years of US Navy
Flight training. The Americans had built
the planes he would teach Brazil’s young pilots to fly, so they were kind enough
to pick up the tab of Adonja’s education.
Adonja was a brand new instructor pilot and flight leader assigned to
Brazil’s largest aircraft carrier, the Minas
Gerais. He had almost three hundred
carrier landings under his belt and fifteen hundred hours in the F-18
alone. Adonja loved to fly fast fighter
planes. He loved figuring out how to
shoot down other fast fighter planes even more.
The
fighter that was fast approaching would be, in such an environment, a definite
challenge. He remembered as a youngster
surfing the internet for pictures of the latest military aircraft that the
Americans produced. When he first saw
the F-35, it was an experimental aircraft known as the X-35, and it enthralled
him. Visually similar to the larger F-22
Raptor, the F-35 was smaller and cheaper to build. It came in three
versions. A consortium of US companies
were building a version for the US Air Force, a larger winged version for the
US Navy, and a vertical landing version for the US Marines and British Royal
Navy. In fact the F-35 was the reason
that Adonja was currently in the aircraft he was. When the Americans switched to the F-35, they
began to sell or give away their older “obsolete” aircraft. Adonja had no illusions that the fighter he
was in was still more than a match for any other aircraft in the sky. But, at this point Adonja knew that the
American approaching could swat him from the sky without so much as breathing
hard.
The
US Navy fighter was then upon him. He
approached from the right rear.
“See-moan
Two Two, this is Jolly One, please maintain speed and heading. I’m going to take a quick look- see.”
“Roger
that, Jolly One One. Feels like one of
the elevators may be obstructed. Going to have to let my flight crew chew me a
new one for banging up their bird,” Adonja threw in the bit of American slang
to appear friendlier than he actually felt.
Adonja had always hated the sometimes condescending attitude that some
of his acquaintances at Annapolis and Pensacola occasionally showed foreign
officers. He did not want to have to be
rescued by the Americans!
“Sea-moan
Two, I think you may be off the hook
with your flight crew. Looks like
you have a big fat seagull frapped in your port elevator. It does indeed look
like the control surface itself might be damaged. Probably hit it on your way out of the last
touch and go you performed. They’ll
review the camera footage on Bull Base to see if they can see anything. You might be able to go into a steep climb to
see if you can clear the bird bones out of your control surfaces, but-“
“But,
if I try that and the surface locks, I’ll go for a real expensive swim,” Adonja
cut the American off, having already thought of that, and gingerly trying it a
few times.
“Simon
Two Two, Jolly One One, this is Angel One.
Bravo Base is reporting problems with her arresting gear. Bravo Base commander is requesting all Simon
flight divert to Caipirinha. Simon Two
Two, you are cleared to land – immediate – Bull Base, for repairs. Jolly One One, follow Simon Two Two in and
then orbit for catch, over,” the deadpan accent-less voice of the air traffic controller on the Adams had
been replaced by a vaguely female voice.
Angel One was the call sign of the orbiting E-2F Hawkeye, a veritably ancient, propeller-driven airplane,
crammed full of the most expensive and advanced search, target acquisition
radar and air traffic control systems known to man. Adonja knew from the message that his own
carrier, the pride of the
Brazilian Navy, was hobbled by a fault in her arresting wires, the very wires
that would stop a hurtling airplane and allow it to land on a moving carrier
deck. Adonja pushed his helmeted head
back against the head restraint of his ejection seat, trying to relax. He cursed his spotty luck. Sometimes his luck was good, such as getting
the posting to fly fighter planes and defend his country. Sometimes luck ran the other way and made him
have to be rescued by the Yankees.
Adonja
put the F-18 into a lazy turn, and began to dump the majority of the remainder
of his fuel, not wanting to tempt the fates further. He cut back a bit on the throttle to drop his
altitude and looked out and saw the enormous American carrier. Even though Adonja had actually been on the
flight deck of a Nimitz class carrier during his time working with the US Navy,
he still could not quite get used to a carrier with such a small island, a
comparatively tiny superstructure. His
naval mind knew the reasons for getting rid of it, stealth and greater protection
that a bridge inside the hull would afford the command crew, but something in
him made him miss the elegant chaos of steel and glass that was the island of a traditional aircraft carrier.
Keeping
his lazy turn and obeying the every command of Angel One, Bull Base, and Jolly
One, he edged his damaged aircraft to the rear of the massive black strip that
was tearing through the Atlantic a few kilometers ahead.
“See-moan
Two, do you have NAVE on that bird?”
Jolly One asked.
“Roger
that Jolly. I have NAVE 326 Key 4 on
board. Bull Base I am activating NAVE
now,” Adonja said as he activated the landing assistance computer.
“Wait
one, Simon, recalibrating to 326 Key 4.”
Adonja knew that the computers on the American ship were now reaching
invisibly out over the waves to make contact with the slightly older computers
on board his aircraft. Naval Aviation
Visual Enhancement was a recent addition to the tools available to the naval
aviator. It fused the data from a myriad
of different sensors on the carrier, the aircraft in question and even the
radar systems on the escort ships of the Adams’s
battle group. It allowed the officers on
the carrier, in extreme circumstances, to land the aircraft without any input
from a possibly injured, or unconscious, pilot.
In most instances, like now, it was used to assist the pilot of a
damaged aircraft safely land. To Adonja,
he saw the flight path he was to take into the desk jump out from the back of
the carrier as a red sheet of glass, suspended in mid air. He knew that it was merely a function of the
advanced Heads Up Display of his aircraft interpreting the data from the NAVE
System. He felt the throttle move up
almost imperceptibly as the programming corrected for his inconsequential lack
of power.
“NAVE
is up and I am running in with about five thousand pounds, I am in positive
glide path and NAVE has throttle,” Adonja said, feeling adrenaline begin to run
cold through the veins of his arms.
“See-moan,
see you on the deck. Bull Base, Jolly
One One, he’s yours.” Adonja saw the
F-35 accelerate ahead and bank off to the right.
“Roger
that Simon, we’re into the wind and are ready to receive. See you on the deck, you have the ball.”
With
NAVE on, I don’t need the damned ball, Adonja wanted to shout. He was angered because with the NAVE system
activated his actions against the flight controls would be registered on board
the hulking shape bobbing about in the blackness. They would be able to grade his approach and
landing, nitpicking his every deviation from the textbook norm that the
computer calculated. He could see that
the directional lights on the fantail of the ship were where they should be and
he could see the glowing wands of the Landing Signal officer clearly. “Bull base, I have the ball, out.”
Adonja
was starting to get a bit concerned. The
sluggishness of the controls was becoming more pronounced. He knew if he kept on the NAVE flight path
then he would be just fine, but realized that he now felt as though he was
flying in darkness with an aircraft that was mired in a huge vat of porridge. Any deviation in wind or direction could
leave him splashed, aflame, across the fantail of a brand new aircraft carrier.
Just
like the exercise, Adonja thought. He
heard “Deck!” in his headphones as the LSO informed all that the F-18B was over
the flight deck. Adonja’s training
flashed his hands through a series of movements. The old Hornet met the deck in the style of
the controlled crash that carrier sailors and airmen like to call a perfectly
executed three wire landing. The Hornet
dropped from two hundred knots to a dead stop in under two seconds. The G forces pushed him forward against his
harness, away from the ejection seat and then his left hand yanked the throttle
back and the engine roar died down.
Adonja knew he had made a perfectly executed carrier landing in a
damaged aircraft in the dead of night, on a foreign vessel in moderately rough
seas. He had felt no resistance in the
throttle or control stick during the final phase of the landing. Adonja smiled as he followed the instructions
to flight deck handler waving his glowing wands. Pride exploded in him. He deactivated the microphone in his helmet
and screamed in adulation. Upon command
he parked his aircraft and began the process of shutting it down. He
opened the canopy and the flight deck handler was already up on the
ladder. A deck chief, alien in
appearance with her bulky helmet and protective goggles leaned in and shouted
over the din of the wind and the flight deck.
“Nice
landing, sir!”
Adonja
pulled off his helmet and skull cap, and smiled, his white teeth momentarily
flaring in the white hot blast of an F-35 being flung off of the front of the
carrier. “Thanks, chief! Permission to
come aboard?”
“Granted,
sir! You should see your tail!” She
assisted him in deplaning. Once on the
deck, he noticed two men scuttling over to him, as he began use his small
flashlight to look at his damaged aircraft.
The left tail elevator looked as though it had been hit by a rather
angry giant, but there were some remains of the unlucky avian still smashed
into the torn metal. The men arrived,
Adonja turned to them and executed a perfect hand salute to the two arriving
officers, both of whom returned
the salute.
“Permission
to come aboard, gentlemen?” Adonja asked
regally, quite pleased with himself, his blood awash in adrenaline.
“Granted,
Flight Lieutenant! Helluva
landing! Wish my boys and girls could do
that every time! I’m Tanner, John
Tanner, and I’m one of the duty officers. Let’s leave Simon Two Two in the
hands of our maintenance folks and see if we don’t get below before the rain
sets in. How ‘bout a drink?”
Adonja
tipped his head to the other, taller man.
A rather grave and normally sour expression was currently quite
pleasant. “Only if Fleet Admiral Renos will permit me. I am after all, on duty.”
Renos,
then in an action that almost frightened Adonja to the point of incoherence,
smiled at the young pilot and extended his hand and took Adonja’s and shook it
warmly. “My boy, you have done us proud
this night!” The man said in Portuguese,
his eyes alight. Switching to lightly
accented English, Fleet Admiral Ignacio Paulos Javier Renos, continued, “I
suppose we can make an exception, which is if our American hosts would allow
it. They reached the door in the side of
the sloped, smooth superstructure, just as an F-35 screamed in to land. The state-of-the-art
warplane snagged the two wire and screamed to a halt.
“Not
bad landing, eh, Lieutenant?” Adonja
heard in Portuguese, from Renos who was already inside the superstructure, “Not
bad, but a bit sloppy, eh?” Adonja
smiled back at the commander in chief
of the entire Brazilian Navy.
Adonja was afraid to respond, hoping the American officer behind him
hadn’t heard the Admiral’s disrespectful comments. He felt a tap on his shoulder. Commander Tanner leaned into Adonja and
pointed to the recently arrived aircraft.
“That’s
Jolly One One, piloted by Captain Lyle.
We’ll make our way to the wardroom, and he’ll join us in a few minutes,”
Tanner said, as he pulled the bulkhead door shut and dogged it secure.
The
US Navy Staff officer led the Chief of Staff of the Brazilian Navy and one of
the best carrier pilots in the history of Brazilian naval aviation into heart
of one of the most powerful naval vessels on the planet.
Captain
Steven Lyle, USN, Chief, Aviation
Wing of the USS John Adams, never
entered a room. He always exploded into
it. Lyle was not a small man. In fact he just barely was able to qualify
for the rigors of Naval Aviation training.
Lyle always had prided himself on his home state and decided at an early
age that it would be necessary to exude pure Texas from every pore. A bold, friendly, competitive spirit, Lyle
turned heads whenever and wherever he was.
Lyle was an accomplished aviator and a competent staff officer, a blend
that every naval aviator needed but did not always have. He inspired confidence, both in his
subordinates, but also in his superiors.
One knew that with Lyle on the case, you’d either have a competently
completed job or one pissed off Texan ghost on your hands.
“Good
evening, gentlemen!” Exclaimed Lyle as
he, true to form, entered the Officer’s Mess.
Assembled inside were a number of officers, some on duty, and some off,
all seemingly quite pleased. Some
appeared to be quite pleased to have liquor in hand. At the center of the attention were two
foreign officers, one in the process of unfastening his G-Suit and survival
vest. The other was a tall, kind of
scary looking officer with a whole lot of gold and silver on his epaulets. That one would be the Fleet Admiral, thought
Lyle. “Evenin’ Admiral Renos! You should be quite proud of that boy!” Lyle extended his hand. Damn fine job of putting that bird on
down! Hell, he had a better landing than
I did tonight!”
The
visage on the officer split and what Lyle assumed must be what the Admiral
passed as a smile appeared. “I am quite
pleased with his performance, indeed, Captain!
Also, I would like to thank your flight operations staff and yourself
for not allowing a damned bird from depriving us of a serviceable airframe and
one of our best pilots. Here!”
Lyle
accepted the offered white coffee mug from the Admiral. A golden, thick liquid swirled about within
it. Lyle took an experimental swig. Potently sweet liquor smashed into his taste buds and burned its way clear down to his
stomach.
“Never
experienced Cachaca before, Captain?”
The Admiral said.
“No,
Sir. Sweet, ain’t it?”
“Product
of sugar cane, similar to rum, but it has certain…”
“’Enthusiasm’
the word you’re looking for, sir?” A new
voice spoke. Rear Admiral Gerald
McCauley, Commanding Officer of the Adams
battle group strode into the room, immediately followed by two aides.
“Yes,
I believe it would be that, exactly Admiral!”
Said the normally taciturn Renos, who much to Adonja’s surprise was
turning into quite the life of the party.
Adonja had never met the Fleet Admiral before tonight, but had heard a
myriad of tales describing those unfortunate enough to meet the wrath of
Renos. Renos was a career naval officer,
before assuming his nation’s highest naval post, he had commanded both of
Brazil’s aircraft carriers and had pioneered a cooperative relationship with
the larger and more technologically advanced American Navy. It was rumored that Renos was even trying to
persuade the higher echelons of Brazil’s government to try to purchase one of
the older Nimitz class carriers from
the American Navy. Adonja returned his
attention to the rather attractive pilot who he had been speaking with. Carol was her name, if he remembered
correctly.
The
rest of the evening proceeded quite amicably.
Being the last night of the exercise, the Americans were in high
sprits. The contingent of visiting
Brazilian and Argentinean officers and crews came by the Officer’s Mess to pay
their compliments to the Fleet Admiral and the battle group commander. Adonja was even making some headway towards
an invitation to Carol’s quarters, regaling her with tales of his days at the
US Naval Academy. He still nursed his
original drink, having also downed several bottles of water from a cooler. His rule of thumb, he quietly informed Carol
and Captain Lyle, was never to drink too much in the presence of so much brass.
A
crewman had come into the party about an hour later and had informed Captain
Lyle that Adonja’s fighter had been repaired.
Lyle slapped Adonja on the back and claimed that he could now allow the
Brazilian Navy to have him back. Renos,
laughing at something that Admiral McCauley had said, politely excused him self
from the gaggle of officers and moved next to Adonja.
“Commander
Sevich,” Adonja said to Carol, “I’m afraid I have to take the Flight Lieutenant
home.” Renos turned to Adonja,
“Ricoletto, you’re driving.” Adonja didn’t know how the Fleet Admiral knew his
name.
Adonja
leveled the F-18B at about 25,000 feet, after the steep climb up and out of the
Adams’s airspace. Leaving the ship was much more uneventful
than the arrival. The young flight
Lieutenant and Fleet Admiral of the Brazilian Navy had suited up, thanked their
hosts, and boarded the fighter plane.
The Adams’s starboard bow
catapult flung them into the air, and Adonja had, according to orders, aimed
the fighter skyward and accelerated straight up. The repaired control surface was behaving normally,
and everything was just fine in Adonja’s world.
The scene outside the canopy was magical. The stars shone brightly in their
multitude. The clouds below the sleek
fighter shone with the touch of moonlight cast by the waning crescent
moon. Ahead, in the distance, the clouds
glowed faintly, warmly covering the brightly lit coastal town of
Caipiriha.
“Lieutenant,
can you please check in with the tower at Caipiriha, and let them know that we
are diverting to Oshka Base? I’ll input
the GPS information,” Adonja replied that he would, and while speaking with the
air traffic controller of Caipiriha, his brain whirled. He had never heard of an Oshka Base. He looked down at the MFD, and noted the
coordinates as the Admiral entered them.
The coordinates appeared to be about three hundred miles inland. Quite actually in the middle of nowhere,
right on the northeast bank of the Amazon.
“As
ordered, sir.” Adonja wanted to ask just
where the hell they were headed, but thought better of it. He adjusted the heading of the aircraft, set
the throttle a bit lower and adjusted the trim, all to make the aircraft use
the fuel on board most efficiently. He
heard a laugh over the interphone from the seat behind him.
“I
imagine that you are probably wondering just where the hell I am taking you and
your marvelous aircraft,”
“I
am curious, sir.”
“Can
you please ensure that the communications system is off, that we are not
transmitting any signals?”
Adonja
knew that the system was not transmitting, but he quickly deactivated the radio
system. “Done, sir.”
“Lieutenant,
you are going to rue the day you landed this airplane on that carrier.”
Adonja’s
stomach dropped.
“You
exceeded everyone’s expectations, so now I am going to ratchet the expectations
a little higher. I am going to select
you for a position that will
have you doing some very difficult things.
You will, of course, continue your current duties, but over the next
eighteen months you are going to spearhead a program that will pave the way to
introduce F-35 fighters into the inventories of the Navy and Air Force. In two months we will receive the first of
three airframes that you are going to use to train a cadre of pilots to
operate. You will instruct these pilots
in all aspects of naval aviation and work with our American brothers on how
best to operate and maintain them. Do
you understand, Lieutenant? You are
going to forge a path and use the treasure the people of our nation give to us
to defend them against all enemies. This
is a plum assignment. If you decide that
this assignment might be too much to handle, I will of course understand and
you will return to your duties with no stain on your record.”
Adonja
felt faint. “S-sir, i-it would be my
dream to, sir,” he stammered. He had no
choice. He was a fighter pilot and
wanted to fly the best and the fastest of fighters. The fact that his country was going to invest
so much precious capital on fighter planes for him, amazed him, and took him
aback. Adonja felt tears welling
up. He soaked up the tears with the back
of his Nomex flight glove, hoping his movement would not be obvious to the
officer sitting behind him.
“Excellent! I was looking for a highly competent pilot
and officer to head up our F-35 program, and it appears that fate smiles on me
tonight! Our base at Oshka has the
necessary documentation and a simulator that the Americans are giving to us, in
the hopes that we decide to buy hundreds of them. Before we left the Adams I contacted the Gerais
and informed Admiral Willis that you would be reassigned. One of the pilots at Oshka will ferry this
fighter back out to the Gerais. What a night!
You have done very well, Lieutenant.”
“Thank
you, sir. I appreciate the
confidence. May I ask what your plans
are once we reach the base?” Adonja
asked, trying to make conversation hoping small talk might calm the roiling
nervousness in the pit of his stomach.
“Well,
I plan on getting some sleep, having a hearty breakfast, and then resigning as
the Chief of Staff of the Navy. I will
also be reduced in rank to Admiral and put in charge of a very special
project. You will be involved in one
small facet of a much larger operation.”
He
felt his heart race. The dreams of his youth were coming to fruition! Adonja figured that he may as well jump in
with both feet, “So it is true that we are going to purchase one of the Nimitz from the Americans?” Adonja asked
nervously.
Renos
chucked, “You could put it that way,” Adonja could hear the Admiral shifting
about in the ejection seat and harness trying to be more comfortable. “Actually, Lieutenant, within the next year,
we hope to command at least three of them.”