by CDR Jack D. Woodul, USNR(Ret), artwork by Carl Snow
Puresome blamed it all on Worm.
As a powerless new-guy junior officer finally in the fleet, he was famished to fly his young fanny off and astonish the squadron, air wing, and the world with his skill. Unfortunately, Norman the Fink, the beloved schedules officer, knew which side his fitness report was buttered on, and divvied out the good deals on a straight-line Rocket Number basis. Puresome, a boot jaygee, howled in envy as his brownbar buddies Weed and Candy Andy sucked in the good deals as the skipper and XO's wingmen. If happiness was two day hops dropping a bunch of real bombs against some place like Vieques or Fungy Bowl, Puresome could count on being squadron duty officer or flying the night tanker.
Most of the time, Puresome could accept this as dues paying, although Norman the Fink seemed to take special, perverse pleasure in denying Youthly's subtle, psychological sniveling, such as "You couldn't give me a Duck Target strafe hop even if you wanted to." But what really made him gnash his teeth was watching Worm sniveling flight time right in front of him because he was in the maintenance department and could fly test hops on aircraft coming out of maintenance checks. Since Puresome was stuck in the admin shop as Larry legal officer, first lieutenant, education and information officer and movie-officer-for-life, he could only moan and plot his escape from the Empire of Paper Shufflers.
Test hops were only one part of Worm's bag of sniveling tricks. While only one cruise senior to Puresome, Worm had some kind of mysterious hold over Norman the Fink that allowed him to bag consistently good hops and fly with good senior sticks like Spider. Puresome tried flattery, bribery and would have used blackmail if he could have caught the schedules officer wearing Victoria's Secret, but all he ever got from Norman the Fink was a hissy fit.
Another part of Worm's success was his consistent high mach number. He ricocheted around the squadron at the speed of heat and seemed to arc by the duty officer's desk whenever good deals were cooking. Puresome figured that all that speed took lots of fuel, since Worm's callsign came from "tape worm" from the day he ate Thanksgiving dinner at both wardroom sittings. Youthly didn't want to miss a trick, so he doubled up on "sliders" and bug juice, and sat around the ready room in a stupor. Surrounded by piles of official-looking paper, he tried to look busy, wiping his greasy mouth on his flight suit while awaiting his country's call. It was a lot of half-flaps, low-and-slow speed stuff, but he was available.
It was a maddening tail-chase, especially since Worm knew that every flight he got at Puresome's expense made Youthly stomp simulated bugs in anguish. Even though they were pals, Worm made darned sure he rubbed it in so as to watch the Rain Dance. Puresome understood perfectly that it was not enough that he succeed, but everybody else must fail in the scramble to the top of the pyramid, so he plotted and bided his time to get better than even.
But time marched on in the Tiny Tinker Terror Squadron—Buffalo Bill became skipper and Norman the Fink got orders. The new skipper had approved of Puresome's innovative use of aviator sunglasses to bribe ship's company types to weld helmet holders and make cosmetic improvements to the ready room instead of going through the endless paperwork process, and had rewarded him with a transfer to the maintenance department. And Worm became schedules officer! Yahoo! Things were indeed looking up. Though Worm made sure he stayed a couple of steps ahead, Puresome found himself available for more good deals, including the elusive maintenance test hops. But the best deal was the one-hour cycle, 2-v2 ACM flight that Worm was able to set up against the Jolly Roger F-4s after Puresome had badmouthed one of their lieutenant commander interceptor pilots at a cocktail party. The Double Demon driver had gotten huffy, flang down his gauntlet, and so it was arranged to do battle. The Tink section had a jolly time. They had lots of gun shots, and Youthly graciously submitted during the debrief that "If I had known I was going to be camped at their six for so long, I'd have brought a tent and a picnic basket." It was a perfect 10 on the arrogance scale, and Puresome knew you got points for this in the Great Naval Aviation Pecking Order.
By the time he showed up at the Tinker-Toy RAG at NAS Cecil to be a light-attack instructor, Puresome had become a finely honed bagging machine. The East Coast RAG still seemed to operate on a pre-war basis—most people at the RAG seemed more interested in mowing their lawns than flying, and Puresome jumped on hops like a duck on a June bug. Even if he wasn't on the schedule, he could snag two hops a day by hanging around the duty officer's desk in the morning. And, following Worm's lead, he had gotten himself assigned to the maintenance department as an assistant aviation weapons officer. His boss was a maintenance LDO who didn't care if Puresome flew all the time, and on a good day he could snag two test hops and two hops with students.
Puresome's old squadron, the Snakes, had turned in their A-4Es and were hanging around Cecil Field with no airplanes while going through the A-7 RAG. Puresome took pity on his pals and saw to it that they occupied one of the dual seats of a TA-4 during weekend cross countries, although he possibly neglected to inform any of his squadron's heavies of the arrangement. He reasoned that it was his airplane for the weekend, and it would probably enhance safety to have a spare aviator in case he encountered some of the dreaded bad ice prevalent at officer's clubs. When the Snakes finally got their brand new A-7As, Puresome made it his task in life to jump them at every opportunity. Whether it was gratitude or annoyance, the Snake's skipper, Charlie Lima, Chicken of the Air, finally called Puresome over to his brand-new squadron CO's office for a chat.
"Puresome, I got a deal for you," he offered. "You go to A-7 systems ground training, and I'll let you fly my A-7s!"
"Skipper, that's no hill for a stepper," Youthly responded with an ear-to-ear grin. "Thank you, and I'll see you after school!"
Puresome had not spent all that time as an office pinkie in the admin department for nothing. Picking up the phone and deftly shuffling paper from the bottom of the deck, he quickly arranged a spot in the next A-7 systems training class, which was only a block away from his squadron spaces. It was a piece of cake to show up for morning quarters, run over for class, show up for lunch at the squadron spaces, back for class, and ease back to the squadron after class was over to fly a hop or two. The overworked schedules officer was so happy to have someone like Puresome around who would fly anything, anytime, that it was easy to cut a deal. Besides, as in a big dice roll at the club or a big fight, you couldn't get hurt in a big squadron.
Puresome finished his ground school, and Charlie Lima was as good as his word. Worm had made the transition and volunteered his services as chase pilot. So Puresome snuck off to the Snake spaces, and Worm briefed him on coping with hydraulic failures, which seemed to be the emergency du jour. They loaded a cut-up strip chart on to a mechanical roller for the low-level part of the hop and headed out to the airplanes.
Yahoo! The A-7 smelled like a new car, and the shiny cockpit seemed huge compared to that of the cozy A4. Puresome snapped the roller map in place on the console and did his best not to look like a complete dufus during the start and post turn-up checks. Airborne with Worm in loose cruise formation, he turned on the radar and successfully found the St. Johns River. The flight checked into the Pinecastle target area, and Puresome did six simulated bomb runs of varying dive angles. Departing Pinecastle for the low-level route, Puresome flipped the switch for the roller map over the first check-point. He was astounded to see the mechanical bug on the roller map follow along the course line on the chart. The map chugged away as he drove along, driven by the navigation computer, a sort of divine clockwork bunch of gears helped along with doppler input to grind out a position. Just for kicks, Puresome turned 45 degrees away from the course line and deliberately drove off the paper, then turned back to intercept his course. Sure enough, the mechanical bug appeared on the edge of the strip map and crept back to the course line, right where it should be. "Amazing!" thought Puresome. "A low-grade ape could fly a good low-level with one of these things!" Of course, he knew that the fancier the gadget is, the more likely it is to fail when you really need it, and you'd best have old fashioned nav tactics at the ready in your back pocket.
The A-7 still had bags of gas after two hours, so Puresome dropped into Whitehouse, NAS Cecil's auxiliary field, for FCLPs. After deliberately flying a wide, deep pattern for the first landing, Puresome whanged in several more in acceptable fashion and felt ready to do it for score back at the Air Patch. After landing, Puresome didn't know who was happier, he or Charlie Lima for getting his airplane back. It was a bagger's heaven and Puresome's little secret, though the RAG operations yeoman might have puzzled about the entry for flying another squadron's aircraft in Youthly's logbook.
It was the golden era of bagging. There were students to chase out to Yuma for weapons deployments. There were piles of gas chits and aircraft for crossing the country and maintaining one's proficiency at other base's happiness hours. Puresome always ran the shore detachments for the student carquals, because he usually got to snivel a few traps on the training carrier.
Puresome knew that it was an essential part of the Naval Aviator's code that it wasn't enough just to be "Ace of the Base"—you had to be able to tell anyone, "You boot! I got more time in the Phuc Yen GCA pattern than you got in the Navy!" It was absolutely intolerable for anyone to have done more flying, shooting, trapping or eating more nachos. The downside was that all the zooming around was taking a toll on Puresome's supply of Med cruise Scotch required to smooth the dents from his body every night.
Finally, the RAG's Old Gray-Headed Skipper called Puresome in for a friendly chat and told him not to fly so much.
"But skipper," Puresome howled, "It's what I do!"
He knew that Worm would understand.