by CDR Jack D. Woodul, USNR(Ret), artwork by Carl Snow
Talk about your basic cultural shock! Here was a crew-cut Puresome, sidewalls chopped off up high, among a bunch of … civilians … doing Sailor Elvis imitations with bush hair and hunka-hunka burning sideburns. Freshly ripped from the loving womb of active duty, he had showed up at NAS Hotlanta with orders in hand, ready to go in the strange new world of Drill Weekend with the Reservistas, which was supposed to keep him sane while learning the many-motor trade with the civilian airliners belonging to Grits Airways. He searched out the TAR chap in charge, stomped, saluted and shook hands. “Would you like to drill today?” Little did Youthly know what his quickly uttered “Yessir!” was getting him into.
During his bagging phase at NAS Cecil, Puresome had used his devious administrative talents to secure an A-7A systems class so he could fly his old squadron’s brand-new Corsair IIs. He showed up for quarters, snuck off to class, returned during lunch and after secure to fly late hops, since many of his fellow Scooter RAG instructors would rather be home for burned-beef suppers.
Since this tactic worked well, he reprised the scheme to get to fly the neighboring utility squadron’s ancient Crusaders. Sadly, the utility squadron’s F-8s remained in pieces on the hangar deck until Puresome packed up his flight gear and headed to Grits Country.
The very good news was that Hotlanta Reservistas flew Crusaders. Not only had Puresome always wanted to fly the Beast, it was part of his master plan to eventually get sent to the Grits’ pilot base at Love Field in Texas and to NAS Dallas where, not coincidentally, Reservistas also flew Crusaders.
So it was that Puresome found himself in a green flight suit in a sea of orange. His first all pilots’ meeting was distinguished by a chair scoot-ex while an operations type was attempting to organize a NATOPS quiz. As a line of desk chairs joyously scrunched around the room in an all-hands effort to avoid answering onerous questions, someone finally pointed out to the despairing NATOPS guy, “Well, you read the question, lemme read the answer!”
It seemed very like the sort of thing Puresome had read about in Fighter Squadrons on the Western Front, minus the dying thing. So he paid attention and slowly started his sideburns down.
But he finally got to fly the Crusader! Boom! Boom! went his burner. Zoom! Zoom! went his jet. His wing went up, his wing went down and, occasionally, Puresome forgot his name, just as he was supposed to. His first flight ended up in a glorious furball when he could not resist jumping a squadronmate. The bad news was that flights were only occasional, since Puresome had only weekends away from the mysteries of carburetors, propellers and circular slide rules that were at the center of his world in his other life.
There was also the problem that the F-8s were old A’s and B’s, cranky and only occasionally available. It was not the best possible way to get checked out in a wily beast of a fighter. That had to wait until he memorized “Less throttle, more prime — she’ll start, first time!” and other clattery mysteries of the reciprocating world of Grits Airways.
Meanwhile, the Cruel War was still raging. The bad guys in Southeast Asia found a novel way to celebrate the lunar New Year and, even though they got morted in huge numbers, the most trusted talking head on the nightly telly news gave up his hope that “brave Amurican boys” would prevail. Campus riots, burning cities and the relentless toll of Puresome’s pals was followed by the USS Pueblo getting snagged by another variety of rat-eating Commie.
The government’s best and the brightest had a hissy-fit and called up selected Naval Reserve squadrons, one of which was at NAS Dallas. VF-703 saddled up their ancient F-8As and whoostled out to Fightertown. The “Present Arms!” of the Texas flags tied to their refueling probes on arrival gave ample indication that those Reservistas were full of spirit and ready to do battle with what they had.
Even though he was sorry he missed that big adventure, Puresome had acclimated some to sausage biscuits, sweet tea and the Flying Club concept of flying fighters. He was happy enough to finally get his Flight Engineer — Reciprocating Power ticket with Grits Airways, and with it came orders to sunny Texas climes and the remaining Naval Reserve fighter squadron at NAS Dallas. Puresome hoped that the squadron’s location across the field from LTV, the Crusader’s birthplace, would result in greater availability of duct tape, hydraulic fluid and slippery maintenance tricks necessary to coax the ancient F-8s into dancing the skies on laughter’s silvered wings.
What Puresome found at NAS Dallas were blue skies and a whole ramp full of Crusaders with “Navy-Marine” painted on their sides, indicating joint use by the remaining Navy and Marine squadrons. The lads now at Miramar had obviously taken the best of the lot, and assembling several of those that remained to fly at the same time took a great deal of will and luck by all involved.
As Puresome found himself at the bottom of the list of Grits flight engineers on an airplane scheduled to be retired shortly, he had lots of time on his hands to spend with the Reservistas. He was lucky enough to find a TAR officer who liked to fly and who allowed Youthly to actually show up on a drill basis and get checked out in the Crusader. Puresome whoostled about, did as much reheat time as he could without running out of gas and enough instrument work to possibly avoid the tall radio towers just south of the field while in the clag. So it was that the night before his first formal drill weekend with his new squadron, Puresome was night flying until quite late.
At quarters for muster the next morning, he found that the length of his sideburns was still wanting. A certain amount of rebellion was in fashion at the time, and facial hair that extended below the top of the ear drew official displeasure — so Puresome resolved to get him some more.
His fellow aviators seemed to be a varied group of long-in-the-tooth Naval Reservists, LTV and General Dynamics test pilots, and some ex-USAF and Navy sorts that flew for airlines. The squadron was mostly run by a full-time TAR officer with the call sign of Ricochet Rabbit, which reflected his frustrated approach to trying to herd a bunch of cat-like fighter pilots who showed up on an occasional basis to fly airplanes that acted much the same. The squadron skipper was a slide-rule type whose sideburns were of proper and precise mathematical length, and he showed up once a month to take charge. A grateful Ricochet Rabbit stepped back and watched the chalk fly.
So it went. Some flying got done, along with a lot of coffee breaks, lunch and shopping at the Navy Exchange. About 1530 on Saturdays, the activity around the ready room started to diminish as aviators started to sneak off for happiness hour at the officers club. So the ready room was empty except for the skipper when a really disgusted Puresome stomped in after downing his third airplane for the day. In front of the blackboard, the skipper was furiously amending the flight schedule, bits of chalk flying as he furiously erased and filled in names. “LT Puresome!” he barked. “You’re going night flying!”
Puresome was way ahead in flight time, and besides, he’d been out at the air patch until 2300 the night before. More than that, he and the Child Bride were having their first guests for dinner that night, since mighty flight-time stud Youthly had consulted Ricochet Rabbit, who advised Youthly that he was not on the flight schedule. All this he sweetly explained to the skipper through the chalk dust.
“Puresome, you’re night flying!”
“Perhaps I am not making myself clear,” thought Puresome. “Perhaps we have a failuh to communicate here.” So Youthly again explained his position with a bit more emphasis and volume to overcome the staccato chalk strikes.
“Puresome, you are night flying!”
Perhaps it was the dust that sent him over the edge. Perhaps it was a postnatal feeding problem. At any rate, there was the precedent of telling several other arbitrary silver-leafers just exactly what the lieutenant meant when, clearly, it would have been better to hesh up.
“Frabbit, skipper! I’m not flying tonight!”
Grong the Goat god smiled — the skipper’s chalk hand actually stopped in midstrike. Puresome flang his flight gear in a ready room chair, put on his silkies and went home for a fist of scotch and some burned beef. Later, significantly mellowed out, he had occasion to ponder what Grong had wrought.
Sunday at the air patch brought no iron guard with pikes looking for Puresome. Strangely, the Plan of the Day was mostly taken with getting the Reservist snuffies on airlifts home, along with a couple of morning flights for those not terminally hung over. The skipper was too busy doing his monthly skipper thing to give Puresome more than an askance glance. Because his heart was pure, Youthly figgered he could take lots of those.
Life went on without obvious vendetta. Crusaders crashed with some regularity, sometimes with friends in them. When it came time for summer annual active duty for training, the squadron opted for two weeks in sunny NS Roosenfelt Roads, which was hugely optimistic.
On deployment day, nobody made it to the destination due to maintenance problems with aircraft and a hurricane; the XO and Puresome were the only two that made it as far as Guantanamo Bay. The eventual return from two weeks of free rum nights at the officers club scattered their Crusaders across the United States. Puresome was stupid and famished enough to actually go fetch several home.
But the answer was more than blowing in the wind. The high sheriffs in charge looked at the results of the Pueblo call-up and decided to make the Reservista experience more than exposure to a dangerous Flying Club. No more “Navy-Marine” pool airplanes on the ramp — each squadron started getting their own upgraded aircraft. Money to operate started coming in, as did some really sharp TARs. The most obvious dirtballs were invited to leave, and the Reserve Force Squadron (ResFoRon) concept set up Reserve air wings on both coasts that trained together and actually got to deploy some on haze-gray boats.
The Big Red Fighter Squadron became prideful, constantly deploying to provide dissimilar aircraft maneuvering to regular Naval, Air Force and Marine units. Like other ResFoRons, they became real good from the constant practice.
In after years, the Big Red Fighter Squadron went on to fly Phantoms, Tomcats and, finally, were called to active duty to deploy in place of a regular F/A-18 squadron.
Askance glances aside, Puresome never had a doubt.