by CDR Jack D. Woodul, USNR(Ret), artwork by Carl Snow
The only thing that stood between Puresome and oysters and fried-up red snapper in Pensacola was the highway south out of Milton. It was time to forget the tedious pleasures of basic instrument instruction at North Whiting Field, and he and Tunita were humming along at maximum rev’s of his ancient Volkswagen’s engine, though their groundspeed was significantly reduced by the interaction of tires and the sticky asphalt of summer. In those ancient days before air conditioning, the car windows were wide open, and a wondrous world of smells was there for one’s entertainment.
Puresome had made it past the dead tuna aromas of the paper mill and was actually enjoying the salty tang of the ocean when a flight of four round-motored Spads roared above the road just in front of him. The churning of all those pistons made such a manly roar that the palmettos by the side of the road quivered and the short hairs tried to stand up on the back of Youthly’s close-cropped, Student Naval Aviator neck.
Yeeeehaw! For a chap who had a sufficiency of being under the bag in the back seat of the T-28, climbing and turning at precise bank angles and airspeed while changing from low blower to high blower, this was tactical! Those guys looked like they were out hunting, and Youthly knew he wanted to do that when he grew up and got his Golden Wings.
He stuck his head out the side window and waved and hollered some. This affected his precise track down the highway, which was duly noted and commented upon by the Child Bride who remembered the stories from survival training about the slithery creatures that lurked off-road. But small swerves were nothing to the skilled, thousand-mile-an-hour hands of the future terror of the skies. One had to expect some shrieks in an operation like this, and Puresome was lost in fantasy as he watched the Spads disappear in the distance.
There was still a long row to hoe in the Basic Training Command before Youthly even had a shot at being a tactical sort. But the air above northern Florida was full of noisy T-28s, and he studied up and tried to make his instructors happy enough not to hurl kneeboards or do damage to their vocal cords. He did his best not to get dripped on too much by the bodily fluids that drained or oozed from the big radial engines. He avoided overboosting and underboosting and the deadly sump light, which caused taking to parachute or messing up some farmer’s cotton field.
He watched the interesting ground antics of the twin engine “Secret Navy Bomber” (SNB) being flown by helicopter-bound chaps getting their instrument ratings. Puresome was hacking the program and having a real good time pretending he was flying a blue Hellcat in search of the Wily Nipper instead of an orange-and-white two-seater. Every day was one more brick in the wall, and eventually he moved away from the FNGs at North Whiting Field down to the more advanced flying from the South Whiting complex.
Making the move with him were famished-eyed NavCads, MarCads and assorted officer types. An exotic element was added with a large number of South Vietnamese that had come to the Land of the Big PX for flight training. They were an interesting lot, who clearly had the gauge on academics but tended toward a leisurely attitude about completion of the program, since that would involve going home and the War Thing.
Finally, the all-highest instructor persons felt that their charges were ready for a Really Big Mission. While it wasn’t exactly bombing Schweinfurt, a gaggle of students were to fly a semi-low-level cross country, herded by an instructor, who hoped they could look out their windows to find obscure checkpoints like Mobile Bay and New Orleans, and then successfully return to base. The icing on the cake was to be a touch-and-go landing at Sherman Field, in front of God, Mainside Pensacola and maybe some Blue Angels. It was a righteous opportunity to look studly, but Puresome quietly petitioned the Big Guy for no frabberies.
So lines got drawn on sectional charts and some figgering got done. The instructor carefully briefed the three Vietnamese, Puresome and his pal, NavCad Glen, that their en route formation should be like the Air Force — same day, same way — so they not smite one another while navigating. But anyone not flying perfect close formation anywhere near a naval air station would find himself, right quickly, chipping paint on some water-logged coastal freighter. As they drew their parachutes and waddled out to the aircraft, Puresome knew he hated paint-chipping, and he vowed to formate admirably and “beware the Hun in the Sun,” especially if that Hun was Vietnamese or NavCad-ish.
All the big parts of Youthly’s T-28 seemed to be where they were supposed to be, but he carefully counted the drips from tubes in the nose wheel well and was wary of other a la carte secretions. He pried open dzus-buttoned covers to discover interior secrets. Everything seemed tickedy-boo, so he tugged his parachute straps tight and climbed up his steed to do battle.
After a little priming and coaxing, his engine started with a couple of coughs, shaking for a moment and evening out to idle with the marvelous, clattery sound peculiar to round motors. Eventually, the rest of the flight was ready, and the first test was to successfully navigate Whiting’s torturous taxiways to the run-up pad adjacent the duty runway. Nobody got lost, and the flight went about checking engines. Puresome stood hard on the brakes, ran the throttle up to 30 inches of manifold pressure and checked for proper instrument readings. He throttled back, checked his magnetos and exercised his propeller controls. Satisfied, he throttled back to idle and ran through his Before Takeoff Checklist.
“I betcha the belch-fire boys don’t have this much fun getting those jet engines started!” Puresome thought as he gave the thumbs up ready signal to the plane next to him. “On the other hand, they do have air conditioning!” The instructor called for takeoff, and, at decent intervals, the T-28s roared down the runway, slipping the surly bonds of earth amid a great deal of noise and right rudder.
Vulture Flight had made a successful rendezvous, and was motoring along in what was hoped was the right direction for the first checkpoint. The aircraft were comfortably spread out, and Puresome had his engine throttled back and set for cruising rev’s and mixture to auto-lean. He had time to look out the window at all sorts of jolly sights below, happy to be away from the constraints of Whiting’s usual practice areas.
The flight was separated into a “Vic” of the three Vietnamese and a section, which was Puresome and NavCad Glen, and they were arranged in a loose abeam scouting line that was, they hoped, an improvement over a herd of cats. The instructor buzzed about and didn’t natter too much. Puresome watched the world and the other airplanes, and felt like a very big kid, indeed.
The bridge over Mobile Bay was duly found as was the naval air station south of New Orleans, and Puresome had time to have fantasies about boiled crawfish and cold beer orgies. But when they entered the old T-34 Teenie-Weenie Primary Training operating areas of western Alabama on the return trip, it was time to suck it up, and they closed formation.
The instructor took the lead and called Navy Sherman tower for landing instructions for a flight of six. Tower advised that they were landing east, and to call over the numbers for a left break into the pattern. The instructor rogered the instructions and suggested that the tower might want to issue a warning NOTAM until Vulture Flight had gone far, far away.
When the instructor got squared away for a straight-in approach to the runway, he signaled Puresome’s section to move from his port side over to join the Vietnamese trio already on the starboard side, making a six-plane echelon. Puresome got real busy after the crossover, trying to average out the crack-the-whip effect of being at next to the end of the line of airplanes.
The formation didn’t look too bad when they crossed over the runway numbers and they were cleared to break for landing. The instructor passed the lead and broke away from the formation. Puresome started counting potatoes as successive flight members passed the lead on and broke away. Finally, the chap Puresome was flying on tapped his helmet and pointed his finger at Puresome, who tapped his own helmet, taking the lead. The other pilot blew an exaggerated kiss and broke away. It was now Puresome’s awesome duty to look and fly straight ahead smoothly while he counted up to his 10-potato interval. Then he looked starboard at NavCad Glen, passed the lead, made a kiss-off gesture of great style and arrogance, and broke away.
The plan was for the instructor to make a touch-and-go landing and stay in the traffic pattern to fall in behind the students, who were making a straight-out departure for an en-route rendezvous back to Whiting. Puresome had managed an acceptable landing and was climbing out to join the other aircraft when he heard NavCad Glen call “Mayday! Mayday! Mayday! Vulture Five has an engine failure!”
“Straight ahead! Take it straight ahead, Vulture Five!” screamed the instructor, who was watching and afraid that NavCad Glen might make the classic mistake of trying to turn back toward the field and stall, spin, crash, burn, die. NavCad Glen didn’t say squat, being rather too busy. “Yaaaaaaaa!” Puresome screamed into his boom mike. “Ah, tower, Vulture Lead, Vulture Five has crashed into the golf course off the east end of the field!”
“Ah, Vulture Lead, which hole?”
Tower frequency then got very busy, with the instructor circling the crash site and trying to vector the crash trucks to the right fairway.
Meanwhile, the instructorless remainder of Vulture Flight had formed a loose Lufberry, circling about and waiting. Puresome’s already-wide eyeballs got a little wider when his low fuel light started glowing dully. Even though it probably meant a month and a half more flight time in a T-28, it was time to act. “Vulture Lead from Vulture Five, I’ve got a low fuel light. Are you comin’?”
“Vulture Flight, go on home! I’ll talk to you later.”
So the Vultures found their way back to Whiting Field, and Puresome wasn’t remotely close to the reciprocating version of a flameout. When the instructor showed up, it was with good news. NavCad Glen had done his low-altitude emergency drill perfectly and put his T-28 and himself down, more or less intact, on the Mainside Pensacola golf course. The retired admirals golfing that day were a little annoyed they couldn’t play through, but it was just another of those Breaks of Naval Air.
As it turned out, both Puresome and NavCad Glen went on together to advanced training at NAS Chase Field where the big jet engines whined. After winging, they both went east to NAS Oceana, though Puresome went to Skyhawks and former NavCad Glen went to Phantoms. And, as it finally turned out, a short time later, former NavCad Glen flew into the waters of the Chesapeake Bay during a night intercept mission, and Puresome did not.
In the after years, for every squadron reunion held in the birthplace of Naval Aviation, and every visit to its wondrous Museum, Puresome always takes the short drive after the main gate along the manicured borders of the golf course. Tunita always knows what he is going to say. Perhaps former NavCad Glen would like being remembered that way.