The Main Inquiry, Brian Deis [ebook reader that looks like a book txt] 📗

as we were off of the ship, the entire right side of the plane just went dark!”

“Oh shit, Spinster,” I said. “I was sure you got the compressor stall light and it would be one of those things we have heard about. You are telling me that you don’t know what caused the motor to stop?”

“I am, Main,” he responded,” I had no warning that anything went wrong, and it just went dark. All the alarms are dual powered so there was nothing for the diagnostics to pick up. It could have been a fuel pump, I guess, but that is about all I can think of.”

“I stopped by the Chief’s area,” said Pete Keys (Demon), “and he said that since there were two fuel pumps, that was not what happened. The chief could not say what it was, with any confidence.”

“So, we don’t know what the cause was and, since the plane is gone, we will never know for sure?” I asked

“That is about it, Sir," Spinster said.

“What can you add to this, Joker?” I asked

“Bad day” He responded “The catapult was in good shape and I helped him set up before the flight. Everything looked normal and we were looking to have a fine day without our asshole flight leader to order us around for the entire mission. I saw him launch and the rest was a bad dream.”

“Thanks for that” I said, “ you are always a big help!”

“I will say this, Joker” said the wing commander “I can always count on your weird mind. Have we tested you to see if you are sane enough to fly?”

“We have not, Sir” I responded, “there is such a shortage of pilots that the organization now accepts crazy and demented as the normal.”

“I feel safe here with all of you” said Joker “if they did test this place would look like a museum.”

“With that, we can get to work and hope nobody notices any of you crazy assholes.” I said

I was concerned that an accident like this could happen and we have no actions to take, no items to work on, and nothing to tell the senior officers when I went to the briefing a few minutes later. Pilots tend to be supersticious on a calm day, and they act crazy in a situation like this. For them, not knowing what happened to the plane would cause bad reactions.

I went to the briefing room and began the meeting:

“At ease everyone” said the wing commander “This is the after incident briefing for our cold shot of Spinster and Demon. After the preliminary look at the incident, I can’t tell you why the motor quit. There were no indications or alarms from the plane, it just shut down during the catapult cycle.”

“Commander” BB interrupted. “many of us are wondering what conditions could even cause that if the compressor stall light was not on.”

“I was sure that was the cause and then the men showed up to say it was not. By the way, big applause for Spinster and Demon. You two did a great job with a bad situation. Spinster, do you want to fill them in on the instrument presentation?” Responded the wing commander

“Hell no”, he said “I don’t ever want to think of that again. No alarms or warnings, she just began to slow and the controls got like mush. I could reach down and get a handful of water I was so low, and the godamed motor just quit. I heard Demon saying a prayer ‘cause we all know the stats on getting out of that situation. “

“I was not praying” said Demon, “I was talking to the spinster but it is hard to hold down the intercom button while having a nervous breakdown. I would have converted to any religion that would get me out of there”

“Any way” said the Spinster, “I saw no indication of a problem as we came out of the catapult fog. I started the turn and she shook as the aileron went in. I could feel it slow but the instruments said we were OK. Y’all know the rest.”

“Thanks, you two.” I said “This will get figured out asap. I would appreciate it if you would not spend the days talking up some strange cause for all of this as it will only make things worse. Stay calm and let us find out what happened. “

“I would like to reinforce that, Gentlemen” said the wing commander. “Main is right. We are here to fight the enemy and we are expected to take things like this in stride. We will get to the bottom of Spinster’s problem and, in the mean-time, we will fight the war and take strides to victory. I am in charge around here and I can tell you I see the events of the future clearly. I will kick anyone’s ass that freaks out about all of this.”

“Thanks Skipper” I said, “that cleared it up for me. Any other questions?”

“I would like to know what the down elevator was for right before they punched out.“ asked Coswell.

“Sure” I said. “The ejection seat shoots straight up and the wind over the plane will deflect you so that you go up and back. That is how you hit the ship and the splat is not in the Plan-Of-the-Day. You can stand on the down elevator and pitch the nose down just as you shoot. That will make you go up and forward to miss the flight deck as it comes streaking by. The wind that day was low, so the ship was all cranked up and was trying to hit them.”

“Thanks commander” he said “I just never heard of doing that.”

“Well now you have,” I said, “And it looks like it saved their lives.”

The Skipper and I stayed in the briefing room to talk about the situation in more detail. His name was Commander Chris Lastrino and we had been working together for two years. He was a good commanding officer and an even better fighter pilot. He had always wanted to be an aviator and he did his job with flair and dedication that made all of us respect him. While his language was not fit for the civilian world, he could communicate with the men with great clarity. He liked to fly and thought that his seniority allowed him to do that and leave the running of the wing to me. We had a good relationship based on trust and tested many times in battle.

“Main” he said to me ”we need to get this motor failure question behind us before we are eaten up and shit over a cliff by the men. We can’t have them thinking about the plane and making dumbassed mistakes in the air.”

“Agreed Sir” I said “I will find out more from the chief and try to give another update next time we are all in the ready room”

“Make it so” The CO said as he walked away.

I thought of how to understand the situation they faced in the plane. When the power failed, Spinster would have thought it was a compressor stall and that would have distracted him for a moment. The compressor section of the jet was a series of fan blades that were turned by the aft portion of the motor. These fan blades compressed the air flowing into the front of the motor and accelerated it into the combustion section. Without the compressed air to mix with the jet fuel, the combustion would stop, and the motor would start to slow down. Since it ran at 250,000 rpm, you had a few seconds to act while the massive motor spun down to a full stop. Once it had stopped, we were low on choices, since this was not like a car. It had no actual starter built in, because starters were very heavy Our jets did have a small starter that blew air on the fan blades and caused the motor to spin up. The air needed for this operation came from the compressor section and so it was obviously a problem having the motor stop while you are flying. The successful restart of the motor in the air, or on the flight deck, would average less than one-half of the attempts.

The worst case would be to go in the water right in front of the huge ship. I tried not to think of the exact result of that outcome, but it would be the final problem.

Once the ship was headed downwind and things were in order with the wing, there was time to assess the situation. Back on the phone, the Chief was talking to me while chewing on his mangled cigar. He did that for as long as I had known him, and I never saw him smoke it. Having that thing in his mouth made him talk with worse pronunciation but a very forceful tone.

“Hey boss, it’s the chief. I wonder if you could find time in your busy schedule acting like a lawyer to send me some damned help down here?”

“Sure,” I said. “You know I have all these extra folks waiting to be assigned. Why the budget just increased today and there will be even more here tomorrow! Whatever you need!”

“That last flight used two black boxes and I’m low because nobody has time to get them back up by the time we launch more of these shiny things,” said the chief with real concern in his voice. I asked about the reserves he had and was surprised to find just two spares. The black boxes were units that plugged into the airplane and contain entire systems. If we were having a problem with the navigation system, and we needed to launch soon, there was no time to diagnose the problem. The support people simply opened a hatch on the fuselage and removed the black box that contained the NAV system. A working one was plugged in and things were magically fixed. The defective black boxes had to be repaired and put back on the shelf at some later date. There were electronics techs assigned to the chief to do that job, but he was short two at that moment. This is what had the chief on edge since you can use many of the boxes as you try to launch a dozen birds in six minutes.

The chief said it was simple work that any Electronics Tech could do.

“Let me look into it, chief, and I will get right back to you,” I said. This was a serious issue for the wing, and I knew that the pressure on the black boxes would continue and increase. There were no more ETs assigned to the wing, so I would have to arrange to get some from other parts of the ship. The person that could send us the people we need would be the operations officer. I eased over to the center of the bridge to talk to the SWO (senior watch officer). Commander Russel Helmsley was the commander that held the position of sea detail officer of the deck. He was the assigned officer to take over when other ships came alongside the carrier to get or give supplies. He was the best ship driver in the fleet. There was a quiet competence about him that made everyone do their job a little better. He had been on the ship for two years, and he was in the zone to make Captain on the next go around. Everyone wanted him to stay as the best operations officer they had ever seen. All of us also knew that would never happen.

As I approached the SWO, he gave me a look that said he was glad to see me and that he had something to tell me. We used the job titles rather than names, so it was clear who was doing what job this watch.

“Hey SWO (we pronounced the abbreviations and it made us sound like we