Nobody's Dying Tonight

He was thinking of the next steps. "I guess it's time to get the life raft to the rail." He thought. "Have everything ready to go if it all goes to crap here." He grabbed the life raft valise and pulled it to him. He loosened the tether and dragged the raft to the port side hull. The boat was settling by the stern and starboard hull. He lashed the painter to the cleat on the deck but, he wasn't ready to push it over yet.

He was checking the gear again, more for something to do than out of any actual need when he heard something. It was low at first and at first, he thought it was just the sound of the water slapping on the hull but no, there it was again. It was coming from the north. He closed his eyes to concentrate on listening. There it was again. He knew the sound. "Thank Christ." He thought. "Thank Christ." He said again out loud. The women looked at him.

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Chapter 8

"Hear that?" He smiled. "That's the sound of a Jayhawk helicopter!" He had worked on and flown on the Navy variant of the work horse UH-60 Blackhawk and knew the sound from the moment he heard it. As the words were leaving his mouth the sound grew louder and lights were visible to the north and heading toward them. He grabbed the electronic flare and turned it on, anything he could do to help them find the boat.

He turned the VHF radio on and almost immediately heard the call. "Sailing Vessel Osprey this is US Coast Guard Helicopter do you hear me?" The voice belonged to a female pilot. He didn't process it at the time but in addition to the relief of seeing the helicopter overhead the woman's voice helped calm him.

"Helicopter overhead, this is Sailing Vessel Osprey. I read you loud and clear. Damn happy to see you!" He spoke into the radio set.

The women were instantly animated chattering and moving back and forth amongst the piles of gear.

The helicopter was circling overhead looking over the situation. The radio cracked to life again.

"Osprey this is Coast Guard. Confirm number on board and condition please."

"Coast Guard this is Osprey. We have one man and two women on board. None of us are injured. We are all in good health and can assist in our rescue."

"Roger Osprey" The Coast Guard Crew responded. "What is the nature of your distress? Is the vessel salvageable? What is your intention?"

"Coast Guard, this is the captain of the Osprey, we're hard on a reef. Both hulls are breached, and we are taking on water and settling by the stern. The entire aft section of the boat is awash. The vessel is lost. I request evacuation for the crew and me."

"Roger Osprey. Understood." The crew replied. "We're looking things over and going thru our checklist. Give us a minute please."

"Roger Coast Guard." He said. "We'll get everything together here."

"Ok ladies, do you remember what I told you earlier about how this might work?" He asked.

They nodded blank faced so, he took a moment to quickly review.

"They will likely deploy a swimmer and lower a basket. The swimmer will help you get secured in the basket, then they will lift you up on the hoist and pull you in. Comply with ALL ORDERS EXPLICITLY." He emphasized looking directly at Jen as he spoke. "They will get you out of this but, you have to help -- and you absolutely can't hinder. So, listen and do as you are asked. Please," He added with a slight smile and got smiles and nods back.

"Osprey?" The Helicopter crew called. "Can you lower your antennas?"

He looked up at the VHF and HF antennas. To get to the VHF he would need to climb up on the coach roof, the HF antenna needed a socket and wrench to loosen bolts that held it in place. He thought a second and made his decision.

"Negative Coast Guard. It's just too hazardous to get them right now."

"Understood Osprey -- we'll work around it. When you are ready, I'd like to brief you on how we would like to conduct the pickup."

"Roger Coast Guard." He looked around at the women. "I briefed them earlier and I think we are ready now to go through it."

"Roger Osprey." The crew answered. "Here is what we are thinking. We can't lower a basket to the deck. There are just too many wires and obstacles in the way. So, instead we will hover in as close as we can and deploy our swimmer. He will swim over to you and board your boat and brief you on how we are going to get you off the boat and to the helicopter."

"Roger Coast Guard" He replied. "Awaiting the swimmer." He released the mic switch and looked around him.

The beat of the helicopter so low and in so close to the boat was overwhelming. It drowned out every other sound and he had to shout into the ears of the women to be heard. The spotlight was brilliant, blinding, and turned night into day and cast disorienting shadows as it skipped over the boat.

The tide was coming in stronger now and the boat was being hammered by the waves. With each wave, the boat was smashed on the transom then lifted, the hull swung to one side or the other, then dropped hard on the reef with a crash as the wave continued to the shore. The stimuli were unrelenting and overwhelming. He had to consciously shut it out to focus on the tasks he needed to complete. He looked over at the women and they were stoic and frozen, afraid of what was coming; the unknown and he once again thanked his training and past life in the Navy. He hadn't been "in the shit" for real but, the training that he undertook yearly was tough. He was told it was life-like, based on experience and could save his life. And now he was "in the shit" and now he knew that they had not been exaggerating. He could close his eyes and conjure up the memory of the tower set off the pier in Pensacola Bay at the Naval Air Station.

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Chapter 9

He, the Aviation Officer Candidate, AOC for short, was sitting with his class alongside the sea wall that bordered the bay. They were dressed in hand me down flight suits and boots specifically set aside for training.

The Navy had long ago discovered that most of the people sitting at that sea wall were not going to go the distance. That is, they were not going to make it through flight school much less out to the fleet. So instead of issuing new flight suits to candidates just to see them trash their gear and wash out, they stockpiled the old and used flight suits given up over time as flyers turned in their old suites for new. He wondered for a moment who wore this suit first. He didn't dwell on it though; he was thinking more about getting dunked in the bay shortly and that was consuming most of his thought at present.

An instructor walked up and stood on a small riser. He was a Lieutenant Commander and dressed in a flight suit. The assembled group had started to rise but, the Commander waved them off. "Keep your seats." He said.

"I'm Tim Black." He started. "I'm a primary flight instructor from just up the road at the airfield. I hope to see some of you there soon but let's not get ahead of ourselves. I'm here to talk to you about water survival. Specifically, we're going to talk about then simulate an overwater ejection scenario the culmination of which is a free hoist ride to a hovering helicopter." His opening summary was met with the appropriate light laughter. But everyone was listening now. This was something new. This was something scary.

"I'm a guest lecturer." He continued. "Your survival instructors ask me to come down and talk to the class just before this exercise. You see, I think I owe it. It's like my pay back to my maker for giving me a second chance. And now, I'm gonna tell you about what happened to me."

He stopped speaking and took a breath and lifted his head up and looked us over as a group as he thought about his next words.

"This is not about an old guy telling you a sea story." He began again. "By telling you what happened to me, even the ugly embarrassing parts, my hope is that if your time comes," He was pacing slowly back and forth across the dais, speaking slowly, in a low and fluid voice. "and you find yourself tumbling through the air and," He mock flailed his arms wildly around his head. "you are totally behind the power curve and thinking shit, this is it," He stopped the flailing, stopped the pacing, and faced the class and spoke slowly, "I may be able to tell you something here that can help save your life."

Everyone was silent and listening with full attention. They were all here to earn their wings and join the Naval Aviator club but most of them knew little more about the path they had chosen than what they saw in movies and old WW II documentary films. The AOC knew he was about to learn something important.

Tim looked at the assembled group and knew he had their attention. He continued with the lecture. "It was a day like any other. I had flown one mission earlier in the day and was on the schedule for a night flight to maintain currency. The brief was straight forward, and I suited up and headed to my plane like I did hundreds of time before. The man up and launch weren't anything special either and after my clearing turn, I held my altitude at 500 ft until I hit the 5 mile mark then started my climb. I lined up on my outbound bearing and leveled off at my assigned altitude and completed all my checklist items, set the AP, pulled my mask back, and settled back for an easy 90 minute night flight."

He was back to walking back and forth across the stage slowly, making sure that he looked into the eyes of each person sitting on ground listening to his story. "I had just checked in with the controllers after I arrived at my patrol station. I set up my racetrack pattern and was enjoying the starry night when the world turned upside down."

He stopped again to let that sink in. "You know, you rarely get a warning when something decides to let go. Oh yeah, you can get the minor failure, a warning or caution light, something that gets your attention and forces you to correct some problem or other. But for some reason, the big failures seem to come all at once. That was the case with me as well as many of the other ejection survivors I've spoken with. One minute everything is okie dokie and the next..." He let the word hang.

"I was in a left turn to following my racetrack when BANG." He didn't shout but used an elevated voice and the exclamation was quick and unannounced and complemented by a loud hand clap that accentuated the concept of BANG.

"At the same time, my Warning and Caution lights lit up like Christmas." His pattern of speech was faster now and clipped as he continued relaying the events of that night. It was like he was keeping pace with the events as he recounted them. "the nose pitched down sharply and the plane was bucking and shaking so hard I could barely focus on the annunciator lights. It didn't really matter though. At first I was trying to figure out which check list was primary but almost at the same time reality hit me. I don't know if I actually said "Duh" or if it was just a thought but, I'm in an A-7, I don't have but one engine keeping me flying and that engine was screaming fire and giving me every indication that this was no false alarm."

He cleared his throat. It was more of a verbal pause and he went on. "The plane wasn't responding to the stick I knew it was over, but you really want to lie to yourself at that moment. I mean, who wants to jump out... at night... more than a hundred miles from the boat."

He was well into the telling now, as if he was back in the cockpit reliving it as he recounted it. "I keyed the mic and made a quick MAYDAY call but didn't wait to hear if there was a response. Maybe four or five seconds had passed since the explosion, but time felt like it was moving much slower though and I was aware of every noise and twitch. I sat up and pushed back into my seat, reached down, grabbed the handle, and pulled up."

He was standing in the center of the stage now and was pantomiming pulling the ejection handle. His hands were rolled into fists and joined together between his legs as he pulled up on the imaginary handle. "Now the fun really began." He said.

"I took a lot of time thinking this through and trying to remember the sounds and sensations so I could relay them as accurately as I could. So, while it may take me five or ten minutes to go through the entire event, trust me, it happens a whole lot faster and your reaction time is nill. You are a passenger on Mr. Toad's Wild Ride and all your skills and all your airplane knowledge is useless. You're not "flying" anymore so much as you are falling."

"The noise." He stopped speaking for a moment. "The noise of a rocket motor lighting up right under your ass is like nothing you ever heard before. You don't just hear it. You FEEL it and you SMELL it and before your brain can process the inputs, you have a whole new set to sort out."

He was there in front of them and speaking but, his eyes were unfocused and looking into his memory and not out at the world. "The next sensation you feel is a kick in the ass and the weight of the world pushing down on you and pressing you into your seat and then..." He stopped again for several seconds. "the rocket motor turns off, the noise and incredibly bright light click off and you are completely night blind. All you can see are pinpricks of light swirling wildly all around you. To this day I'm still not sure if it was the stars I was seeing or if it was just the illusion of lights you see as you near the point of passing out from the G's kicking you around."

"For a brief second you feel some relief, all that noise is finally over but the relief is short lived." He was back with them now, the mental file that contained the memory of the night was fully recalled and open. He was speaking more rapidly now but everyone hung on each word and were leaning in as he continued.

"The next thing you know, you're falling, tumbling through the night air. You try to focus, to make some sense of what you are seeing and what your middle ear is trying to tell you but it's no use. You have no control; you are just a rider." He said as he held his hands out and moved them up and down to emphasize his statement.

"Are there any engineers out here in the group?" He asked and several hands went up. "Well thank you and thanks to all your brainy brothers for thinking up an invention as complex in operation but beautiful in result as the Douglas ESCAPAC Ejection seat."

"Without even realizing it, you've been pushed free of the seat and now you are completely alone in the night, falling at terminal velocity. I'm here to tell you, flapping your arms," he began the pantomime again waving his arms up and down kicking his legs wildly like a giant bird caught in a hurricane. "does NOT work."

A laugh went up from the group and the commander played out the joke as the laughter trailed off. "If it were up to me to do something, I'm sure I would have perished without a trace but, our smart engineer buddies took care of that for us." His speech slowed and he began the next stage of the story.

"I recall that the ride suddenly smoothed out. I looked up and saw the drogue chute deployed above me and now at least I was falling feet first and was able to discern the horizon. I don't know exactly how long I was falling but once you descend to a certain height, an altitude sensitive switch deploys the main chute and you feel like someone has just jerked you up hard as the chute fills and your descent slows dramatically within seconds. Now you are floating and have a moment to collect your thoughts."

"Oh." He said recalling something. "Like I said, you may not have any warning. My mask was off but attached by one lock to my helmet and it smacked me around a bit as I was tumbling but that's not the half of it. On a long flight, once you get up to altitude and leveled off on heading, the tendency is to make yourself more comfortable by loosening straps, removing your mask, maybe even taking off your helmet for a moment to wipe the sweat off your face and head." He stopped speaking again as his right hand ran over his head, wiping the "sweat" from his hair.

"How's everyone doing out there? If you feel the need to get up and stretch go ahead, I'm on a roll, you won't bother me." He asked with a smile.

"Ok, here's my pitch. DON'T do it. I had loosened up my harness do give my legs some more room. Does anyone know what happens once the chute deploys and you get pulled up short?" He looked around but no answers came back from the group. "The harness continues up as your body continues down and the first things to contact the loose harness are your balls!" Laughter welled up but there were also echoes of "Ouch" and "Man o Man" and similar exclamations of empathy and the pain wholly unique to a crack in the nuts. "So, I highly recommend that you keep your harness snug and except to wipe your face off, keep your mask on. I know as you get salty, you'll likely break one or both of these recommendations. I hope you get away with it. Truly."

"Now we are getting to the part of my story that dovetails directly with this training exercise." He said as he pointed back at the tower behind him. "The Navy can't train you on every aspect of an ejection. We can't shoot you out of a plane for instance but, we have come up with a way to simulate the most important and critical stages of the escape, the time when the engineers can't help you anymore and you have to do something . That's what this tower will do. You think, OK, I got out of a burning plane, I managed to get clear of my seat and am floating below a full canopy, life if good. Well..." He said with his voice rising in pitch and tilting his head to one side as he brought up an uncomfortable fact. "You don't have it made. In fact, it's just the opposite. It's true, you beat most of the odds and made it out but now you are heading for the water at about 20 miles an hour, not counting any forward movement the wind is providing. And when you hit the water, that is where the most dangerous phase begins. That is what we are going to simulate. That is what I hope to help train you for. This exercise is hard, you're going to drink some seawater and cuss me but..."He held up his index finger to make his point. "This WILL save your life if your plane quits you and you find that you have to walk home."

He looked back at the tower, then turned and faced the group again. "Let me walk you through the scenario." He went on. "It's night, you can't really tell where the black sky ends and the black sea begins. Instead of floating down gently like a leaf falling in Autumn, you're coming down faster than most of you can run and when you hit the water you are going to face plant and get the wind knocked out of you. Now you are in the water. Your harness fittings, your KOCH fittings are designed to let loose of the parachute once they get dunked in sea water and likewise your float vest should inflate once in salt water. So, in a perfect world, you find yourself free of the parachute and floating along."

He was quiet a moment then began again. "But it's not a perfect world and if it can go wrong, count on it going wrong. That's what this training simulates."

"We're going to take you to the top of that tower, hook you up to a hydraulic winch and yank you off the tower and down 12 feet face first into the water. That's to simulate your landing and believe me, if anything, it's easier than the real thing." He was pointing to the equipment as he spoke.

"Once you hit the water, we simulate a failure of your Koch fittings, and the winch will drag you through the water just like your parachute will on a windy day. You're face down, can't breathe, getting pulled through the water. So now your job becomes, how do I get my face out of the water and how do I get loose of this parachute. Boys, that's what I learned when I did this here about 10 years ago and that's what saved my life and more importantly, that's what we are going to teach you today." He stopped again to let that sink in.