Royalty Meets Right Stuff on High Seas

Better make that three lanterns, Mr. Revere. This time, the British came by sea and by air.

As his wife stood on deck in a flight helmet and waved goodby with a sailor-garbed teddy bear, the Duke of York took a 160-m.p.h. slingshot jet ride Thursday that flung him into the air, off the deck of the world’s largest warship, the nuclear-powered aircraft carrier Nimitz.

“This is one of the loneliest walks I’ve ever taken,” remarked the 28-year-old prince, a Royal Navy helicopter pilot, as he strode in olive-green flight suit and red-striped helmet toward the co-pilot’s seat of the S-3A Viking jet for a “catapult” launch from the Nimitz, 90 miles off Los Angeles at the time.

He briefly took the controls of the Screwbird squadron’s anti-submarine craft on the short flight to Long Beach.

“It was incredible,” Andrew noted afterward, “a sensational end to a great visit to Nimitz.”

It was all sunny weather, calm seas and kick-back casualness for the royal couple, who spent 3 1/2 hours aboard the carrier watching elaborate air-show performances by Navy jets and helicopters before Andrew tried his hand at the right stuff--after careful instruction about the use of the ejection seat.

“He thought it would be a good swift kick,” said Nimitz’s commanding officer, Capt. Brent Bennitt, of Andrew’s request to try the launch.

As for the duchess--whom Andrew referred to last Saturday as “an accomplished aviator”--”her only regret was that she couldn’t participate in a catapult because of her pregnancy,” Bennitt said.

As sailors on the 4 1/2-acre deck cheered, the jet bearing Andrew, a Royal Navy helicopter warfare instructor, swooped low, and the duke exchanged waves with his wife before streaking off to Long Beach.

But most of the work during their visit to the 13-year-old aircraft carrier was done by the Nimitz crew, who laid on a lavish air show for the couple, who landed on deck around 12:30 p.m. and were escorted down a walkway lined with chrome-and-wood fake 155-millimeter shells.

From chairs on the flight deck, they watched a variety of jets--including the F-14A Tomcat--burst at supersonic speed out of vapor halos, drop practice bombs and skim low past the ship, wowing the duchess, who had crammed her red hair up inside a Nimitz cap with “HRH” (Her Royal Highness) embroidered in gold at the back.

Later, with the pair watching from “Vultures’ Row,” Navy pilots “choreographed” by Capt. Jim (Slick) Hartnett went through spectacular “cats and traps” practice, steam-powered catapult launches off the deck and high-speed “trap” landings, planes ensnared and yanked to a stop by deck cables.

Navy spokesmen said the visit coincided with the ship’s already-planned return to its home port in Bremerton, Wash., and that such maneuvers would have been practiced anyway as part of the Nimitz’s trip north with half of its full complement of 6,100 men.

At full tilt, the Nimitz costs half a million dollars a day to operate. The details of the huge ship obviously engrossed Andrew, who asked technical questions during the tour.

It was the most casual part of their nine-day Los Angeles visit promoting British trade and art. He was at home in his Royal Navy lieutenant’s uniform. She, with her freckled legs bare, wore the ship’s gift, a brown leather bomber jacket, over her cream-and-navy suit, and briefly tootled on a boatswain’s whistle (another gift) slung around her neck on a white lanyard.

Bennitt said the pair told him that it was “the nicest time they’ve had in Southern California.”

The Nimitz, too, is no stranger to action. It was from Nimitz’s deck that F-14 Tomcat jets scrambled and shot down two Libyan fighters after a 1981 attack on the carrier, and whence helicopters took off for the abortive 1980 mission to rescue U.S. hostages in Iran.

On their tour through the 92,000-ton ship, the pair stopped to talk to enlisted men, and Andrew asked messman Joseph Brinkley how he liked the food.

“I said, ‘I cook it!’ ” Brinkley told the amused Andrew.

(After days of opulent food, the couple ate a mercifully plain lunch from the ship’s larders, including assorted relishes and chicken salad on tomato wedges.)

VIPS are no novelty on the Nimitz. The king and queen of Spain visited the ship 12 years ago. And the ship itself is a “star” in such movies as “Final Countdown,” and is the featured inspiration on an upcoming television series, “Supercarrier.”

Thursday morning, the royal couple obliged the International Foundation for Learning Disabilities with a visit to the private (and freshly painted) Park Century School in West Los Angeles, where they toured classrooms and met the 45 students.

The youngsters’ gifts to the royal couple included a handmade paper Corsair plane and chronicles of what it feels like to be learning-disabled. Some children wrote haiku poems for the visit, one reading “Superior People: March 3rd approaching, important people coming, time to bow down low.”

Sarah told a small group of teachers that she was interested in the school because she took care of a dyslexic boy for a few years. He had a troubled youth, but was able to pull out of it and become an actor, she said. They have remained friends and he still calls her for advice.

“When you can’t express yourself, you become so frustrated,” the duchess told them.

Some students have scholarships, but others are well-off. During preparations for the visit, they were shown pictures of the royals’ palatial homes.

“That looks just like my house,” one student insisted.

The duchess squeezed in a bit of Rodeo Drive shopping on Wednesday, after correcting artist David Hockney’s orthography. Reading his personal inscription to them in a book of his retrospective works, Sarah reportedly remarked, “There’s no ‘t’ in ‘duchess.’ ”

The couple will be at UCLA today. On Saturday, they will be guests at a charity polo match in Indio, benefiting the drive to rebuild the Old Globe Theatre. The duchess’ father, Maj. Ronald Ferguson--former commander in the royal household cavalry--will captain one of the teams.