On-Call Warriors : Point Mugu Reservists Are Put to the Test Aboard Aircraft Carrier

Roger White spends most of his days as a first officer on a Boeing 727 for Delta Airlines, but limits his off-hour adventures to practicing his culinary skills in his Simi Valley kitchen.

When Barry Rainey of Oxnard isn’t in the cockpit for Alaska Airlines, you’ll probably find him indulging in his passion for scuba-diving off the Channel Islands.

And when Tom Sullivan isn’t flying a planeload of tourists between Los Angeles and Honolulu as a flight engineer for Delta, he enjoys spending time with his wife in their comfortable Newbury Park home.

But for several days each month, the normal routine changes dramatically for those three Ventura County residents and many of the 19 other pilots who make up the Point Mugu Naval Air Reserve Squadron VFA-305.

Those are the times when the workaday world ends for White, Rainey and Sullivan and they turn into aerial warriors--leaping willingly into the exacting and often dangerous world of naval aviation.

After several years and at least two grueling active Navy sea tours under their belts, many of the pilots in the reserve squadron said they joined it for the same reason: a chance to pursue airline jobs while testing themselves and their flying skills in the F/A-18 Hornet--one of the Navy’s fastest, most lethal fighters.

But along with that opportunity, comes the reality that one day their unit may be activated and the simulated bullets and missiles they now dodge in training might be the real thing. The squadron, in its 24-year history, has yet to be ordered into combat.

“We fight like we train and train like we fight,” said Rainey, 40. “It’s an old saying, but it really holds true for us. We’re not bloodthirsty, but we would be ready if we were deployed. It’s something that we have trained for virtually our entire military careers.”

‘Carrier Quals’

VFA-305’s Lt. Craig McCartney settled back into the canvas seat of his F/A-18 fighter and sucked in the oxygen flowing through the mask around his face.

McCartney and others in the squadron recently flew from Point Mugu for three days aboard the Kitty Hawk off San Diego to perform their “carrier quals”--carrier qualifications required annually to remain aviators in the Navy Reserve.

All around his jet--now straining at full throttle and struggling to break free of the Kitty Hawk’s powerful steam catapult--crew members scrambled to perform last-minute checks in preparation to vault him and the $40-million aircraft off the ship’s bow and into the air.

Through his tinted helmet visor, McCartney looked out to sea as he mentally prepared for what was about to happen. As he anxiously waited for the explosive force of the launch, a giant rooster tail of jet exhaust from his engines spiraled skyward after hitting a steel jet blast deflector that had been raised behind him.

And, in a little more time than it takes to blink, McCartney, a Port Hueneme resident known by his call sign “Beatle,” would be crammed into the back of his seat by the violent lateral G-forces of a catapult launch.

In that same time frame--about two seconds--he and his aircraft would accelerate from 0 to more than 160 m.p.h., leaving him, briefly, more in the role of passenger than pilot. It was a role that after more than 300 “cat” shots he still doesn’t savor.

“You set the throttle forward, salute the chief and hold on to the towel rack,” said McCartney, a 34-year-old full-time reservist--one of four in the squadron.

Once jettisoned aloft, the gray-colored F/A-18s, replete with the squadron’s black wolf “Lobo” insignia, must eventually come back to the ship--a procedure that demands exacting precision from even the most experienced pilots.

During the exercises, Hornets belonging to the squadron would orbit around the carrier as it steamed ahead at no less than 30 knots. One by one, the jets maneuvered into precise position in order to land on the carrier’s wind-swept deck.

Safest Wire

From less than a mile out, McCartney radioed the landing safety officer that he was “calling the ball”--a message meaning he had aligned his aircraft with a set of shipboard lights that, if followed correctly, would guide him to a safe landing.

Waiting for McCartney on the Kitty Hawk’s 550-foot landing ramp was a series of four steel arresting wires an inch in diameter and set toward the ship’s stern in approximate 50-foot intervals. The wires were all that stood between a safe landing and possible disaster.

With its landing weight exceeding more than 30,000 pounds and its speed in excess of 150 m.p.h., McCartney gently lowered his fighter to the deck’s surface. His goal was to catch the “3-wire,” which has been deemed the safest wire for a Hornet’s tail hook to catch.

As his Hornet finally touched down, the tail hook hit the first wire instead of the desired third wire. As his wheels hit, the carrier’s deck filled with the smell of burned rubber and several hundred feet of the arresting wire wildly whipped out behind the plane. Seconds later, and about 300 feet farther down the deck, McCartney’s jet came to rest.

“We try for the 3-wire,” McCartney said. “A 1-wire means that you were that much closer to running into the ship and catching a 4-wire means that you were that close to going flying again. But because the deck is constantly moving and other factors, catching any wire and landing is generally a good thing.”

An area on the stern section of the flight deck called a “round down”--an extension of the flight deck rounded over to help lessen the impact of a plane crash--shows the scars of where pilots didn’t make it.

“Those are the two extremes--the scars on the round down and the aircraft that bolter,” McCartney said. “It just proves that you can’t afford to have a bad day out here.”

But according to the squadron pilots, as demanding as day carrier landings are, night carrier landings may be the single most difficult thing to master in naval aviation.

“You have no peripheral vision and if it’s really dark you cannot distinguish the ship from the sea or the horizon. All you can see are the faint lights that ring the edge of the flight deck and you can’t see those until almost right over them,” said Rainey, who has completed more than 150 night landings in his career.

And like the others in the squadron, virtually every night carrier landing is an event that is carefully stored away in the pilots’ minds.

“Let me just say this, every gray hair I have on my head is a result of night carrier landings,” McCartney said.

Safe Haven

The most dangerous place on the ship is probably the flight deck itself, squadron members say. The only safe haven there is the ship’s “island” or conning tower where the bridge and air traffic control operations are directed.

Awash in great waves of heat, jet exhaust and noise, the deck of the Kitty Hawk is off-limits during flight operations to all except those personnel who are absolutely needed. Even during “low intensity” carrier qualification exercises, Navy officials admit that crew members are regularly blown off the deck by an aircraft’s jet wash. Noise levels recorded near the catapults regularly exceed an ear-damaging 140 decibels.

Normally curious first-time visitors to the ship by nature immediately seek the refuge of the lower quarters the moment they step off a transport plane and onto the flight deck.

“They will walk off the (transport) and they’ll immediately get tunnel vision toward that hatch,” said Steve Sewell, VFA-305’s former commander. “It’s their bodies reacting instinctively toward the hostile environment they’ve found themselves in.”

It’s an instinct that the pilots themselves follow.

“Once you’re out of your airplane, you essentially have no business being on that deck,” McCartney said. “There are plenty of guys who are around today because someone reached out and grabbed them before they were sucked into a jet (engine) intake. To say that it’s a dangerous place is a heck of an understatement.”

But along with the dangers of jets moving around the ship’s flight deck, incoming aircraft that are damaged or that have injured pilots present just as deadly a danger.

“I was on the flight deck of the Nimitz one evening when an aircraft crashed into the island. I had been out of my aircraft for no more than 15 seconds when I looked back and saw that the front of my plane had been sheared off and was on fire. Nineteen people died in that accident and they died just like that,” Rainey said, snapping his fingers.

Camaraderie

But in the face of such overt danger, VFA-305’s pilots said they love being a part of the squadron, some citing patriotism, some citing the simple thrill of flying a machine faster than most people can imagine.

Still others say the reserve squadron allows them to spend time with their wives and families.

“That was an important part of the decision,” Rainey said. “In the active Navy, life on families can be very, very difficult. By moving to the reserves, I was able to do a lot of different things--start my airline career, continue to fly with the squadron and spend time with my family.”

Others, especially those who served long years in the active Navy, say they remain in the reserve because of the level of camaraderie that only pilots of their skill share.

“This unit is a big family. We all look out for each other and are concerned about how one another is doing,” Sullivan said. “I would be lying if I didn’t say it’s a complete rush to fly the aircraft we do. When this all goes away I know that it’s going to leave a big void in my life.”

* Navy squadron caught in budget crunch. B2