“That’s the Landing Signals Officer taking over,” said Ross. “He’s standing on the back of the boat watching this guy come in.” The LSO sounded like he was sitting in front of a nice fireplace with a snifter of brandy in his hand. His voice was rich and deep and calm. “A little low” sounded like a minor condition, something completely expected and within the normal course of nature and the world, and not a warning that 210 might want to correct his course in order not to smash into the back of the carrier in a giant fireball.
The tower lights were still faint and tiny, enough to confirm that something was out there in all that blackness, but thoroughly unconvincing in conjuring images of safety and massiveness, of a landing area, of a bunk and a hot meal somewhere beneath the deck, a small city plowing through the dark.
The breathing was fast and jagged and all of a sudden, there it was! Like a highway lit up at night with small dashed lines reflecting the center line. The whole thing wavered uncertainly, racing toward 210, and us, and Ross pointed to the far left of the screen and said, “There’s the ball,” just as it disappeared. I couldn’t tell how far above the highway we were and everything was speeding up and getting louder.
“Little come left.” It was Lord Calm Voice in his parlor again, and 210, now sounding like he was in the middle of an asthma attack, dutifully dipped the wing of the jet slightly left milliseconds before all the lights leapt and scattered over the screen, the engines roared in protest, and a long, rasping gasp was punched out of 210’s chest as his tailhook caught the wire. From where I sat, it looked like the camera had been punted. Radio chatter continued, but I couldn’t hear any of it. I found myself leaning forward, my nails digging into the fabric of my running pants.
The screen went black again and I could hear someone called 103 being told to set himself up for the approach. More tiny dim lights appeared and rotated slowly along the bottom of the screen. 210 was regaining control of his breathing, though it was still shuddery sounding, and he’d apparently gotten the wherewithal to start thinking about moving off the runway and parking his jet. This seemed like asking someone to steer a flaming eighteen-wheeler at top speed through a garden gate, stop within ten feet, and then neatly parallel park because other flaming eighteen-wheelers were right behind.
Ross was laughing—apparently this was exciting or motivating or something—and all I could say was, “Fuck that.”
—
The group of students headed out to the boat for carrier quals traditionally grew out mustaches together, so when I kissed Ross good-bye and wished him luck, it was a weird State Trooper version of my husband I was sending off, one who looked both comical and grim. It wasn’t the carrier qualification I was worried about, but what came after. Assignment to a fleet squadron meant one of three locations—Lemoore, Virginia Beach, or Atsugi, Japan, an hour’s train ride from Tokyo. I had a one-in-three chance of staying in my job and the MFA program, and the prospect of losing what little foothold I’d gained sickened me. So it was a complete surprise when Ross called me two days later, stricken, to say, “I DQ’d.” Disqualified. The word didn’t make sense when applied to him, and I must have made it worse when I asked him to repeat it.
“Are you okay? What happened?” Qualifying takes twenty good passes, twelve in daylight, eight at night, with about three days total to complete them. Ross had only three night passes to go when he started to “bolter,” or miss the wire. His fuel ran lower with each unsuccessful pass and finally he’d been directed to divert and land ashore to refuel.
He wasn’t the only one to run into trouble during that trip. Another student, a friend of ours, evidently had a close call so scary that even asking more than one person about it years later, I ran into a wall of silence. Not moving beyond this qualifying stage isn’t uncommon. I’ve heard anecdotes of at least two pilots who sailed smoothly through every part of flight school only to balk when it was time to land on the boat, or do it once and then calmly shut down the engines and refuse to go back out again.