Final Flight Read Online Free PDF Page A

themselves
slightly claustrophobic inside this rabbit warren
of bulkheads and ladders and people charging hither and yon
on unimaginable errands. Toad paused on several
landings to let his charges catch up and catch their
breath.
    Six stories up they exited onto a viewing
area their guide quaintly referred to as
Vulture’s Row. Several other groups of
journalists were also there. Everyone with a camera
snapped numerous photos of the planes parked
neatly in rows on the deck below and the junior
officers answered technical questions as fast as they were
posed. Several of the tour guides were pilots who
expounded with youthful enthusiasm on the thrills
associated with flying off and onto the carrier.
    “Are you a pilot?” the Frenchman with a
Japanese camera asked Lieutenant Tarkington.
    “No, sir. I’m an RIO’-THAT means
Radar Intercept Officer-on F-14’s.
    Those are the sharky-looking jobs down there with the wings that move backwards and forwards.”
    The Frenchman stared. “The wings?”
    “Yeah, the wings move.” Tarkington pretended
to be an airplane and waggled his arms
appropriately. Out of the corner of his eye he
saw Judith Farrell roll her gaze heavenward.
    “Oui, oui. Formidable!”
    “Yep, sure is,” the irrepressible
Tarkington agreed heartily. When their turn
came, Tarkington led his followers into
“PriFly,” a glassed-in room that stuck out of the
top of the island over the flight deck and offered a
magnificent view. Here, he explained, the air
boss, a senior commander, controlled the launch and
recovery of aircraft. As Tarkington drawled
along a helicopter came in to land, settling
gently onto the forward portion of the landing area.
Several of the group took pictures of the air boss
standing beside his raised easy chair with all his radios
and intercom boxes in the background.
    Tarkington’s group then packed themselves into the
minuscule island elevator for the ride down to the
flight deck level. Somehow the lieutenant ended
up jammed face-to-face with Judith Farrell.
He beamed at her and she stared at his Adam’s
apple. The machinery was noisy and the whole contraption
lurched several times. “Nobody’s died in
here since last week, ma’am,” he whispered.
    “I wish you wouldn’t call me “ma’am,”
“Farrell said, refusing to whisper.
    “Yes, ma’am.”
    When the door opened, they went down another ladder
to the 0-3 level and then through a myriad of turns
to a ready room. The tourists were greeted by an
officer who gave a little explanation of how
aircrews planned and briefed their missions in
ready rooms like this throughout the 0-3 level. He
showed them the closed-circuit television monitors
around the room on which the only show playing during
flight operations was the launch and recovery of
aircraft on the “roof,” the flight deck.
    And he got some laughs with his explanation of the
greenie board that hung on one bulkhead. Every
pilot in this squadron had color marks recorded
for each of his carrier approaches, which his squadron
mates witnessed in glorious detail on the
television monitors. Green was the predominate
color and symbolized an OK pass, the best
grade possible.
    Yellow was a fair grade and a few red spots
recorded no-grade or cut passes.
Apparently a pilot’s virtues and sins
were recorded in living color for all to see.
    Back in the passageway one of the
reporter-photographers delayed the group almost
three minutes as he repeatedly snapped an
apparently endless, narrow passageway that ran fore
and aft. At this level the openings in the frames that
supported the flight deck were oval in shape and
only wide enough for people to pass through in single file.
    “Knee-knockers,” Tarkington called them. The
passageway appeared to be an oval tube receding
into infinity. The photographer got a shot of a
sailor in the passageway over a hundred yards
away that later appeared in a German
newsmagazine. The picture demonstrated
visually, in a way words never could,