The True Adventures
Of
Youthly Puresome
DOGGUS DELECTI
written by
Jack Woodul
illustrated by
Jack Snow
comments by
Steve Milliken
"Yaaaaaa..Hoo! exploded Puresome as he unlatched the Sierra fittings on his oxygen mask and dropped it in his lap. Having just screamed into the break and landed after being safety-wired in burner for .5 hours (maybe) airborne, Puresome was still going machedy-mach as he cleared the runway at NAS Fallon.
He and Virgil Viper had just done battle with the wily A-4 adversary, and, this time, he had cheated and won! The normally agile Scooter had been souped up with a big engine and everything but a radio taken out; they could turn and fly up their own hineys. Painted in the camouflage du jour, ie, morning desert, afternoon desert, semi-cloudy, hung-over invisible, the Tinks were flown by good sticks who practiced Migging every day and wore only gold-lame' breech-clouts and head-bands with Gomerisms written on them to humiliate their prey. Even though the Crusader was a manly machine, Puresome had noticed that after some of his mightiest zooms to the moon, the little bastard was trapped at his eight o'clock low.
The lie was that there were no egos involved in this two-v-one dissimilar combat maneuvering--the adversaries were like clinical test pilots, who calmly described the on-going fight on voice recorders while making drawings that would shame Michelangelo, clearly depicting how the Atoll got shoved up your tender tailpipe.
ENTER DOGGUS
In reality, they were slobbering, red-eyed, blood-lusted maniacs like everybody else. Their spokesman, call sign "Doggus," set the tone and flang down his gauntlet when he addressed the Airwing fighters at the beginning of the cruise. Turning his back on the assembled group, Doggus said "take a look at this. This is the last time you're going to see my six o'clock for two weeks. You are going to be so busy picking plexiglas out of your necks while looking over your shoulders at me while I'm gunning you that you'll never have time to look out the pointy ends of your temporarily flying static displays."
The fact that Doggus made it out of the briefing alive was testimony to the basic gentle nature of fighter pilots.
But the truth was one found out by lots of fighter pilots in Sierra Hotel machines: one had to be careful and smart not to get bagged ones ownself by the splitarse little machines. If you kept your hair on fire and didn't get bogged down in HIS fight, you could whup him, especially with good section tactics. Which was exactly the point of the whole deal.
It didn't make things any nicer that the Crusader pilots didn't get to paint little Scooter kills on the sides of their aircraft like Doggus and his pals...
So the fighter pilots in the Airwing slavvered to make simulated fireballs out of the bastids. The standard fight had the A-4 anchored at the far end of the ACM range on a Tacan radial at twenty thousand feet; the fighter section would launch and burner into the area and down the designated radial with the bogey coming at them from the other direction. Talleyho would be somewhere in the middle of the area, and the fight would be on!
Today, Puresome and Virgil Viper had decided to “Cheat and Win” by displacing to the sun side of the radial and possibly a bit higher than the standard twenty thousand feet. Like, maybe, another ten thousand or so. They blasted off into the area and whoostled down the radial up-sun.
“Ralph Lead, radar contact, twenty right at ten miles!” Puresome lied like a sports car salesman to a NAVCAD, since getting radar contact on the bogey gave additional points on a Compex, and he wanted Doggus to be looking away from the fighters in the sun. But there was no way he would stick his head inside a radar boot--he wanted his eyeball pupils about the size of pencil points and able to see mosquito scrotes or A-4's at great distance.
So he squinted out the windows, and Virgil squinted at him and down at the radial from his starboard side combat spread position. Sure enough, there was Doggus, ten o’clock low and down-sun.
FIGHT’S ON
"Ralph flight, talleyho!" Puresome called.
"Doggus, roger."
Dropping his nose, Puresome barrelled out of the sun, with Viper cutting across the circle. He had already briefed "No gates” on the Tallyho call, since the Crusaders would leave after burner puffs to clue an already nervous Doggus to their position. Puresome dropped through Doggus's seven o'clock low and lit the burner as he put his gunsight pipper on the A4 and his Sidewinder missile started to growl. Punching his radar ARO button, the range only needle quickly showed just less than a mile. With the Sidewinder sucking up the heat signature of the Scooter’s exhaust and howling for release, Puresome held down the firing pickle on the stick and transmitted, "Fox two on the A4, one mile deep six!"
Doggus hacked his watch to mark the shot and reefed on an eye-watering nose high port turn.
Puresome, megamach and in burner, cut to inside of his turn and projected his nose in front of the turning A-4, heading him off at the pass for a possible gun shot.
"Ralph's engaged!"
"Vipe's free," called Virgil, cutting across the circle behind them.
But Puresome, closing fast on Doggus, knew he couldn't hack the A-4's turn, but kept pressing to keep him turning until the last second; then, he leveled his wings and zoomed. "Ralph's free," he called.
Doggus would have loved to reverse, drop half flaps to try and get his nose at Puresome and pickle off an Atoll, but Virgil Viper was now smoking up his wing-line, and he had to drop his nose to gain energy to sustain his turn.
"Vipes engaged!" Virgil grunted, honking on the g's as the A-4 started out-turning the rapidly closing F-8.
But Puresome had ruddered over in his vertical climb as soon as he saw Doggus drop his nose, and as the A-4 reefed hard to force Virgil into an overshoot, Puresome was pointed down as his wingie leveled his wings and zoomed.
"Vipe's free."
OUTSMARTING THE CUNNING TINK
Doggus saw Puresome coming down at him over his left shoulder and had to keep turning, keeping his nose down as long as he could for energy. But Puresome had sliced down inside his turn, forcing the Tink to keep the G's on, bleeding his energy level down.
Once again, Puresome pulled up inside Doggus's turn and pressed him. Again, Doggus was able to turn the corner, and Puresome had to level his wings and zoom.
But now, Doggus had bled his energy down, and, as Puresome ruddered over from his zoom, he watched Virgil come across the tight circle and close the A-4, his nose pointed in front of the out- of- poop Doggus.
"Guns, guns, guns!" called Virgil as he worked his gunsight gyro pipper through the A-4, which, though out of energy, was not out of ideas and was frantically trying to activate his cloaking device and go invisible. The Viper rolled his wings level and zoomed.
"Vipes free."
By this time, Puresome was scorching back down the hill listening to the happy growl of his unfortunately inert Sidewinder missile.
"Ralph's engaged, and Fox two for you, Doggie Lu, Doggie Sue!" Puresome transmitted in his most professional manner.
"Roger, knock it off, good fight, guys," Doggus called, "see you back at the patch."
"Roger, seeya, Doggus."
Puresome pulled around to the south, more or less, since his RMI compass was hopelessly Tango Uniform, but he knew if he pointed away from the mountains surrounding the desert floor of the ACM area, NAS Fallon was down there someplace. Knowing exactly where you were was an unusual, and possibly unmanly luxury anyhow. Puresome stuck his wing up in a gentle turn and throttled back to 90%, watching the Viper sliding up his wing, rendezvousing with him.
"Ralphs, button one zero."
The Viper clicked his mike twice.
ON FUMES
When his wingie was close aboard in Parade formation, Puresome used the "Drinking" signal with his right hand to ax about his pardner's fuel state. Virgil held his left hand horizontal and stuck out three fingers, signifying eight hundred pounds.
"Etai, Japanese word for pain!" thought Puresome, who had a thousand pounds of gas himself, which was not a bag-full for a swept-wing, supersonic jit some thirty miles from the green spot in the distance that marked Home Plate. Once again, he crossed fingers, burned sacrifices, and swore-and-be-dammed to be nice if only the runway didn't get clobbered by some weak-dick in the Airwing until his flight landed.
But the Moon was in the Seventh House, and Jupiter was aligned with Mars, as the intriguingly nasty looking hippie girls sang in "Hair." Puresome just figured it meant everything was super Sierra Hotel, which it was. Puresome kept the nose down and the speed up, and nobody even thought about getting in their way and slowing them down. They scorched along until Puresome and Viper rolled together into a fan-brake over the numbers, easing to idle, speedbrakes, and lots of g's, finally dropping the gear down and raising the wing up passing through the ninety, and getting on-speed and working the ball for long enough on final not to look like an Air Farce puke with fifteen thousand feet of runway in front of him.
Puresome was still hyper as they taxied back to the line. He had popped the canopy open, and the wind felt good on his sweat-soaked flight suit. He opened the zippered pocket on his left arm and took out a small comb, which he used to separate and straighten two halves of the world's most obnoxious handle-bar mustache, which the oxygen mask had smushed. Puresome was on the moustache side of a cycle, which alternated between it being part of obnoxious fighter pilot image, and total disgust at the build-up of mayonnaise and bread-crumbs under his nose, which Puresome would not be able to face on some early morning, hung-over trip to his mirror and terminate with extreme prejudice.
PARROT OF DEATH STRIKES AGAIN
But now, looking good, Puresome switched over to base radio to report the status of his aircraft.
Instead, an irresistible, preverted inspiration seized control of Puresome. "The duty officer's a NANCY BOY! The duty officer's a FAGGIT! Skreeek! Squawwwk! Skreeek!" transmitted over the radio in Puresome's best parrot imitation.
"Uh, calling Scarf base, say again?" came the response.
Puresome was wise enough not to answer.
The only problem, Puresome found out back at the ready room, was that he and Virgil Viper were the only two Scarfs airborne, and there was an AOM in progress when the parrot called in. Loudly. While the Skipper was addressing the assembled officers. Since Virgil Viper only opened his mouth to complain about mess bills, by process of elimination, that left....Puresome as the prospective corpus delecti.
THAT’S MY STORY --- AND
I’M STICKING TO IT
But the moon was still in the Seventh House. Puresome was convincingly offended when accused, and stoutly maintained it must have been the work of some terrorist attack puke, and "I waddent there! Nobody saw me! And you can't prove a thing!
Wild Fredman, who had been SDO, knew that without an admission of "I done it," the best he could hope for was a hung jury. Besides, the rest of the squadron had boogied off for the BOQ, enroute the bar and Mom's Gamblin' Establishment, so there weren't enough folks around for a firing squad anyway.
Of course, Skipper Razor knew. And all the Scarfs knew. But Puresome knew that on such rare, perfect, high mach days when he had kicked some serious fanny, he was as immortal as any Fighter Pilot had a right to be.
Says Puresome.
DOGGUS DELECTI is copyright 1998 by Jack Woodul
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