The True Adventures
Of
Youthly Puresome
THE GREAT FIREPOWER FRABBUP
by
Jack Woodul
Burners belched fire, and mighty jets slipped the surly bonds as the "Foxtrot" flag flapped in the thirty-knot breeze that Momma Nature and the Captain of the carrier had arranged for the 1300 launch. Clouds of steam boiled out of catapult tracks as chaps in gaily colored jerseys carefully choreographed the dance of the jets on the big flight deck. The ship's engineers took the opportunity to blow stacks, and a huge, noxious cloud of black gas roiled aft out of the funnels, raining cinders into the eyes of a group of distinguished looking, gray-haired, and binocular-draped old farts crowded all around the ship's island and especially in Vulture's Row, the best seats in the house for today's show.
For today's mission was not merely dancing the skies on laughter's silvered wings, but a performance of great subtlety and symbolism loosely titled "Blowing Holes in the Ocean--a great many of your defense dollars at work." For these observers were Congress Persons, out to observe the handiwork of their industrial constituents and "our brave, Amerricun boys." Spending the day being sucked up to on a Forrestal-class yacht, eating "chow," and watching a major-league fireworks display wasn't too bad, either.
Puresome didn't care if they were the Bayonne Bowling Club or the Minions of Zoroaster--happiness a warm gun, and he was going to be a shooter an audience!
The firepower demonstration was to be awesome. A Phantom jet would fire a Sidewinder missile at a paraflare dropped by an A-4. A Scooter would do an over-the-shoulder bomb-drop on a smoke light. Two Phantoms would make simultaneous, low-altitude supersonic runs on either side of the ship, guaranteed to cause organisms, minor losses of control, and possible pacemaker interference. A daisy-chain of some questionable propriety would fly by, consisting of consenting, adult tanker aircraft--an A-3 whale, plugged by an A-6, plugged by an A-4, plugged by another A-4. And so on.
But the best part was when four Phantoms in diamond formation would drop a great many 250 pound snake-eye bombs from a low altitude pass just aft of the ship, followed sixty seconds later by Puresome firing five nineteen-shot rocket packs from his Scooter at the same spot of steaming ocean!
Since timing was everything in airshows, a great deal of practice had gone on prior to the real thing. Clocks got hacked and potatoes were counted, and everybody honed up for the big day. Puresome had to arrive at a seven thousand foot roll-in point, ready to start his forty-five degree dive as the Phantom formation crossed the wake of the ship in their bomb run.
Of course, everybody was reasonably serious. It would be bad form to punch some kind of hole in the ship, and there was a long tradition of interesting frabbups at airshows with ample opportunity to repeat. Like the photo F-8 that had done a half Cuban-eight, popping out flash bombs instead of on the straight and level. Or like numerous aircraft that smacked each other or the water. It was one thing to be dead, but quite another to look bad.
But the big day was going like divine clockwork. Puresome orbited at a safe distance on the starboard side of the ship, watching the rest of the airwing do their thing, monitoring the radio, and waiting his turn.
Finally, the flight of four Phantoms below him moved out of orbit and started moving towards the ship, their flight lead shifting them into diamond formation and losing altitude for their low-level delivery. Puresome eased into high trail behind them.
The Phantom leader called the ship inbound, switches "hot," and Puresome triple-checked his ordnance station switches on, mode switches to "rockets," gunsight and mil-lead, and turned his master armament switch "on," being real careful to stay away from the trigger, not being anxious to send many, many 2.75 folding-fin rockets whoostling out before their time. Puresome hung in the air, almost at roll-in, and watched the four Phantoms approach the ship. Their diamond formation was impeccable. Ace lead was flying the bomb run steady and level, his wingmen glued to his airplane in Sunday-best-Blue-Angel diamond formation.
"Standby, standby..." Ace lead called, prepping his wingies to drop their bombs on his call, and Puresome rolled into his rocket run, still lagging his nose behind the Phantom flight slightly.
"Pickle! Pickle! hollered Ace lead, and an impressive number of snake-eyes fell off the four planes.
Unfortunately, a couple of them had the bad manners to blow up almost immediately, and Puresome, screaming down in his dive, watched fuel immediately start streaming in copious amounts from the wings of two Phantoms!
"Yaaaaa! Ace two is hit!"
"Yaaaaa! Ace three is hit! Losing fuel! Yaaaa!"
"Hey, neato!" thought Puresome, just like the Big War!" as his eyes went all squinty, guiding his pipper to just the right part of the ship's wake.
And as the once impeccable diamond formation deteriorated somewhat and disappeared in a haze of JP-5 and frantic radio calls, Puresome squoze the trigger and punched 95 perfect holes in the ocean blue.
Such is life that the Congress Persons had cheered wildly. It seemed so real! And the two Phantoms had made it to nearby NAS Oceana all right, but with just enough gas to leak on the runway some. And Puresome had pulled off his rocket run and done exuberant aileron rolls off into the blue to what he hoped was thunderous applause.
The next time Puresome saw Ace lead, he told him how thankful he was to have Phantoms around to give tone to what otherwise would have been a disgusting display of military might, and that impressed congress persons would probably buy them a couple of new Phantoms...
Ace lead had adjusted his ascot and considered shifting his weapons systems to the ground-to-Puresome smack mode.
"You dirty, lousy, stinky, cheaty rat!" he snarled.
"Yes," answered Puresome, well and truly adjusting his orange and black Attack Puke ball cap. "Isn't it pretty to think so..."
THE GREAT FIREPOWER FRABBUP is copyright 1997 by Jack Woodul
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