The True Adventures
Of
Youthly Puresome
BOUNCING THE SPIDER
by
Jack Woodul
Screaming out of the sky, Puresome the Pitiless, Terror of the Air, and ex-Yankee Air Pirate searched for victims.
The test hop on the mighty A4B, dredged out of the Arizona desert and made ready to do battle with the wily Gomer, was complete, and the more important business of jumping unsuspecting Florida Air National Guard F-102's or the unwary A-4 separated from the herd was at hand.
Puresome had raised the test-hop on aircraft coming out of maintenance to a high art. When his old squadron had decided to step up to brand-new A7A's, he had cheerfully declined and walked across the hangar to be an instructor in the Tinker Toy RAG.
This had proved to be a bagger's paradise, because, even if he was not scheduled to fly, he could often hang around the duty officer's desk and snivel a couple of hops. Being assigned to the maintenance department, Puresome could often pick up a couple of test-hops as well. Despite the considerable number of clicks on his body's counting accelerometer and corresponding dint in his supply of Med-Cruise skorch at the end of the day, Puresome was sprinting for the flight time gold ahead of fellow-bagger Worm,
who had been temporarily stymied by unreasonable A-7 RAG types.
The cruel war was raging, and ancient A4B's were filling breeches in the ranks of the much more modern A4E's and A4C's. "Where are the ECHOES of yester year?" Puresome wondered as more and more of the runty-nosed scooters showed up.
But flying the prehistoric bird wasn't all bad. The needle-ball-airspeed usually worked, and below two thousand pounds of gas, the BRAVO compared well with the ECHO and easily whupped the CHARLIE in aircraft bending contests.
The Florida air around NAS Cecil was a target-rich environment, so Puresome had honed his test hop routine into thirty-minute thing of compact beauty, leaving some thirty minutes available to teach unwary aircraft to beware of the Puresome in the sun.
But today had been ratty. Other than the one square turn he was able to get out of an F-102 and an ATOLL pass through a four-plane formation headed for Pinecastle Target, which had dutifully broken left and resumed after Puresome whoostled by, the morning had not been real interesting. Since he didn't have enough gas to go lurk around the Cedar Key power station, another well-known choke point, Puresome reluctantly headed back to Home Plate.
But, shortly after he switched to tower frequency, things started looking up. Sidewinder 404 called for takeoff on Runway 27 Right, and Puresome recognized the voice as belonging to his pal Spider, flying one of his old squadron's brand new A7A's! "Yeee...Haw!" Puresome immediately leveled off and headed west toward the field. High, sun at his back, and at perfect fighting weight, his eyes went all squinty.
Spider was an ex-squadron-mate who had made the transition to the SLUFS's, and, in spite of being an LCDR, was a long-time particular pal. He had shown up as a replacement at the beginning of the second line period on Yankee Station, a bull LT coming back to sea duty. Spider blustered his way into the ready room, hoping to divert attention from his "FNG" status with noise. Spider waved his hands and carried
on in front of a small group about how they used to do stuff back when he was a "Fighting Red Cock."
Prematurely salty LTJG Puresome was having none of it. Mindful of the rules of ascendancy of sea-duty over shore duty pukes, he was especially offended that Spider didn't know enough to be humble in the presence of mighty warriors who had already fit the forces of evil. His mouth went into autoload, cocked, and fired.
"Yaaa, right! You boot!"
"Boot?...Boot?" Spider sputtered in disbelief, hands going unsynchronized and out of control, "I've got more time at high station than you've got in the NAVY!"
"Yas, and I've got more time in the Phuc Yen GCA pattern than you've got in post-grad school!" Puresome interrupted, and the potential game of smack'em in the mouth was narrowly averted by the intervention of Captain Zoderly, boy SDO, and other less smarty types.
But Spider was a kindred spirit--he loved to fly, and it showed. Puresome came to really envy Worm for having Spider as his section lead. He was a good stick, a good leader, and was not just a little nuts. So it wasn't too long before Puresome assigned him a place among the very elder gods and they became pals.
Puresome even composed a song honoring Spider's previous West Coast status:
"Red Cocks! Red Cocks!
Raw! Raw! Raw!
Bestest squadron you ever saw
Finest drivers on the block,
are the sweeties in the squadron
with the fighting Red Cocks!"
Spider accepted the honor with grace for about the first one hundred and sixty times he heard it.
But now, Puresome hung on the perch, watching Spider's A-7 waddle down the runway, fat with a full bag of gas, and get airborne.
"Must have called for a low performance take off," mused Puresome as he dropped the nose and crammed on the throttle.
The lightly loaded Scooter picked up mega-warp in the dive, and Puresome rapidly overtook Spider from six o'clock low. Timing it just right, Puresome zoomed up from below and passed just in front of Spider's aircraft. Woomp! Spider's life flashed before his eyes and his head whanged upside the windows as his plane passed through Puresome's jet wash. "Etai!" he yelped.
Puresome zoomed straight vertical and, keeping the G's on, barrel rolled around for a classic gunnery pass of great beauty. Spider, recovering, had dumped the nose of his thunder pig in an attempt to gain some smash.
But it was a slow thing, and Puresome relentlessly smoked in.
Budda, budda, budda! Puresome squoze the trigger as the A-7 filled his gunsight. Simulated leaden death streamed from his guns.
Once again, Puresome pulled vertical. But, just before rolling over the top, he realized something was a bit wrong. The cockpit had mysteriously filled with smoke.
"Whut?" Puresome stuck his head inside and cleverly noted that the "fire" light was on. "Whut?" thought Puresome again, closing the throttle, "this can't happen to me."
His nose being pointed straight up and his airspeed rapidly dwindling back toward the peg, the next order of business was to recover from the unusual attitude; Puresome eased the stick over, and the nose fell thru.
Foom! Spider's airplane swooshed by! After Puresome's initial attack, he had madly started dumping a great deal of gas over the Florida countryside, and had pitched back into the fight with a vengeance. Now Puresome, somewhat distracted, was the grape, and Spider was the plucker. As Puresome started regaining some airspeed and his nose started to come out of the dive, Spider scorched by again. Puresome was too preoccupied to notice that he, too, was drinking simulated leaden death.
Puresome had leveled off and was trying to figure out where exactly he was. All the electric instruments were dead, and the wet compass was still madly wobbling around. Knowing he was west of the field somewhere, Puresome scientifically figured that he had to go "E," and, since it was still morning, that was where the sun was. As he started turning in that direction, Spider roared by, having Puresome's ass and loving it.
"Jerbis Flinderbars! Hefoe! Hefoe!" Puresome yelled into his mask, holding his forearm across his helmet.
But the good news was that the motor did not seem to be melting and ran OK with the power set at 88%, and that NAS Cecil had to be out there somewhere through the cockpit smoke and haze.
But the better news was that Spider had finally figured out that something was a bit wrong, and he joined on Puresome's left wing.
Puresome whanged the glareshield with his open palm several times, then held his forearm across his helmet, followed by holding up five fingers, the signal for engine troubles. Spider nodded his head, understanding perfectly, and Puresome passed him the lead.
The wind had died down, and Spider led Puresome to a straight-in approach to Nine-Right at Cecil. After visually OK-ing Puresome's gear, Spider broke off and Puresome put 110 mils on the gunsight and got a good hit on the runway. He taxied off the active and shut down among the flashing lights of fire trucks and the meat-wagon. Puresome disgustedly left the quietly smoking turd-wagon as quickly and with as much style as possible.
Of course, the problem was a rat-gnawed wire bundle someplace that had caught fire and burned stuff up, not an expertly fired golden BB, as Spider maintained later when he wandered over to: (a) collect a souvenir piece of wreckage for his "I love me" room, (b) drink a small, silver goblet of Puresome's blood, (c) generally jerk Puresome's chain.
“Years from now, when you speak of this...and you will....be kind," Puresome axed.
But he did not really care.
Puresome the Pitiless would be back.
BOUNCING THE SPIDER is copyright 1997 by Jack Woodul
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