Login

Flight 19

by Goldenarbiter

Chapter 3: Prologue: Takeoff

Previous Chapter Next Chapter

Prologue: Takeoff

(http://www.nasflmuseum.com/uploads/4/9/5/8/4958573/1083514.jpg?807)

5 December, 1945

The sun shone brightly over Fort Lauderdale as the crews of Flight 19 were preparing for takeoff. Well, mostly preparing. Takeoff was scheduled for 1345 and thirteen of the fourteen pilots were sitting in the training squadron briefing room as the clock ticked to 1350. A blue haze of cigarette smoke hung lazily over the assembled pilots, and the quiet was broken by the occasional restless movement of one or another of them on the leather chairs they sat in.

George Stivers, a Marine captain and the highest ranking member of the trainee pilots, finally broke the silence. “Where the heck is Charlie at? We’re gonna miss our takeoff slot.” He stubbed out a cigarette in the ashtray that sat next to him. “Christ, this is the third time this week.”

Aviation Ordnanceman Third Class George Devlin, one of the enlisted instructors, laughed loudly. “Typical Taylor, late as usual. Remember this rookies, he’s always late and he loves to fly by the seat of his pants...”

The door swung open and Lieutenant Charles Taylor walked in. “Yes I do, George. That’s how you log over three thousand flight hours.”

There were several quiet snickers as Devlin colored slightly, and the crewmember next to him, another Marine trainee, leaned over. “Oops. Shot down in flames, squid.”

“Sergeant, you got something you need to ask about?” Taylor’s voice was sharp.

“No sir.” Sergeant Bob Gallivan straightened back up and gave the officer an innocent look. “Just checking my watch and making sure everything’s synched up, Lieutenant.”

“Uh-huh.” Taylor looked around the room once more, then nodded. “Okay, let’s get our heads in the game. You all know the drill: Navigation Problem Number One.”

In the back row next to Gallivan, another Marine trainee began elbowing the sergeant in the ribs. “Nice recovery,” he whispered, smirking. “I’ll have to use that one sometime.”

“Oh shut up, Gruebel. You’re just mad because you didn’t think of it.”

Up in the front row, Stivers twisted around in his seat and caught both of them in his gaze. “Knock it off you two,” he growled. “Unless you want to become part of a really interesting bombing exercise.”

“Yessir,” they chorused in answer.

Taylor had broken off his introductory speech on the flight and simply stood there, waiting patiently. “You need to exchange crews, Captain?”

“No, nobody else would take those bozos.” Gruebel and Gallivan were the members of Stivers’ flight crew. “Sorry, Charlie, go ahead.”

Taylor nodded and continued where he had left off, going over the entire flight plan step by step, although all of the crews were familiar with the problems they would work through at this point. “Navigation Problem Number One” was a long and fancy name for a simple exercise to test the flight trainees in both navigational skill and combat readiness. The war in the Pacific theater had ended some three months earlier, but the pilots were still expected to keep up their readiness for whatever situation might be thrown at them; the exercise they would perform today was just another part of their training. Throughout the day, several of these flights had taken place, and Flight 19 was the last to fly.

Taylor finished up his preflight briefing and paused, looking over the group for a moment. “Any further questions?” He pointed at a raised hand. “Sergeant?”

“Any idea on when we’ll get back, Lieutenant?” Staff Sergeant Thompson was a gunner on the crew of another Marine officer. “I got a hot date tonight, took me a week to set it up.”

“Oh gee, I guess we’d better not mess up on the whole ‘navigation’ part, then, right?” Taylor’s face twisted in a wry smile. “No promises. I hope she really likes you, Sergeant, she might be waiting for a bit.”

“Okay... okay, thanks, sir.” Thompson slumped back into his seat, looking glummer than usual.

“Anybody else?” Taylor waited for a moment, then nodded once more. “Okay, boys and girls, let’s saddle up and hit the trail. Hee-yah!” He slapped a hand against one thigh and mimed riding a horse as he headed out of the ready room.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The pilots lugged themselves out of the ready room, leaving the smells of cigarette smoke and stale coffee behind and welcoming the more pungent smell of aviation gasoline as they walked out onto the tarmac, where their planes lay parked in a slant: four TBM-1C torpedo bombers and one TBM-3 torpedo bomber, the latter being Taylor’s plane, a newer model designed for higher speed and slightly longer range. The aircraft was known to the pilots as ‘The Avenger,’ and it was designed to carry a three man crew and a torpedo, or up to two thousand pounds of bombs to where the enemy was and give them a truly bad day. The crews began their preflight walkarounds of their aircraft, each member checking off items and then boarding once his particular list of items was reviewed and deemed acceptable.

One aspect of this was the inspection of the armament of the aircraft. Each one was fitted out with a long range fuel package and carried a full load of live ammunition. As Taylor put it, they would be dropping “hot rocks” today; besides the standard load of .50 and .30 caliber machine gun ammo, the bombers carried a variety of delightfully explosive ordnance. The internal bomb bays, designed to hold a Mark 13 torpedo, were all loaded with a pair of five hundred pound bombs instead, and the wings held racks of five-inch air-to-ground rockets as well. The crews had already made a few runs with practice ammunition before now and none of them objected to having to practice with the real deal in the slightest. Live ammunition was easily had, here at the tail end of the Second World War, and dropping live bombs was always more fun than the practice loads.

Once in the cockpit, another checklist was gone over by Taylor. The aircraft were all fully fueled, and the instrument checkouts seemed perfect, with one exception: the clocks on each airplane had been purposely removed by the ground crews at Taylor’s direction. Navigation of the route was intended to teach dead reckoning principles, which involved calculations and, among other things, elapsed time. The lack of timekeeping devices in the aircraft was deliberate; each man had a wristwatch and a brain; they were expected to utilize both.

Taylor’s voice rattled to life over the radio, “Alright rookies, start up your engines.” a chorus of stuttering then roaring engines was the reply. Taylor glanced over the other aircraft for a moment, then switched the radio frequency. “Control, this is Flight 19, requesting permission for takeoff, Over.”

“Roger, Flight 19, this is Lauderdale Control, the strip is yours. Have a nice flight, Over,” a bored voice droned back at him.

“Thank you, Lauderdale Control, have a nice day. Out.” Taylor switched back to the flight loop. “All right. Gerber? Take us out, you’re flight lead,” he commanded.

“Yes sir.” The lead plane's propeller began to speed up, dragging the fuselage behind it. The plane and its followers quickly rolled out onto the airstrip and accelerated, hastily heading down the runway as engineers standing off to the side waved at the departing aircraft. The planes parted from the concrete and pulled into formation above the rolling ocean.

“Flight 19,” Radio control droned over Taylor’s radio, “you are clear, see you when you get back. Out.”

“Roger.” Taylor glanced over the flight, then looked ahead once more. “Gerber, set course for zero-niner-one and proceed seven-three nautical miles, you have the lead. Take us through the routine nice and clean so we can get back home,” he ordered, loosening his grip on his control somewhat. So far so good, Taylor thought.

“Roger that, Lieutenant. I have the lead. Accelerating to one-three-zero knots indicated airspeed and holding. ETA til target, eleven minutes.” Gerber’s voice could be heard over the radio. There was a small break before it started back up again. “With the wind at our back, we could even save some gas.”

“And time,” Thompson cut in. “Speaking of, Lieutenant, how come they gave us so much gas? I mean, two wing tanks in addition to our main tank? Seems a bit excessive, don’t ya think?”

“Dunno Sergeant, not my problem.” Taylor replied lazily. “They wanted to give us gas in case we get lost probably. Or maybe it’s because this is a navigation exercise, and you’re not qualified, which is why you have the pleasure of my company, remember? So don’t get lost. I don’t want someone barking down my neck over wasted gas.”

The flight group continued their journey in contemplative silence for a while, until Taylor broke the quiet. “Gerber, how much longer we got to the Eye-Pee?”

“Sorry sir. Estimated two minutes to target,” Gerber sounded again.

“Roger, no problem. Remember to sing out your initial point so everybody’s ready and steady when they begin their runs.” What the hell, they were trainees after all, and rookies couldn’t remember everything. That’s why the Navy paid Taylor the big bucks to train them. “Everyone drop down to bombing altitude.”

The two minutes clocked away in silence. “Sir, we are above the target.”

“Flight 19, safeties off. Hold steady.” The bombers flew in line ahead formation, single file as they approached the empty spot in the ocean that had been designated the “target of choice for today.” The silver bellies of each aircraft opened up, the long twin doors on their undersides splitting apart to expose the bombs in their racks. “Prepare to drop in three, two, one, mark mark mark. Bombs away.”

The bombs released from each of the aircraft and dropped away rapidly, each one detonating on the surface of the Atlantic Ocean in a huge geyser of foam. As each plane released its cargo, it banked aside, one following the other in one of the more deadly dance routines mankind had recently invented. Once finished, they formed up again, the doors on their undersides closing once more.

“Bombing run complete, nice work everyone.” Taylor glanced at his watch, then jotted the time onto a notebook with one hand. “Gerber, turn to heading three-four-six and go seven-six nautical miles again. Mark.”

“Yes sir, changing heading,” Gerber replied. “Wind’s getting pretty bad Lieutenant. Good thing the sky is clear.”

Taylor rolled his eyes, annoyed. “Yes, good thing indeed...” The second leg of the flight went on rather silently to Taylor’s relief. The minutes slipped by one by one, and he engaged his own sort of autopilot that he had worked out over time; his hands and eyes seemed to work on their own, scanning instruments, keeping the plane level, while his brain mulled over other matters. He really wanted a smoke right now; boredom and nervousness both set off the nicotine fiend in his body. A smoke would be nice. He’d brought a pack of Luckies with him to share out after the flight, and he reached up to touch the outline of the pack in his pocket. Lighting up in an aircraft loaded with gasoline and explosives was, obviously, forbidden. But ah, the anticipation… As soon as we land, you’re all mine, baby.

A nervous voice broke over the radio, breaking Taylor’s reverie. “Lieutenant, I think we’re lost.” Gerber’s voice sounded shaken.

Taylor’s grip tightened around the control stick when he heard this. “Son, what do you mean, ‘lost’?”

“Like I think my heading was off. My compass is out of control, it’s spinning like crazy.”

“Erm... okay, uh... My compass is fine. Powers, give me your heading.” Taylor said.

Captain Powers flew the aircraft directly behind Taylor, and the Marine took a moment to respond. “I’ve got the same thing here Lieutenant. Spinning like a drunk man on St. Patty's Day.”

“This is not the time for jokes, pilot,” Taylor snapped. “Can anyone get me a reading?” In the ensuing silence, his compass began spinning as well. Taylor shook his head in frustration, and tilted his plane to look down below; beneath him was a series of islands. “I think we’re above the Keys...”

“How the hell did we end up here?” Stivers voice sounded over the radio. “Hell, we took off eastwards, didn’t we? And then turned north.”

“Dunno, but if we fly north we can find home, any objections? No? Good. Put the sun over on your port wing and fly straight,” Taylor said, confidence flowing back into him. “We’ll hit the mainland, fly up over the Gulf of Mexico, and land at Tampa if we have to.”

←---------------------------------------------------------------→

An hour later with no land in sight, Taylor’s confidence began to falter. The aircraft should definitely have been over the coastline by this point, and Taylor was still unable to see any land in sight. Only a few clouds ahead were visible in the darkening sky, seeming to mock him in the distance: Just a little further… land’s over here, just a little further... He shook himself and swallowed. That little voice had killed pilots over and over, and he was damned if he’d start listening to it now. “Okay, listen up, Flight 19.”

Silence, hissing over the airwaves.

“We should have hit the mainland by now, but we’re not there yet. So I want everyone to close up, tight as a tick.” He closed his eyes for a brief moment, hating himself for his next words. “We may have to ditch.”

More silence, and then a lone radio call. “Well shit, there goes my date tonight,” Thompson grumbled.

Taylor chuckled in spite of himself. “Look at it this way, Sergeant. You’ll have a real wowser of a story to impress her back to your side again this time.” He sighed slowly, rubbing his left palm over his face. “Okay. Here’s the deal. Keep an eye on your fuel gauges. Anybody hits ten gallons before we see land, sing out. You all remember your ditching procedures?”

A chorus of affirmative calls answered him. “Great. Okay, the trick is, stick close. We don’t want to run into each other when we hit the water, but if we don’t stay close, we’re gonna get separated. And I’m not gonna go looking for any of you bozos in the dark, got it?”

“It’s those sweet words of yours that make me want to follow you anywhere, Charlie,” Stivers voice sounded. “Thanks so much for caring.”

“Watch it, or I may decide to leave you… what the hell?” The clouds ahead had formed into one dark mass, and it began roiling about even as he stared at it. “Flight, break break, drop under that shit ahead of us.” It looked like no thunderstorm cell Taylor had ever seen, and it was getting closer rapidly, much more rapidly than his own speed could account for.

“Sir, electronics are going haywire and... what the hell is that?!” George Devlin, his gunner, had craned around and was peering over Taylor’s shoulder. “Sir, look out!

Taylor looked up from his altimeter and saw a halo of light reaching out for him, filling the sky from horizon to horizon. “Oh my God...”

←---------------------------------------------------------------→

Staff Sergeant Howell Thompson blinked.

What just happened? And where did all of these clouds come from?

“Hey, Howell, you okay there?” Thompson realized someone was asking him a question. “Howie, wake up man!”

“George? What... What happened?”

“I don’t know, How. But whatever it was, it knocked out our radio." Sergeant George Paonessa, the radioman/navigator, sat in the middle seat of the three-seat plane in front of Thompson.

The rear gunner tried to look over his shoulder at his fellow crewmember and felt a sudden wave of vertigo. “Shit. Why is the plane spinning?”

“Because you hit your head when we hit some turbulence. We really need to toughen you up.” Paonessa was still fiddling with the controls of the radio. “Come on, you little—”

A gasp from their pilot interrupted their conversation “What the...” Captain Powers was staring, slack-jawed, out of the windscreen in front of him.

“What’s up, Cap’?” George said as he looked over to the cockpit for a better view. A second gasp met Thompson’s ears. His curiosity piqued in spite of the nausea that swept over him in waves, Thompson turned from his gunner's position to see what looked to be an explosion in front of their aircraft. “Jesus Almighty, is that flak? The hell? We’re over friendly ground and the war is over!” There was a lingering light that could be seen faintly through the clouds. As a second explosion appeared much closer to them, Captain Powers started to take evasive maneuvers to avoid being hit.

Thompson could barely see fifteen feet in front of him; between the tight formation the bombers were in and the wild jinking their aircraft was doing, he had no idea how the Captain was going to avoid crashing into the other Avengers. “Wait, isn’t that a mou —” Thompson was cut off as the aircraft shook violently as if gripped by a giant fist. He dimly noticed a large piece of something blue, one edge glittering bright with raw steel, flipping past his turret and vanishing behind them. The airplane veered violently, and he caught a glimpse of a large, rocky peak moving past, its upper limits obscured by cloud and mist.

“We’re hit!” The Captain yelled, “Mayday! Mayday! This is FT-36, we’re going down! Mayday! Mayday!”

Thompson couldn’t entirely comprehend the situation as his vision slowly receded. Wasn’t there a wing on the port side a minute ago? He heard a noise that he thought vaguely resembled speech. The gunner’s vision continued to black out as the spinning aircraft forced all of the blood from his upper body downward.

Since when are there mountains in Florida? he thought, and then darkness swept over his senses.

←---------------------------------------------------------------→

Twilight Sparkle sat on the balcony perched high above her library, staring through the telescope she had personally had installed there. The instrument was much larger than the average scope you could pick up at the Odds and Ends shop over on Threeshoes Avenue here in Ponyville; she had custom ordered it before she had moved here from Canterlot and had been thrilled when she first gazed through the mirrored tube at the night sky. Planets, comets, constellations, they were all readily visible through the precision instrument, and the unicorn could easily spend the entire night watching the skies, as long as the weather ponies cooperated and gave her a clear line of sight.

The clouds were obscuring her vision this evening, however, and she quickly became flustered. "Gah! Why did the Pegasi forget to clear the skies tonight? I wanted to look at the stars!" She smacked the telescope with her hoof and it spun on its pedestal. Emitting a slow sigh, she looked back up into the sky through the open window and thought of a particularly unpleasant word or two that she rarely spoke out loud. The clouds were thick as ever, blocking her beautiful night.

Off in the distance, a light flashed once and vanished. Then it happened again.

Twilight blinked and looked closer. She still saw it. Strobing red and green lights soared far off in the distance, fading out and brightening again as they moved through the dense cloud bank. The unicorn straightened her telescope out and angled it towards the lights, peering intently through the lens. She couldn't see much through the clouds, but she counted a total of five green lights and five red lights that seemed paired up independently of one another; each set would flash in unison, but out of time with the other sets.

Sitting back on the short, three-legged stool she used while stargazing, Twilight mulled the odd vision over in her mind for a moment. "Hey Spike, come here and have a look at this, would you?"

"What is it, Twilight?" Spike asked. The baby dragon’s voice floated up from the second floor of the library below her.

"There's flashing lights in the sky and I don't know what they are!" Twilight groused.

"Twi, if you don't know what they are, how would I?" Spike replied lazily. "Besides, I'm in bed!"

"Would you just come over here and look already?" Twilight yelled.

"Fine, fine," Spike grumbled. He slowly drew himself from his bed and walked up the stairs to the observation level. Meandering over, he peered down into the telescope. "Twi, I don't see nothin’."

"What do you mean? The lights were there a moment ago!" Twilight’s eyebrows drew together in confusion, a thin line furrowing the soft purple fur directly underneath her horn. She looked back out into the night sky and to her surprise, the lights had moved somewhat. She angled the telescope accordingly and told Spike to look again.

"Oh, I see now... Yeah, I don't know what they are. Can I go back to bed now?" He asked, stifling a yawn. He was looking out at the sky with sleepy eyes when a pair of small lights erupted into a giant fireball. "Whoa!" He quickly stared through the telescope again before another explosion blossomed through the clouds. "Look, Twilight!"

Next Chapter: Chapter 1: The Perfect Storm Estimated time remaining: 13 Hours, 5 Minutes
Return to Story Description

Login

Facebook
Login with
Facebook:
FiMFetch