I'm not sure where the term comes from. I just
know that every carrier pilot knows what it means. And nearly everyone who
hasn't had a "night in the barrel" lives in fear of the night that the bill
comes due.
And everyone that has,
understands...
In the summer of 1987 I was deployed to the
North Arabian Sea - a fresh graduate of the FA-18 training squadron, a "nugget,"
I was new to all of the experiences of the fleet. My official mentors were the
department heads and senior officers: the XO and CO. But my real mentors, the
ones who taught me the essential survival skills of the junior officer, were my
JO brothers.
Some of them were
nearly three years senior to me. Some only a matter of months. It didn't matter:
They were the collective voice of experience, and I was an empty vessel, waiting
to be filled. There were many things to learn. Including the meaning of the
whispered phrase, "night in the
barrel."
Maybe you'll get to see
someone else have one - you'll be in the ready room watching the evening's movie
when the word comes down from the watch that Lieutenant Scratchensniff is having
a hard time. You'll pause the movie and turn on the PLAT - the pilot's landing
aid television - in order to watch the whole thing. Sometimes it can be a real
circus. A real hoot. Pass the
popcorn.
I've written before about
landing aboard the carrier, how hard it can be. I've written too about doing it at night - something that is still for
me, and ever more will be, the hardest thing that a person can routinely be
called upon to do. I've told you before how the expectation is for first-attempt success , that anything else is
frowned upon. But I don't know if I've ever shared with you how much of this is
skill (a fair amount) and how much is confidence (a very great deal more).
And what happens when a temblor in
the former can lead to a collapse of the
latter.
Because when that happens, my
friends, you are on your way to experiencing your own personal night in the
barrel. And the scary thing, for a tailhook aviator, is that he never quite
knows when it's going to happen.
It
can start out innocently enough. You come back to the ship for your night trap,
call the ball and get a "foul deck" wave-off. It's too bad - you could wish it
hadn't happened. Flying the approach is difficult, draining, and if you had your
way, you'd only do it once on any given evening. But a foul deck can happen -
maybe the guy ahead of you was slow getting out of the wires, and getting clear.
Maybe there was some miscommunication in one of the arresting gear engines and
the weight setting wasn't just right. Maybe some momentarily amazed flight deck
crewman or maintenance man tripped over a tie down chain in the darkness, and
stumbled across the foul line and into the landing area. Doesn't matter - all
that matters is that the deck wasn't clear, the wave-off lights came on, and you
get to do it again.
No big deal. It
happens.
And maybe that was the night
that you were having a bit too much fun and didn't bring back quite as much fuel
as you would have liked, in a more nearly perfect world. Or your tanker went down , so you didn't get any
mission gas. Or the launch took longer than it really ought to have. Doesn't
matter - all that matters is that you are a little lower on the gas than you'd
really like to be. And so you're very highly motivated to get aboard next time.
Before you make a third approach - one in which you
have
to land. Because you're a fleet pilot doing blue water operations and there
isn't anywhere else to go. It's either land or
swim.
So you make your second
approach and when you think you've got the deck made the ball starts to settle
down just a little bit and you let it, because, hey - if CNO didn't want you to
catch the one wire, he wouldn't have put it there. But the LSO is there to serve as quality control,
and from his point of view, you haven't got the fantail made, so he gives you a
couple of emphatic power calls. And as you know full well, there's nothing
harder to do than to get back up to glideslope on a carrier approach and not
overshoot through it in close, leading to a
"Bolter,
bolter!"
Gah.
Now
you feel the first tickle of doubt, the first itch of fear. Sure, you've got one
more look before you need to go to the tanker. But hitting the tanker is a sign
of professional failure - you're supposed to be able to do this the first time
at least 90% of the time, at night. It's the minimum standard. You get paid
extra, for this. There's a certain
expectation.
You know that deep
within the bowels of the ship, the senior officer observation machinery has been
activated, that countless sets of slitted eyes now fix on your side number on
the grease board, on your name beside that side number, that lips are being
pursed and opinions formed. In the carrier air traffic control center, the
skilled approach controllers talk to the overhead tanker in tones of quiet but
professional urgency, giving him your positional data in the pattern - if you
bolter or get waved off again, the tanker pilot's job is to be waiting for you
at one o'clock and 2000 feet with the refueling drogue extended - just where
you'd want him to be.
But you don't
want to go to the tanker - going to the tanker means failure, and you're a
fighter pilot and fighter pilots are not allowed to fail. It means that while
the rest of the recovery is complete, 5000 men and women have the time to
silently contemplate your contribution to the team effort. And maybe find it
lacking.
But sometimes tankers go
"sour" - the refueling gear, routinely checked immediately after launch,
sometimes fail in flight. And if you bolter again, or get waved off, you go to
the tanker and get however much gas he can spare, but it will never be enough to
make you comfortable, only enough for another couple attempts. Worst case you
get to the tanker and find that it is sour - in that case you are committed to
either a barricade landing or ejecting alongside.
A
barricade arrestment is even more dangerous than a "normal" trap, if they allow
you to try it - the aircraft itself will suffer enormous damage - the barricade
net is designed to stop the aircraft, not to coddle it. And the landing geometry
is daunting, especially at night. The barricade is designed for aircraft that
can't arrest normally, like the A-4 whose landing gear didn't come down in the
photograph above. Not for stone-handed plumbers who style themselves as fighter
pilots.
Not at
night.
And ejecting alongside? The
ultimate failure. The Navy gave you a jet, and you couldn't bring it back. Even
with all your expensive training. Even with everyone else trying to help you.
What was the number of that truck
driving school?
So when your third
look at the deck comes around, you're very highly motivated to make the bad
thing stop. Because even if the tanker is "sweet" rather than sour, there's
nothing to say it's going to get any easier afterwards, and you're starting to
doubt yourself. Starting to wonder if this is still possible. Starting to wonder
what they're saying down there, on the ship. Starting to wonder why you hadn't
joined the Air Force, with their lovely 10,000 foot runways, firmly cemented
into place.
And at this point, it's
not unlike gambling - they guy who's playing black jack, has tons of money, and
nothing to fear? He'll hit on 16, catch a 4 and win. The guy who needs a seven
to make his 14 into a 21, so he can win and make his mortgage payment? He'll
draw a ten.
Busted.
Because
when you really, really need to get aboard, is precisely that moment when
everyone knows that you really, really want to get aboard. And what they know,
and you don't, is that wanting and needing are not at all the same thing.
So you work your butt off on the
third approach but you're feeling a little tired, a little nettled, more than
just a little bit concerned. And most of all you don't want to bolter, so when
the ball starts to rise in the middle of the approach you pull power and bunt
the nose because, by God, you're not going around again.
Except that the LSO has seen quite
enough, thank you, as the engines sound like they're shutting down and you're
moving the airplane around like you're having a seizure. So the wave-off lights
come on again - not because the deck is foul this time, but because you're
flying like a kid playing a video game rather than a naval aviator. And the LSO
isn't paid to gratify that sort of thing with a
landing.
And as you stare for a
moment, unbelieving at the cognitive level even as your well trained hands ram
the throttles to the stops and rotate the aircraft to the flyaway attitude, the
controller comes up with a voice of dulcet sweetness and informs you, as though
it were the most natural thing in the world, that your tanker is at 1 o'clock,
two miles, angels two. And asks you to report him in
sight.
Oh, yeah, precious. It's a
night in the barrel. Only this time you're not watching it, safe in the ready
room, smirk on your face and popcorn in your hand.
No.
This time you're on
stage.
Posted @
08:43 PM
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Posted in
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Sendit
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Credo
"Sign on, young man, and sail with me. The stature of our homeland is no more than the measure of ourselves. Our job is to keep her free. Our will is to keep the torch of freedom burning for all. To this solemn purpose we call on the young, the brave, the strong, and the free. Heed my call, Come to the sea. Come Sail with me." - John Paul Jones
"Pardon him, Theodotus; he is a barbarian, and thinks that the customs of his tribe and island are the laws of nature" --George Bernard Shaw, "Ceasar and Cleopatra"
"And those who were seen dancing were thought to be insane by those who could not hear the music."--Friederich Nietzsche
