Stranger to the Ground

And as Ricochet Four I think of staying in formation and of nothing else, so that the flight will look good to the range officer in his spotting tower. I am acutely conscious that every other airplane in the flight is doing his best to make the flying easy for me, and to thank them for their consideration I must fly so smoothly that the credit will be theirs. Each airplane flies lower than Ricochet Lead, and Four flies closer to the ground than any of them. But to take even a half second to glance at the ground is to be a poor wingman. A wingman has complete total unwavering unquestioning faith in his leader. If Ricochet Lead flies too low now, if he doesn’t pull the formation up a little to clear the hill, my airplane will be a sudden flying cloud of dirt and metal fragments and orange streamers of flame. But I trust the man who is flying as Ricochet Lead, and he inches the formation up to clear the hill and my airplane clears it as though it were a valley; I fly the position that I am supposed to fly and I trust the Leader.

As Ricochet Four, I am stacked back and down to the left so that I can see up across the formation and line the white helmets of the other three pilots. That is all I should see and all I care to see: three helmets in three airplanes in one straight line. No matter what the formation does, I will stay with it in my position, keeping the three white helmets lined on each other. The formation climbs, it dives, it banks hard away from me, it banks toward me; my life is dedicated to do whatever is necessary with the throttle and the control stick and the rudder pedals and the trim button to stay in position and keep the helmets in line.

We are over the target panels and the radio comes to life.

“Ricochet Lead breaking right.” The familiar voice that I know well; the voice, the words, the man, his family, his problems, his ambitions; is this instant the sudden flash of a swept silver wing pitching up and away to begin a pattern of gunnery practice, to develop a skill in a special brand of destruction. And I have only two helmets to line.

When Lead pitches away, Ricochet Two becomes the formation leader. His helmet flicks forward from watching the first airplane to look straight ahead, and he begins to count. One-thousand-one, one-thousand-two, one-thousand-break! With his own sudden flash of smooth metal wing, Ricochet Two disappears, and I have the luxuriously simple task of flying formation on only one airplane. Whose pilot is now looking straight ahead. One-thousand-one, one-thousand-two, one-thousand-break! The flash of wing happens to Three, only a few feet from my own wing, and I fly alone.

My head locks forward with Three’s break, and I count. One-thousand-one isn’t it a pretty day out today there are just a few clouds for a change and the targets will be easy to see. It is good to relax after that formation. Did a good job, though, Two and Three held it in well one-thousand-two good to have smooth air this morning. I won’t have to worry about bouncing around too much when I put the pipper on the target. Today will be a good day for high scores. Let’s see; sight is set and caged, I’ll check the gun switch later with the other switches what a lonely place for someone to have to bail out. Bet there’s no village for ten miles around one-thousand-break!

In my right glove the control stick slams hard to the right and back and the horizon twists out of sight. My G-suit inflates with hard air, pressing tightly into my legs and stomach. My helmet is heavy, but with a familiar heaviness that is not uncomfortable. The green hills pivot beneath me and I scan the brilliant blue sky to my right for the other airplanes in the pattern.

There they are. Ricochet Lead is a little swept dot two miles away turning onto base leg, almost ready to begin his first firing run. Two is a larger dot and level, following Lead by half a mile. Three is just now turning to follow Two; he is climbing and a thousand feet above me. And away down there is the clearing of the gunnery range and the tiny specks that are the strafing panels in the sun. I have all the time in the world.

Gun switch, beneath its red plastic guard, goes forward under my left glove to guns, sight is uncaged and set to zero angle of depression. The gunfire circuit breaker is pushed down under my right index finger. I twist the thick black throttle with my left glove to bring the computed range for the gunsight down to 1,000 feet. And my grip on the control stick changes.