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I can remember like it was yesterday the first time I climbed on top of a Tomcat to preflight my first flight in the jet (VF-124, Miramar, 1990). I had just passed my final FAM (familiarization) simulator where the instructor is another pilot who signs off on me being able to fly the jet and THEN has to put his money where his mouth is and ride in the back seat. Bear in mind there was never a "T" (trainer) model of the Tomcat. Two seats, one stick, so the GIB (Guy in Back) has no way to control the airplane.
Some instructors were VERY reluctant to do these "trunk rides", one guy to the point that during your final check simulator he'd give you an unrecoverable emergency on takeoff (split flap one way, stuck spoilers on the other side) and you'd simulated "augur in " just past the runway, he'd give you a "pink sheet" (a downing flight/bad grades). Naturally, I got that guy.
So "Jethro" did the above to me and I was pretty upset since my performance had been really good up until that point. And this was a big deal; two "pinks" and you were gone. So I go back to the squadron to tell the Ops O ("Flex") to give him my pink sheet, ready to get savaged. I walk into Ops and get his attention, handing him the pink sheet (it was the pink page of a carbon copy stack, so actually pink). He looks at it, sees it's signed by "Jethro", crumples it up and throws it in the shit can saying ("Ffffff.........Jethro."). I was rescheduled for the next day with "Stainless", passed the check simulator and was on the schedule the next day for my first flight.
Nervous as hell but ready, the big idea for this flight is to man the jet up, get it started, get through all the post start checks (a legendarily daunting task....takes an hour your first time), get the beast airborne, do some maneuvers, come back for some touch and goes, and in general just don't fuck it up. Good plan.
So Stainless and I climb on top of the jet (for my first time) and says "This is why it's called the flying tennis court." The view was spectacular! This thing was HUGE compared to my last jet (T-A4J Skyhawk; length 40 feet, wingspan 27 feet and a wing area of 260 square feet). The Tomcat is 62 feet long, a max spread wingspan of 64 feet, and a wing area of 565 feet (in addition to the massive fuselage). A veritable MONSTER in comparison.
We'd learn a little later in the RAG how formidable that little A-4 could be in the hands of those (f**king) bogey drivers! And little did I know at the time, but I'd eventually be a RAG instructor myself, doing the very same "trunk rides". They were actually kind of fun, really. You got a chance to play with all that RIO shit, and the young pilots generally knew what they were doing by that point. And anyway, if it all went to shit I could always pull the "give-it-back-to-the-taxpayer handle".
I really valued my opportunity to show a young pilot his
or her first view of "the flying tennis court."
#TomcatTuesday
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