An Anomaly
January 15th, 2020 12:30 Hours
Four Years after receiving their wings, Rodrigo Senna and Anthony Diaz had been assigned to VF-31 famously known as the “Tomcatters”, the duo were taking part in their first sortie with the F-14E Super Tomcat 21. It felt like yesterday since the boys had recently received their wings and were a full fledged Tomcat crew. While they were sad to see the classic F-14D go away, a new era was set to begin with the arrival of the F-14E Super Tomcat 21 known affectionately as the Ultra Tomcat or Ultra Turkey by its pilots and ground crews.
“Okay, Roddy. It looks like the Gerald R. Ford will be taking us past the Florida Keys for some maneuvers with our buddies from the Marines and of course bombing some derelict ships that the Navy wants as artificial reefs. Hell we even have an AMRAAM onboard as well so if they send up a drone we can blast that too but I’ll leave that to you.”
“I’m sad to say goodbye to the old Delta model, but I’m glad we still can fly the Cat nonetheless. When they almost axed it, back in 2006, I almost had a heart attack.“, Rodrigo laughed. “Back then I already wanted to be a pilot, and not just any pilot, an F-14 pilot! But the possibility of the Navy retiring the Tomcat legit scared me.“, Sighed. “Good thing they knew it would be a mistake, those politicians trying to push the F-18 Super Hornet were almost successful. The story continues!”
“Thankfully we got the A-12 Avenger II instead.” Anthony took a deep breath because this was going to be a long one, “That’s what ended up replacing our Vikings, Corsairs, Intruders and Prowlers. Sadly the Tomcats days are still numbered because of that F-35C.”
“I heard that!” Added a pilot over the radio.
“Get off our frequency, Haye...” Anthony sighed, “Don’t you have a Lightning to be crashing, I mean flying?”
“Oh go have another compressor stall, you turkey-loving asshat!”
“That joke doesn’t work anymore, Earl...that was for the Alpha models only, with the TF-30′s, remember? Our F110′s don’t suffer from that issue, thank God!“, Rodrigo answered. “All jokes aside, I did hear about the F-35′s poor gun accuracy...damn shame.”
“That’s hurtful, man... at least we spend more time flying than sitting in the hangar looking pretty.“, Earl sighed.
“Cut it out, dude. The Tomcat is the only plane that was able to replace the A-6 for the long range strike missions. We shouldn’t be bashing ’em.” Jordan added in defense of the Tomcats.
“You should’ve just joined the Chair Force like your girlfriend did, Jordan. Maybe flying the Lawn dart I mean F-16 would’ve been better for you instead of the F-35.”
Anthony rolled his eyes and grabbed his checklist. Rodrigo ordered the crew chief to connect the power supply to their Tomcat. With the APU (Auxiliary Power Unit) turned on the boys began the startup procedures on their Super Tomcat. As the General Electric F110s roared to life they checked the cockpit warning lights and gauges to make sure everything was in the green as well as the flight controls to ensure that everything was good before ground supply was disconnected.
“Just ignore them, mano.” Rodrigo laughed
“Heh... doing my best.” Anthony replied before switching to the tower’s frequency, “Felix 1-0-1 requesting permission to taxi.”
“Felix 1-0-1, you are cleared to taxi to catapult 4.“, The airboss said.
“Copy that.” Anthony replied.
Anthony taxied the Tomcat to the fourth catapult and waited behind a US Navy F-35C which was preparing to launch. With the F-35C finally off the deck, he taxied to the shuttle and Rodrigo gave a thumbs up to the greenshirt holding the weight-board confirming that their weight was correct so the catapult could be calibrated to the catapult for launch. Once properly aligned, Anthony lowered the launch bar and the crew quickly attached the shuttle to it. With everything set, Anthony unswept the wings, lowered the flaps and checked his control surfaces.
“Roddy... you ready to rock?” Anthony asked, “And before we go... how’s about some music?”
“Sempre...sempre pronto, meu amigo!“, Rodrigo said in his second native language, Brazilian Portuguese. “Time to light up the speakers with something good!“, He laughed.
Rodrigo put Zone V by Meteor to play on the comms as the shooter gave the signal to launch. As the guitars kicked in, the boys saluted the shooter and Anthony applied military power. The F-14E was quickly shot off the deck and into the clear afternoon skies. Once airborne, Anthony retracted the flaps and landing gear and climbed to cruising altitude.
Once airborne, Anthony adjusted the Tomcat’s trim and set the autopilot accordingly for their destination and it was smooth flying the rest of the way. During the flight to the bombing range the duo decided to chat like usual in order to pass the time and prevent boredom as they flew over the endless sea.
“So how are you adjusting to the role of Mr. Naval Flight Officer?” Anthony asked
“A lot of responsibilities...but at least I get to chill a bit during flight.“, Rodrigo chuckled.
“You’ll get used to it... it comes with the officer rank. Both of us have to get used to commanding anyway but at least we’re simply Lieutenants. It gets harder once you reach Lieutenant Commander or Captain. By the way, change of subject.” Anthony said as he took another look at the GPS up front, “It looks like we’re approaching the Bermuda Triangle.”
“What about it? Do you believe in the stories?“, Rodrigo asked. “I don’t know if I do. I mean, it’s certainly weird how so many planes and ships were lost in this specific area, but now with high-precision GPS, weather surveillance and other things...I don’t know.“, Shrugged.
“There may be something out there. Shit has disappeared up in here, dude.” Anthony shook his head, “Hell remember that flight of Jarhead Lightnings that disappeared a couple of years back?” Anthony shook his head
“Oh, yes I remember it like it was yesterday, they were taking part in an exercise with us...and the Government acted like nothing happened. While the Marines may be our rivals they’re still family.“, Rodrigo gestured in disbelief.
“Well they are a department of the Navy....regardless It was probably a cover up...” Anthony scoffed, “Those pilots... they just said they crashed due to pilot error because of inclement weather which lead to spatial disorientation. I call bullshit on that..”
“I can’t blame them, I wouldn’t rest until I got solid answers from the Government if a friend or relative of mine just disappeared like that.“, Rodrigo crossed arms, thinking.
“Then there was that X-47C a few months back.” Anthony sighed, “But who cares? That’s just a drone. And then back in the early 80s there was the disappearance of two navy fighters from I think VF-2 or VFA-25 that disappeared almost a decade back when they were heading out to meet their carrier for training. Need I say more?”
“Okay, okay I get it!” Rodrigo said, raising his arms in surrender.
As the plane entered the infamous triangle a storm began to brew and the sky darkened reducing visibility and forcing both Rodrigo and Anthony to use Instrument Flight Rules or IFR. The noise of the rain and thunder was so loud that it was able to drown out the noise of the Tomcat’s engines. As they flew further into the storm it only worsened.
“Hey, Roddy I didn’t recall hearing about a storm in the weather brief.” Anthony said as he disabled the autopilot and took full control of the F-14.
“Me neither, put on your mask.“, Rodrigo ordered his friend as he put on his own oxygen mask. “How the hell did it go from clear to shitty in mere seconds?“, He checked the instruments, everything functioning normally so far.
Anthony quickly prepared for the worse case scenario, a possible ejection over water. They couldn’t believe what was before them as they proceeded deeper into the the storm: they began to experience severe turbulence, the Tomcat began to shake and Anthony fought to control the big fighter as it started to lose altitude...in a flat spin!
“Shit, we’re losing altitude!“, Anthony shouted.
“Oioioi, don’t pull a Top Gun on us, bro!“, Rodrigo said, worried.
Anthony tried to fight the Tomcat, the massive turkey bucking and protesting like an angry bull as he wrestled with it in order to keep it airborne. To make things worse, the spinning was making them pull several G’s to the side, increasing their effort to retain control.
“RAAAAAAAAISE, you puto!!“, Rodrigo screamed at the top of his lungs to the F-14, while Anthony cut power to the engines in hopes of pointing the nose down.
“Come on, you fucking stuffed turkey!“, Anthony yelled.
Fearing the inevitable, Anthony and Rodrigo lowered their sun visors and prepared to eject. As they prepared for their last resort, it was as if a miracle happened: the F-14 was beginning to respond and stopped spinning, the wings gaining lift once again. Not missing time, Anthony applied power back to the engines and pulled the stick hard, to regain altitude. When Rodrigo looked at the altimeter, they had lost over 10,000 feet, but things were about to get much worse: Anthony looked out of the cockpit canopy and the sky began to change color like an Aurora Borealis. It was some kind of energy vortex, looking like a massive tunnel...the Cat easily being pulled into it like a wad of dust into a vacuum cleaner. As the ordeal continued, all they could do was watch as the GPS went blank and the compass began to spin wildly failing to make heads or tails of their heading. Worried that the plane would crash, Anthony maintained a death grip on the stick. But soon the ordeal came to an end almost as quickly as it had began and the weather cleared up. Strangely, the surroundings were different. The Compass returned to normal, yet their GPS was no longer functional.
“Looks like we’re in the clear, but somehow the GPS fried. What the hell just happened?!“, Rodrigo looked around, skies were clear again. “Systems check, anything else non-functional?“, He asked Anthony.
Anthony took a few deep breaths and removed his oxygen mask.
“N-Negative, the GPS is fried but we still have our stores management system and basic flight instruments in full working order. Gotta love that Grumman quality, eh? Still in one piece...and the HUD works too.“, Anthony said, patting the glareshield.
After flying over what felt like a vast endless sea for several hours, Anthony and Rodrigo started to receive an audible warning from their AN/ALR-67 radar warning receiver. The threat was coming from three o’clock low indicating that it was a ship based air search radar.
“Something’s spiking us.” Anthony said, “Stay frosty, Roddy... we might have to take evasive action.”
“Felix 1-0-1, music on!” Rodrigo said.
Rodrigo switched on their ECM system in an attempt to jam the enemy radar and scanned the airspace for any potential threats; for all they knew, it could be someone toying with them. As he watched for any and all threats, a voice began to crackle over the radio, someone was tapping into their frequency. Minutes later, a short burst of tracers flew past the left side of their Tomcat.
“Das ist Hauptmann Weber vom Eisenblut. Lande dein Flugzeug sofort oder du wirst abgeschossen.” The pilot ordered in his native language.
“Roddy can you speak German?“, Anthony asked, “I only know a few words because my Dad was stationed in Germany before I was even born.”
“Even though I own a BMW, I just know the word NEIN!“, Rodrigo shouted in the end.
“Yeah... and I drive an Audi.” Anthony sighed.
Anthony then caught a glimpse of the aircraft that had intercepted him and his friend and much to his surprise it was a pair of ME-109Ts, a carrier-based variant of the BF-109 which never made it past the prototype stage.
“Holy shit, that’s a Messerschmitt!“, Anthony exclaimed
“Que porra é essa, how’s that even possible?!“, Rodrigo tried to acquire visual and finally saw them. “PUTA MERDA, it’s real!”
“Hell yeah and right now my instincts are telling me to show these guys what the Tomcat can do, Final Countdown style!“, Anthony replied.
“Wait, wait WAAAIT, this isn’t a good idea, what if they’ve got reinforcements? We can’t take them all down!“, Rodrigo protested while looking at the ME-109T’s in his rear view mirror. “...aaah, foda-se!“.
“Just trust me, okay?“, Anthony assured his friend.
“Just don’t get us killed, man...I wanna go home intact, not in a fucking body bag!“, Rodrigo complained.
Anthony put ‘A New Awakening’ by Killswitch Engage to play on his headset and Rodrigo deployed flares before breaking formation with the ME-109s. While the bandit did not carry missiles, he assumed that it would be enough to scare the enemy pilot and gain some distance. The two pilots switched to the M61 20mm and with the superior speed and climb rate of the Tomcat, they found them on the sixes of both Messerschmitts. Anthony squeezed the trigger and opened fire, splashing the first plane with the gun, but the first plane didn’t explode; instead, much to the surprise of the duo, it simply vanished into a puff of black smoke. Anthony then performed a high yo-yo maneuver and went after the second plane, selecting an AIM-9X and allowing Rodrigo to do the honors, who quickly finished off the second bandit using his helmet mounted sight. Upon the missile striking the target, the second ME-109T also vanished into a black puff of smoke.
“Time for some ground hugging!“, Anthony said with confidence. “We’re goin’ home, mano!”
With night falling, Anthony and Rodrigo were now in their element. Rodrigo switched on the Tomcat’s AN/APG-71(V3) AESA radar and switched to its terrain-following mode which it had recently received in its much deserved block II upgrade and then sent a duplicate over to Anthony’s right multi-function display.
“Hold on tight!” Anthony laughed as he rolled the F-14 and dropped altitude.
As Rodrigo saw the altimeter continue dropping like the hardest bass in a rave party and the airspeed going up like a Honda Civic hitting VTEC, “Ooooooooooh booooooooiii!!” was all he could say.
Hours later, the sun was beginning to rise and Rodrigo was awoken in the back seat by the bingo fuel warning. This threw Anthony into a bit of a panic and Rodrigo quickly pulled out his map and began plotting their course. Anthony checked his phone and saw that the clock was indicating 05:30 Hours, which meant that they had been flying for close to fifteen hours. Rodrigo quickly sat back into his ejection seat and grabbed the map from his knee board.
“Rodrigo, we’re running low on fuel and have to land ASAP. Also, we need to inspect our bird too after that stunt we pulled, we don’t know whether or not the airframe is compromised. Also that thunderstorm was pretty intense too.“, Anthony said
“I’m working on it...I still can’t see any landmarks as reference, and with the sun rising, I can’t get any guidance from the stars either. At least the compass seems to be working.“, Rodrigo gently knocked on the compass, which indicated they were heading West. “What’s our heading?”
“270. The sun coming up might help us a bit.“, Anthony sighed, “Maybe we’ll have a spot to land so we can send out a distress call.“, Anthony switched on his radio and sent out a burst transmission. “This is Lieutenant Anthony Diaz of the United States Navy, our F-14 is running low on fuel and we have been airborne for the past fifteen hours. We need to land, soon.“, Anthony then looked back at Rodrigo and motioned for his attention, “Help me out here!”
“We faced some unknown climate anomaly. Our GPS is fried too.“, Rodrigo went fishing; hoping to figure out where they were. “And some unknown ME-109′s! I don’t know how the hell that happened, but we faced two ME-109′s!”
Then, radio went live, which startled the two pilots. The air traffic controller spoke fluent english with an American accent, but seemed somewhat hostile. To make them easier to locate, Anthony switched on their transponder.
“Unidentified aircraft, you are in restricted airspace! Planes have been dispatched to your location, try to escape and you will be shot down!“, The ATC said.
“Looks like we got company. 9-o’clock, 10 miles!“, Rodrigo alerted him. “Diaz, can you see it?”
“I see it, Senna! Holy shit, they’re F4U Corsairs!”
Two F4U Corsairs approached from East, each one taking a flank of the F-14. “Follow us and don’t try anything stupid.“, One of the pilots ordered.
With nothing left to do, Anthony followed the two Corsairs to their base, towards North. And what a base it was! It looked nothing like they had ever seen; it was built into an island that looked far more artificial than it should, as if it could sustain a small city. As they followed the Corsairs, the duo made sure to keep a proper formation in order to prevent them from getting the wrong idea.
“Errrr, Control Tower, this is Felix 1-0-1 requesting clearance to land. I repeat, Control Tower, this is Felix 1-0-1, requesting landing clearance.”
The control tower remained silent and Rodrigo, seeing their F-14′s fuel state continuing to decline and approach reserve, had finally had enough.
“This is Felix 1-0-1, WE GOT NO FUEL AND WE GOTTA LAND NOW, DAMMIT!“, He shouted on the radio. There were a few seconds of silence, until a voice was heard again.
“Permission to land on runway 27.“, The tower responded.
“Thank you, Tower! Felix 1-0-1, coming hot!“, Anthony replied.
Anthony proceeded to put the flaps down to 100% and lower the landing gear. He then cut back the throttles and flared to land. Once on the ground, he gently applied braking pressure to slow their plane down to a safe taxi speed and then taxied to the parking area. When he shut down their engines, they were immediately surrounded by a group of Jeeps all carrying armed guards. It looked like things were going to get much worse and, strangely, the Corsairs that had escorted them were nowhere to be seen. Also, the guards were all girls!
Meanwhile, the base’s Commander was watching as her forces quickly surrounded the plane with their weapons drawn, hoping that their training would kick in and that they wouldn’t immediately kill the unknown pilots as they prepared to disembark from their plane. At the same time, she was also in awe of what had just landed at her base.
“South Dakota, please go down there and assure that they capture the pilots of that strange craft alive. We are going to need to interrogate them, after all. That craft may hold some valuable secrets or it may be a spy plane from the Red Axis. Regardless, we must get to the bottom of it.”
“With all due respect, it looks like something the Sirens would use, Commander. Regardless, I will go and check it out.“, South Dakota replied, saluting her commanding officer and leaving the room.
“An unknown spy plane...but if it’s from the Red Axis, why is it wearing such colors?“, She realized the F-14′s tails were painted with the same Felix The Cat patch from their VF-6 squadron.
