Chapter 22: FIGMO

February was just as bitter and cold as January, if not worse. The excitement from the Outstanding Inspector General rating for the fighter wing overall, and an Excellent rating for the Juvats, died off quickly as the task of getting back to work was at hand. Wedge had four fliers that had live fires on their guns today. He had a crew ready to do clean and lube and another crew ready to reload the ammo drums. One by one the “shooters” came down and taxied into “The Flows”. The flows are eight shelters in a row with no back or front doors. They have fuel capability; the plane can taxi into the shelter and “hot pit” (take on jet fuel with the engine running) or they can park there. Since the flows face a huge berm of dirt and concrete designed to catch stray bullets, they’re perfect for arming up the guns. The F-16 carries just over 500 rounds of 20 mm ammo, and the six-barrel Gatling gun will fire them all in five seconds.

“Aw gross,” groaned Wedge. The left side of the shooters were covered with soot and grease from the guns firing. The gun is on the left side of the plane and the barrel mouths are aft of the cockpit and the burned powder was painting the left side of the plane just below the cockpit.

“Hey Wedge, come check this out!” said Don Davis, the head of the crew that was doing the reload. He pointed to a write-up in the aircraft forms. “Gun will not fire in left hand turn.” Wedge looked at the write up and the more he looked at it, the dumber it looked.

“Who wrote this up?” said Wedge as he got his pencil out of his pocket.

“Our favorite nuclear bomber,” grinned Don.

Wedge shook his head; the plane will not shoot in a left-hand turn by design. If you are turning left, you will turn into your ammo stream and you’ll shoot your own ass off. The dumbass pilot clearly tried to shoot himself in the back. Wedge signed off the write up, ‘Left turn sensor operational check good.’ Then he turned to Don and said, “How long until this thing is ready for gas?”

“Twenty minutes,” said Don as he connected the ammo loader to the aircraft gun. ‘Ready for gas’ means that all weapons activities are done, and they can put fuel on the plane.

Wedge turned to Juvat Super and said, “She’ll be weapons ready in fifteen minutes.” Don always pads his estimates. In fact, Don was done in ten minutes. Soon the aircrews for the next flights started showing up and Wedge was back in his position in Juvat Four. Juvat Seven, with Roxie at the wheel, was parked next to him. As he filled out his expenditure sheets, Wedge was also watching his crews, who were scattered about doing several tasks, fire guard, loading practice bombs, and changing argon bottles. Roxie was helping one of her techs with a troubleshooting issue when a pickup truck marked Juvat CC pulled up in front of the two trucks and the driver signaled with a crooked finger he wanted to talk to the drivers. Wedge hopped out and saw that Roxie didn’t notice, so he tapped on the door of her truck. She hopped out and followed him.

They stood next to their commander’s truck, and he rolled down the window. “Sergeant Donovan ... Left turn sensor ops check good?” The commander was trying not to smile. There really is no such thing as a Left Turn Sensor. It’s a G-Load sensor.