Of nuts and bolts, and living things

Posted on Sun 22nd Apr, 2018 @ 12:09pm by Captain Ranulf MacBain
Edited on on Sun 22nd Apr, 2018 @ 12:32pm

2,473 words; about a 12 minute read

Mission: Brushfires
Location: Ranulf's quarters
Timeline: 3-5 MD

ON:

==MD3==
Ranulf woke early as usual, he donned sweats and went for his morning run. Forty-five minutes and five miles later he returned having seen a couple decks on the base. He had waved and said hello to people he passed, not that awful many that early. He showered before dressing for the day. Over breakfast he read over his duty roster, checking who was flying and when. He noticed a lot of transfers were going to happen over the next ten days. He also noted he had three pilots from other squadrons on loan. He saw he had fourteen fresh from the Academy 2ndLieutenants arriving on the (MD5). He also had thirty new arrivals for his Tech section. So about half the people would be changing as he took command. He went down over the list ofpilots leaving to see if this was a normal event of a question of his appointment.

The first three did not make him feel any better, all three were senior 1stLieutenant's who had not been given the Squadron and were leaving by request. Four more pilots were leaving requesting assignment with one of those three. The next four he felt better about as they had requested ship duty and it was a normal rotation thing. With the three pilots returning to their own squadrons that was the pilots leaving. He now looked at who was left. He had two 1stLieutenants, recently promoted and made flight leaders. He had seven 2ndlieutenants with three as acting flight leaders. He went over the records of each checking stats on their flying reports and the last fitness report of each. He had a couple cowboys but for the most part these were a good lot. He briefly went over his fourteen replacements which did not take too long as they were all coming straight from the academy. he noted gunnery scores and flight scores of each which he would use to place them into flights.

Now he looked at his techs. He was losing half of his plane captains, an even twelve. He had an equal number of promotion recommendations and inbound Sergeants so that looked okay. His senior Sergeant was staying, one Gunny John Harris. He sent him a message for a meeting on the flight deck at 1300hrs. The rest of his techs he was losing experience and gaining youthful energy. A little rearranging would balance the experience out and should not affect readiness at all. He checked tech scores of his new people and was not worried after seeing the quality of the new people he was receiving. So the morning was spent checking over his current status. He was not due to take over till the (MD9) so he had a few days before he needed to take command.

He walked down to the flight deck and spent time talking to some of the Techs that were staying mostly. He ate lunch with a few pilots in the pilot lounge. He put himself on the schedule to fly a morning CAP on two days (MD5-and-MD6). After lunch he was looking at his Raptor when Gunny Harris showed up.

"You wanted to see me Sir?" Gunny Harris was fit and it was the first thing you noticed. He had an aura of strength and competence about him.

Ranulf smiled offering his hand to shake "Gunny you are the senior NCO and I want you to be my senior Tech. I saw your pilot is leaving and I wanted to ask you if you would be my plane captain. If you accept I want to go over the tech team and ask you about team placements. I imagine you know there will be a lot of turnover soon."

Gunny Harris nodded with a grim smile "thanks for the vote of confidence Captain. The answer is yes to all. The teams need redone and I would be glad to be your plane captain." With so many people leaving he had considered the new commander might feel it was a reflection on his leadership. He had suspected he might be replaced as senior tech by someone else.

The two men walked Raptor to Raptor going over the daily maintenance sheet of each one. Two were out on a CAP and as Ranulf had heard from the Colonel those were 24/7 on five hour flights, a half hour overlap on each end of a patrol. Next they checked the four reserve Raptors, replacement fighters on hand if needed. That had taken most of the afternoon but they ordered in Chinese for dinner and went to the office to go over the Tech personnel placements. He had four solid Staff Sergeants and eight Sergeants as plane captains. Inbound he had twelve Sergeants but a few had questionable records. Seems two were rather rowdy. They worked well into the evening discussing personalities known and skill levels. The new team placements would be posted on the (MD6). Ranulf liked Gunny Harris and felt he would be able to work with him easily. Having a tech leader who saw eye to eye with you was a most if you were going to be successful. Gunny Harris had good ideas and was strong willed enough to speak his mind.

Ranulf left the flight deck and ran on the marine country track before going to his quarters to shower and bed.

==MD4==

Ranulf woke before his alarm and dressed in sweats went for his morning run. He picked two different decks so he got to see more of the base. After his run he stopped at one of the nearest gyms to his quarters for a two hour work-out. He did a complete workout and went through several kata as a cool down. Back at his quarters he showered and dressed for the day. Today he and Gunny would be doing inventory on parts and ordinance. Every inbound leader had to do something akin to this. He had to verify he was accepting responsibility for a certain amount of equipment and supplies. He ate a breakfast sandwich on the way to the flight deck. He was not in command as yet but he checked the daily reports anyway. Gunny met him in his office and they went to the parts storage first. They took a noon-time break for lunch, about a half hour. They ate with some of the techs. Ranulf had the feeling morale was good, hard work and constant pressure was not getting them down. They all wanted more free time, some wanted to know why the other could not take a half day every so often. Ranulf made note oft hat and promised to speak to the Colonel first chance he got.

The afternoon was spent checking ordinance. Dates and safety codes were verified and it looked like an early quit when one of the departing 1stLieutenant's came striding toward Ranulf. Ranulf was flying with him and his wingman in the morning and he half expected some sort of confrontation. "See you tomorrow Gunny, have my Raptor ready for the 0530 launch." He nodded as Gunny Harris acknowledged the order and left. Ranulf walked on toward the angry Lieutenant forcing the lieutenant to stop or run into Ranulf. It was a bit childish bit Ranulf was curious how far the other officer would push. It was pleasant to see he was not going to be overly belligerent.

"Captain MacBain I saw you added tourself to my last flight here on the base. Am I to assume you are taking over?" His expression and tone were both angry but under control.

"Not at all Lieutenant, As I marked the roster I will be flying with you as an observer only. I thought it best to fly with you to see the patrol route first hand. Anything else Lieutenant?" Ranulf kept a neutral expression and a friendly tone of voice. He had no reason to be angry plus he would not feed into this officer's taunt. When the Lieutenant had nothing more to add Ranulf walked away. He ran on the marine country track another five mile run. he did the run in thirty-three minutes and walked it off as he returned to his quarters. He showered and had dinner delivered. He ate going over fitness reports of the pilots remaining here. The ones departing were someone else's problem.

==MD5==

Ranulf was on the flight deck at 0845hrs for a 0930hrs launch. He checked his Raptor over with his tech crew getting to know the men who would be keeping him alive. When the time came Ranulf followed standard procedures preparing and positioning for launch. The two other pilots raced off burning the deck with a rapid accelerating launch. Ranulf lifted and made a standard launch, he had been taught and believed showing off like that was bad form. It also made more work for people who had enough to do already. He was behind as he went into the black but he took an interception angle and accelerated at a safe pace catching up in short order.

The Flight leader called over the comm =^=What is the problem Captain? You need to keep up Sir." His tome was disparaging. He made a few hard turns still showing off.

=^=No problem Lieutenant. I am here now and that is what matters.-^= Ranulf followed the hard turns without any real effort. The flight continued much like that for the next four and a half hours. Hard turns with little to no warning. The Lieutenant's wingman was left in the dust a few times but Ranulf stayed in position like he was glued there. The next CAP checked in so they turned to head for the barn.

The Flight leader had a snarky tone as he came on the comm =^=We are relieved, a small navigation test Captain. Each of us picks our course back to the base and the first one to arrive is the winner. Say for a beer in the pilot's lounge?=^=

Ranulf laughed before responding, opening his comm line =^=As long as you break no pattern rules I agree to the race Lieutenant. Break base pattern rules and you forfeit though. you call the start, it is your idea.=^= Ranulf began checking the possible routes even as he was speaking. The obvious was a straight through course but he checked traffic and there were two inbound freighters in the pattern to slow you down. He selected a more indirect route that would take twenty seconds longer normally but should be nearly a full minute quicker with the traffic problems.

The Lieutenant called the start and both he and his wingman raced off on the most direct path to the base. The Lieutenant was laughing when he saw Ranulf breaking off to Port. His laughter did not last long as he was ordered by flight control to watch his speed in the traffic pattern. The Lieutenant was pissed and felt he had been cheated somehow. He was sure somehow the new Captain had deceived him? he broke off and tried to make an end run but the curse was even more round about. His wingman, a 2ndLieutenant knew the race was lost and flew on in patiently going with the traffic pattern.

Ranulf landed with the hand of a professional hovering over the deck once in the bay and sliding into his bay. He lowered onto the struts with out a bounce before shutting down. He was still shutting down when the 2ndLieutenant came into the bay and sort of flopped down on the deck. The deck hands had to use the grav cart to shift the raptor into the bay. Raulf was feet on the deck when the Element lead landed with a bounce and skid. He was furious but he took care of his raptor before leaving the bay, he never approached MacBain.

Gunny Harris was chuckling as the pilot left the deck. "Good thing he is leaving Captain, he is the type to hold a grudge."

Ranulf shrugged "With the schedule demands no sense in worrying about that even if he was staying. Lets get the post flight done I have to go over scheduling and pilot performance records. I want to establish a scoring system for launch and recovery as well. Bonus points for pilots who can park their ride." Both men smiled as they wrapped up the diagnostic.

Gunny Harris tilted his head "remember Captain your replacements arrived today. The pilots leaving will be anxious to pack up so they can leave on the next outbound transport."

"Thanks Gunny, I will set the meeting for 2000hrs. Give the pilots time to check in, baselines, and drop off their kit in their billets. I can meet with the techs in the morning, say 1500hrs." With the Gunny's nod Ranulf went to his office. Time to put his flights of four together and write up his schedule for patrols. It was well after dinner he had things in hand. He filed his report and sent it up to Wellington. His CAP scheduled was three days on and three days for being on alert, training, and a day off. With such an aggressive schedule of missions one day off in six was even going to be hard to maintain.

So the schedule looked like this with his flights just numbered 10 to 60, he had flight 10 and his XO had flight 40. So MD6,7,8 would look like this:
Pilots 11 and 12 arrival 0500, Launch 0530, patrol 0600 to 1000, recover 1030, post flight without problem till 1100. Pilots shift ends
Pilots 13 and 14 arrival 0900, Launch 0930, patrol 1000 to 1400, recover 1430, post flight without problem till 1500. Pilots shift ends
Pilots 21 and 22 arrival 1300, Launch 1330, patrol 1400 to 1800, recover 1830, post flight without problem till 1900. Pilots shift ends
Pilots 23 and 24 arrival 1700, Launch 1730, patrol 1800 to 2200, recover 2230, post flight without problem till 2300. Pilots shift ends
Pilots 31 and 32 arrival 2100, Launch 2130, patrol 2200 to 0200, recover 0230, post flight without problem till 0300. Pilots shift ends
Pilots 33 and 34 arrival 0100, Launch 0130, patrol 0200 to 0600, recover 0630, post flight without problem till 0700. Pilots shift ends

With flight 40 on alert MD6, training MD7 and off duty MD8, replacing flight 10 on MD9
With flight 50 off duty MD6, on alert MD7 and training MD8, replacing flight 20 on MD9
With flight 60 training MD6, off duty MD7 and on alert MD8, replacing flight 30 on MD9.

MacBain put the finishing touches on his flight organization he decided to grab a quick dinner before his meeting with the pilots. He checked on his new pilots and they were all aboard, check-in, and had been run through baselines like a cattle call. He had fourteen new 2ndLieutenant pilots, Twelve tech-SGTs, as well as eighteen newly graduated Techs. Seven if the Techs had been promoted to LanceCorporal though so he had top performers even if green. He ate a late dinner in the messhall doing some last minute double checking.

OFF:

 

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