Years ago

...actually more than years ago.... we were graced by a new Navigator on the crew. He was a nice guy, presented himself well and was generally liked by the crew. And, as a navigator he did a passable job of getting us from point a to b.

There was just one problem. One bump and he was air sick. He soon became known for keeping a well used barf bag by his side. And there is nothing quite like the smell, and the sounds, of someone puking away a few feet from you. I can tell you honestly that I have never been airsick, or puked, in an aircraft, but on some of the flights he was with us I came close.

Part of the job of the navigator was to do plots using input from various pieces of equipment that would guide us to an area in which we would do Mad Traps.

Now a Mad Trap is done by trading altitude for airspeed, and coming across a certain spot at say, 50' above the water, then pulling the nose up trading airspeed for altitude while making a hard turn, come back across, but slightly ahead, the same location again trading altitude for airspeed, etc. This was called doing cloverleafs, and if successful you could pinpoint the location of the submarine. But it was tough hard work and could lead to such things as stalling the aircraft at such a low altitude that the results usually were fatal.

On this one particular exercise we were enjoying a fair degree of success when the sub gave us the slip. At that point the Patrol Plane Commander (PPC) said:

"Navigator, give me a heading to come back across where he was."

To which the reply was: "I don't know, sir."

I will leave the PPC's comment for history. Let's just say it was:

"Why in the &&^*))(*(*( not?"

The answer was: "I've been sick, sir."

That was his last flight with us.

And now you know why I have been "lost" for the past two days.

I hope that you stick around longer than the Navigator.