Henry Cobb hadn’t heard all the stories about the Old Dog mission — he had of course met all the survivors of that mission, most of whom worked — some called it “exiled” — at the HAWC, and he had seen the first Megafortress itself after Ormack and McLanahan flew it from Alaska back to Dreamland — but he could guess that it was some event in that mission that starred in McLanahan’s bad dreams.
Both men quickly washed up in the lavatory down the hall, then returned to their rooms to dress. Despite the warm, muggy afternoon, they donned thin, fire-resistant long underwear and thick padded socks under their flight suits. Under the long underwear were regular cotton briefs and T-shirts.
They wore metal military dog tags next to their skin so they wouldn’t rattle or fly loose during ejection. Many crew members laced dog tags into their boots as well, because many times lower body parts survived aerial combat better than upper body parts. They both carried survival knives in ankle sheaths, lightweight composite-bladed knives with both straight and serrated edges, a built-in magnetic compass in the butt cap, and a watertight compartment in the handle that carried waterproof matches, fishing line, sunscreen, a small signal mirror, and a tiny first-aid and survival booklet. In thigh pockets they carried another knife, this one attached to their flight suits by a six-foot-long cord — this knife was a legal switchblade knife with a hook blade for cutting parachute risers. The thigh pocket also contained a vial with earplugs, which were often mistaken by curious nonflyers for suicide pills.
They carried no wallets, at least not the same ones they carried normally. Into a specially prepared nylon “sortie” wallet they placed their military identification cards, some cash, credit cards, and traveler’s checks — these were many times more valuable than the “blood chits” used to buy assistance during earlier wars. During the intelligence briefing before a mission, they would receive “pointee-talkee” native language cards and small escape-and-evasion maps of the area, which both went into the sortie wallet.
Just about every pocket in a flight suit contained something, usually personal survival items devised after years of experience. In his ankle pockets, Patrick carried fireproof Nomex flying gloves, extra pencils, and a large plastic Ziplok bag containing a hip flask filled with water and a small vial with water purification tablets. Cobb took a small Bible, a flask of some unidentifiable liquid, and included an unusual multipurpose tool that fit neatly inside his sortie wallet. They packed up their charts, flight manuals, and other documents in a Nomex flying bag, picked up a lightweight nylon flying jacket — which had its own assortment of survival articles in its pockets — and departed.
While they were up on the upper-floor “catwalk” in the hangar, they had a good opportunity to look at the EB-52C escort bomber that was in the hangar with their B-2. Unlike the B-2, where there was little activity, the technicians and munitions maintenance crews were swarming around the Megafortress like worker bees in a hive.
It had to be the weirdest plane — and the most deadly looking plane — either of them had ever seen. The long, sleek, pointed nose was canted down in taxi position, with the aerodynamically raked windscreens looking Oriental and menacing. The dorsal SAR synthetic aperture radar radome, which ran from just aft of the crew compartment and ended in a neat fairing that blended back into the fuselage and the diagonal stabilators near the aft end, made the Megafortress seem broad-shouldered and evil, like some warlock’s hunchbacked assistant. The pointed aerodynamic tip tanks, two on each wingtip, looked like twin stilettos challenging all comers, like lowered lances held by charging knights on horseback. Short low-drag pylons mounted between the inboard engine nacelles and the ebony fuselage on each side held six AIM-120 Scorpion air-to-air missiles, their red ground- safety streamers still visible.
Faired under the wings were sensor pods that contained laser target designators, infrared scanners, telescopic cameras for long-range air-target identification, and millimeter- wave radars to scan for large metallic objects hidden by trees or fog that normally could not be picked up by other sensors, such as tanks and armored vehicles. This was one of the older Megafortress escort bombers — it still had the older, conventional metal wings that drooped so far down that the wingtips were only a few feet above the ground and had to be supported by “pogo” wheels. The new Megafortress wings were made of composite materials and wouldn’t sag one inch, even fully loaded with fuel and weapons.
