HORNET BAY
FLIGHT LOG
← ALL ENTRIES

Eyes of the fleet: an E-2C overhead, and a wingman on your wing 743e180

FEATUREAIRCRAFTAI The Hornet Bay E-2C Hawkeye in the aircraft gallery — rotodome edge-on above the fuselage, quad tail, both props turning

The pattern over the bay just got crowded — in the best way. One push brings five new regulars to the airspace, a fix for the Tomcat’s manners, and a voice for the Phoenix:

  1. You no longer launch alone. Every mission sortie now catapults you with an assigned wingman — VIPER TWO — off the deck 2.6 km behind you, joining on your right wing (90 m abeam, 70 m back) as you climb out. He covers a 12 km bubble around you, takes the shot when he has it — real AMRAAMs, real kills — and when a bandit gets on his six he jinks and calls for help: you’ll hear him on the radio and see TWO: DEFENSIVE! flash amber on the HUD.
  2. You can task him. The backquote key (`) opens the wingman orders card: ATTACK MY TARGET, COVER ME, FORM UP, RETURN TO BASE — 1–4 issues the order and he executes to the best of his ability, acknowledging on the radio. (The comma key, our first choice, turned out to be the rudder. He’s a good wingman, but he can’t fly two planes.)
  3. The cruiser’s helicopter actually flies. An SH-60 Seahawk spools up on the guided-missile cruiser’s aft deck, lifts, flies a four-leg circuit around the group, then comes home and lands on a moving deck — the approach math chases the ship itself, steaming at 15 knots. Five new helipads — SFO, Oakland, Moffett, Alameda and the SF Heliport downtown — host shuttle helicopters running pad-to-pad across the bay.
  4. A P-3 Orion works the sea lanes. Twelve kilometres west of the group she flies an 11×5 km oval at 500 feet, MAD boom out, hunting submarines — and every couple of minutes she breaks off to make a visual inspection pass 400 m abeam of a surface contact, announcing each run on the radio.
  5. SCREWTOPS is on station. An E-2C Hawkeye from VAW-123 orbits the bay at angels 23, rotodome turning, and calls the fight the way a real Hawkeye does: BOGEY with clock code, miles and angels when a hostile closes; CIVIL TRAFFIC when an airliner conflicts with your altitude; a FRIENDLIES round-up and a full PICTURE every couple of minutes. Bullseye is Alcatraz — check in and she’ll tell you so herself.
  6. Housekeeping for the Tomcat. Her swing-wings now sweep the right way — aft, hugging the fuselage, not forward like a duck (a rotation-sign bug, caught and fixed) — and the contrail tips follow the gloves as they travel. The Phoenix found its voice too: selecting AIM-54 now gets the same spoken callout as Sidewinder, AMRAAM and guns. All three new birds are in the gallery, which now hangs fourteen aircraft.