Pandemic Read Online Free Page B

to Mother?’
    ‘Negative,’ Richter snapped. ‘I need a long concrete runway to put this down on, not a steel postage stamp.’
    ‘Roger. Go to Guard and check in with Homer. Suggest you steer two four zero initially. I’ll accompany you. Snakes, Tiger Leader turning port and following Two. See you back on
board.’
    Richter was already in the turn onto south-west, as he switched frequency and selected the emergency code 7700 on his Secondary Surveillance Radar transponder. This setting generates an
unmistakable, and absolutely unmissable, symbol on air traffic control radar displays.
    ‘Homer, this is Pan aircraft Tiger Two on Guard.’
    On all warships, the Operations Room is a darkly colourful, and invariably noisy, environment. The illumination is derived from the reddish glow of radar screens, from small reading lights
mounted on the consoles, from the myriad multi-coloured tell-tales and illuminated controls. The noise is caused by the constant chatter on Group Lines, intercoms and radio frequencies as
specialist officers and ratings do their work.
    The Operations Room on Five Deck is in every sense the nerve centre of the Invincible . Around the perimeter, information is gathered from the ship’s own sensors – principally
radar and sonar – and from sensors mounted on other vessels and aircraft that transmit to the ship using secure data-links. Here the Air Picture Compilers track and identify all airborne
radar contacts, while Surface and Sub-surface Compilers perform identical functions for their specific areas of responsibility.
    The collated data provide the Warfare Officers, working at consoles in the centre of the room, with a complete picture of the air, surface and underwater environment around the warship, and
enable them to act or react as the situation warrants. Surprisingly to the uninitiated, during any kind of action or alert the Captain will be found sitting on a swivel chair virtually in the
centre of the Operations Room, and he will direct all aspects of the ship’s activities from there. No longer does he fight battles from the bridge, as was the norm during the Second World
War. Today, instead, a seaman officer will take the bridge watch, to visually ensure the safety of the ship and to check that helm and engine revolution orders don’t run the vessel aground or
into a collision.
    Inside the Operations Room, close to the port-side door and beneath the printed title ‘Homer’, is a radar console manned by a specialist Air Traffic Control officer whose principal
responsibility is the safe recovery of the ship’s organic air assets. The Military Emergency (Guard) frequency – 243.0 megahertz – is monitored whenever the ship is at sea, but is
generally patched through an Ops Room speaker rather than listened to by Homer, who normally has more than enough traffic on his primary aircraft recovery frequency.
    As soon as he heard the Pan call – ‘Pan’ being the lower of the two states of aircraft emergency, the more serious one being ‘Mayday’ – Lieutenant John Moore
leaned back in his seat and looked up at the Radio Direction Finder display mounted above his console, simultaneously selected Guard on the frequency selector panel, and pressed the transmit
key.
    ‘Pan aircraft Tiger Two, this is Homer. You’re loud and clear. State the nature of your emergency.’
    ‘Tiger Two has a rough-running engine and is requesting diversion ashore. Present heading is two four zero at Flight Level three five zero, squawking emergency. Tiger One is in company to
relay as required.’
    ‘Roger, all copied, and you’re identified by your emergency squawk. You’re forty-two miles off the coast, and estimate you’ll be feet dry in about six minutes. Standby
for airfield information.’
    The moment the call had been heard on Guard, Homer’s radar console had become the focus of most of the activity in the Operations Room. His assistant had pulled out the relevant en route