One of the benefits of flying E-2s is that our aircraft are almost always spotted in the "Hummer hole," beside the island. Because of the valet parking, we are rarely forced to wander about the flight deck looking at numbers. Since E-2s generally launch at least 15 minutes before everyone else and recover last, another benefit is that we walk to the aircraft at a time when the fight deck is fairly quiet. Because of these benefits, however, Hawkeye aviators may not be as adept at walking around a busy flight deck as other aviators in the air wing.

We were scheduled for the first launch of the day. Our mission was to run a medium-sized strike against the carrier. After a thorough brief, we suited up and began walking up to the flight deck. To expedite taxiing and launching, the flight deck recently had begun spotting the first E-2 to launch just aft of JBD 2, facing the starboard side of the ship.

Because we would man up, start engines and be airborne 15 minutes before the others, the new spot didn't seem like it would pose any problems. Five minutes before our scheduled launch time, however, I was close to putting my foot through the computer, which had refused to load after more than 20 minutes of troubleshooting.

As mission commander, I elected to down the aircraft and man a spare that had been spored in the Hummer hole. When I had climbed out of the aircraft, it seemed like all hell had broken loose. The noise was deafening. Hornets and Tomcats--each with extremely large intakes--were taxiing all around our aircraft on their way to the waist cats. One of the Hornet pilots taxiing past looked down at me and gave me the thumbs-down signal. I nodded to confirm that our aircraft was down. I'm sure he was as surprised to see an E-2 guy as I was to be there.

Vikings were starting engines beside us. The deck was setting up to shoot no-loads on cat 1. Maintenance personnel were running about trying to fix other planes. Yellowshirts and blueshirts were busy moving aircraft around the deck. It was, in essence, a normal day on the flight deck. The only difference was that I was not in the safe confines of the CIC. Rather, I was alone in the middle of a sea of non-skid and moving aircraft.