True-False Question
Read the following text. Answer the questions by selecting TRUE or FALSE:
‘Bogeys and Bandits : the making of a fighter pilot’
by Robert L. Gandt
‘His squadron call sign was “Mongo,” an inevitable mutation of his real name—Nick Mongillo. Mongo was an unlikely hero. He was what they called a “nugget,” which meant the same thing as “rookie”— a naval aviator on his first squadron assignment. He had only been in the squadron three months when they were sent to the Red Sea’. (p.3)
(…) ‘So the next day, there was Mongo, a nugget on his first squadron tour, on his way to bomb the enemy. He was busy—almost too busy—to be scared. Almost. “It was like juggling crystal,” Mongillo remembered. “They kept throwing new pieces to juggle. You were scared that you were going to drop one.” It was hard to keep up with all the frenetic activity around him. He had to keep sight of the other three fighters in the flight. He had to keep track of where they were going, how much farther they had to go to the target, had to interpret data from the airplane's mission computer, had to listen to all the hysterical radio calls flooding the tactical frequency. That was the hardest part: listening to the nonstop hysterical jabbering on the radio. The frequency was a cacophony of madness. Everyone was yelling. No one was transmitting in a normal voice. You could smell the adrenaline pumping through each cockpit. The airborne strike controller in the Air Force E-3 AWACS (Airborne Warning and Control System) jet was trying to call out information to the strike fighters: “Bogeys twelve o'clock, forty!” “Where? Where? Say again!” “Manny, one-eight-zero, thirty-five.” “Quicksand Four hundred,” the controller said, using the lead strike fighters’ call sign, “bogeys are at Manny, two-zero-zero, thirty . . .” “Manny?” Mongo tried to remember what the hell Manny was. It was a spot on the ground, an airfield or something up north that they decided to use as a reference point. The technique was called “Bullseye Control,” referencing everything around a geographical point, or “bullseye.” All unidentified aircraft would be called out in 6 BOGEYS AND BANDITS relation to the point called “Manny.” If something was south of Manny at thirty miles, you were supposed to give the bearing and distance: “Manny, one-eight-zero, thirty.” Trying to orient everything around “Manny” was a mental gymnastic that was getting very difficult. The chatter was incessant, overwhelming. None of it was making any sense to Mongo. He was Dash Two—the number two position in the four-plane flight—stuck out there on the left flank of the formation. They had only forty miles to go to the target. Four more minutes. Mongo stopped trying to make sense of the radio chatter. It was time to think about bombing’ (pp.5-6).
Feedback
False
Feedback
True
Feedback
False
Feedback
False
Feedback
True
Feedback
True