“Finally, we’re trying something different here than what you trained for on land. When you clear the aft deck for landing, if you don’t touch down and snag, we want you to give it full power and get the hell up again, then go around.”
“Full power?” one of the Goliath pilots asked incredulously. “What the hell are you talking about? You should cut throttle completely and if need be nose it in.”
“Sir,” Adam replied quietly, staring at the pilot who was five years his senior and commander of the squadron on Perryville.
There was a momentary pause as the pilot looked around at his comrades for support. Finally he showed a trace of a definite grin. “Yes, I’m waiting for a logical answer, Rosovich.”
“Look, O’Reilly. Let’s say you’re tenth in line coming back from the strike. We’re pushing the planes forward after they land. You miss your approach, go drifting down the deck, throttle off, nose down, but you keep missing the snag wires. Where the hell do you wind up? You plow into the next plane in line, maybe two or three of them. You chop open a fuel tank, that new benzene fuel goes spraying around, and suddenly the whole ship is on fire.
“Mr. O’Reilly, therefore, if you miss the approach, the landing officer is going to wave you off. You obey him, by God. You hit the throttle, bank to port, and get the hell out of the way.”
“All right, Adam. But another thing, that damn benzene. One bullet and it explodes. At least kerosene just bums. What the hell is the Design Board trying to do to us?”
Theodor stepped in front of Adam, ready to confront the anger that had been simmering ever since the new burners for the engines and the new fuel had been revealed.
“It’s a question of energy and weight,” Theodor said. “With benzene you get a lot more heat per pound of fuel. Weight is crucial, gentlemen. You might have to push this out to maximum range, and the benzene fuel will give you an extra fifty miles, which might make all the difference in this flight. I don’t like the risk any more than you do.”
“You’re not flying it,” someone whispered from the back of the group.
Theodor bristled, but it was Adam who stepped forward.
‘Any man here who dares to question Theodor’s bravery better step forward right now.”
No one moved.
, “You know what he did in the last war. Does anyone want to challenge that?”
There was no response.
“All right then. Everyone get ready for a go around.”
A groan went up. Theodor looked over at Adam, but said nothing.
“And remember, for the first time we’re all doing it with full loads.” He pointed at the lined-up aerosteamers. Each of them had a barrel strapped underneath filled with sand.
Actually, all the planes would be lighter than when they did it for real. The guns on the Falcons were empty, and the fuel load was just enough to take them around on the exercise. There simply wasn’t enough wind to get them off otherwise.
The group broke apart, the ten pilots who were flying headed for their aerosteamers, which were packed onto the deck. The pilots of the second group drifted off to stand along the side railing.
Adam looked up at the bridge, caught the attention of Admiral Petronius, saluted, then pointed a clenched fist forward. Petronius wearily shook his head, finally saluted back, and turned away.
Theodor laughed softly. “You know, there’s a lot of debate up on that bridge about who is actually in command on this ship.”
“I take orders from Petronius like everyone else, but when it comes to actual flight operations, I guess I’m in charge.”
“Heady job for someone barely out of the academy.”
“Wasn’t it the same in the last war? You were what, twenty?”
“Something like that.”
The lead aerosteamer, a Falcon, was rolled into position by its crew. The routine had been practiced for several days as the Shiloh cruised down from Suzdal to its first refueling stop at Cartha. That ancient city was fifty miles astern. The vast river, now named the Mississippi, was several miles wide. Straight ahead, Adam could make out the high ground that rose up like a bastion on the east bank-the Merki Narrows.
With the Falcon in place, the launch chief, a new position created by Theodor, and given to Quintus who had suggested the position, stood ready, holding the flapping red flag, a visual indicator of wind speed and any last-second variants.
Behind the lead Falcon the second and third machines were already revving up, running through the final check.
The launch chief waved the flag in a tight circle over his head, pointed it forward and ducked down.
As the lead pilot threw in full throttle, his support crew let go of the wingtips and ducked to either side. The Falcon lumbered down the deck and lifted off a good thirty feet before reaching the bow.
“Note it down,” Adam said, looking over at yet another new creation, the launch and landing observation mate. “Plane number one should keep his wheels down as long as possible. He pulled up too soon. He’ll argue he had the speed, but if the wind had suddenly dropped, he would have stalled and gone in.”
The second plane took off without mishap, followed by the other four Falcons of the first squadron. Now came the heart-stopping moment, the big two-engine Goliaths.
The four airships were lined up at the aft end, all of them set off center so that their port side wings extended half a dozen feet over the side of the ship, just barely giving them enough clearance to get their starboard wing past the bridge.
The first of them started up, slowly rolled down the deck, bounced, lifted a few feet, touched back down, then lifted again, and gained altitude. The other three followed without mishap, and Adam, who felt like he had been holding his breath through the entire operation, exhaled noisily.
“Time?” he asked, looking over at Theodor.
“Thirteen and a half minutes.”
Adam shook his head.
He looked aft. Once the launching had started, and the first four planes were cleared, there was enough room aft for the rear ramp to be lowered so that the planes of the second squadron could be brought up from below and prepared for launch.
As each plane cleared the ramp, launch crews struggled to swing the folded wings into place and lock them, then started up the engines, which would take nearly ten minutes to fully heat up.
Adam paced back and forth nervously, every few minutes looking over at Theodor, who was still holding his watch.
“Too long,” Adam snapped. “Damn, the lead squadron will burn an hour’s worth of fuel waiting for us.”
“I know.”
The six Falcons of the second squadron lifted off. The wind had picked up slightly, and all six were cleanly airborne by the time they reached the end of the launch deck.
Finally, the last four Goliaths came up.
“Don’t screw this up,” Theodor shouted. “You want them to follow you, you better do it right the first time.”
Adam nodded, heading to the aft ramp as his aerosteamer emerged. He squatted down, carefully examining the weapon strapped underneath. The other Goliaths were carrying sand, but he was carrying the real thing, the first live test of the new weapon.
He climbed up into the cockpit and revved the engines even as the launch crew walked the plane forward, rapidly ran through a final check of controls, looked over at Quintus, who waved his flag in a tight circle and then pointed forward.
He slammed the throttles up. The massive caloric engines hissed, fumes from the burning benzene washing over him. With the extra five hundred pounds on board the ship felt heavy, the launch deck impossibly short as he rolled forward, thankful for the extra fifteen knots of wind blowing up from the south, sweeping along the deck. The wings bit, controls felt lighter, and he lifted. The fact that the airship had only enough fuel on board for the demonstration flight was worrisome, and he wondered how it would handle when fully loaded.