“I don’t see how,” Beason stammered.
“According to your brochure, your Marchettis are configured with HUDs”—head up displays—“that have airborne video recorders to tape this type of training. We can all watch it from the ground and then review the tapes afterward in the debrief.” Bender smiled at Johar. “I assume we’re dealing with professionals here.”
“Sounds good to me,” Pontowski said. “I don’t mind taking an observer along in the left seat.” The Marchetti was a two-place, side-by-side trainer where the passenger or instructor sat in the left seat. Half the men in the room were on their feet, eager to volunteer. Afraid that someone important would want to fly with Johar in the Marchetti, Beason said he would fly with the Iraqi. Beason’s face paled when he saw the cold look in Pontowski’s eyes.
Two hours later, Beason was on the edge of panic as Johar taxied his red Marchetti to the active runway. “Do not worry, Mr. Beason,” the Iraqi said. “Pontowski may be good but I seriously doubt if he is proficient in the Marchetti. I am.” Beason felt an overpowering need to urinate when Pontowski moved into position off the left wing, his side of the aircraft, for the taxi out.
The tower cleared them onto the runway. “You are cleared into the air-show box, ground to five thousand feet. Maneuver parallel to and over the runways. Reposition over the open area northeast of the box.” It was a reminder to stay over open areas and keep the nose of the aircraft pointed away from any buildings or people. It was a constraint Pontowski could live with.
“Now we get to go fly and fight,” Pontowski told his passenger, a Polish Air Force officer named Emil with an unpronounceable last name. As briefed, he taxied into position on the right of the Marchetti. Johar Adwan would lead the takeoff, which was exactly what Pontowski wanted. Johar was sitting in the right seat of his Marchetti and glanced at Beason in his left seat. He then made a circular motion with his forefinger to run the engines up. Pontowski shoved his throttle full forward and rode the brakes. Johar tilted his head back and then dropped his chin, the signal to release brakes. The two aircraft moved in unison down the runway, rapidly gaining speed.
They lifted off together. Pontowski snapped the gear handle up and mentally counted to ten, the time it took for the gear to retract. Johar was a fraction of a second slower. Pontowski felt his gear lock at the count of nine. He immediately jerked his aircraft forty-five degrees to the right, pulling four Gs. He leveled off less than fifty feet above the ground and turned back to the original heading to keep Johar in sight. “Fight’s on,” he radioed. The maneuver had given him nose-tail separation from Johar. His reflexes were still rattlesnake quick and he turned back into Johar, crossing behind and accelerating. They were at midfield. As Pontowski expected, Johar lost sight of him and pulled up. Pontowski rolled out at Johar’s six o’clock and followed him in the climb. He was in the saddle, a perfect position to employ an aircraft’s cannon. “Guns, guns, guns,” he radioed, pulling the trigger on the stick. But there was no gunfire, only a laser beam illuminating the spot on Johar’s aircraft where the bullets would have hit. The fight was over and it was all recorded on the videotape. Pontowski hit the radio transmit button. “Splash one Marchetti.”
“Fantastique!” Emil shouted.
But Johar had other ideas. He leveled off at a thousand feet and accelerated straight ahead, gaining speed to separate and reengage. But Pontowski nosed over and dived under him, using gravity to help him accelerate. He rapidly closed on the Iraqi who was now directly above him. Johar snap rolled to the right and saw Pontowski still beneath him. The Iraqi pulled on the stick and started a loop.
“An Immelmann ain’t gonna save your ass,” Pontowski grunted, fighting the Gs as he followed the Iraqi. He slipped his aircraft to the left, falling into Johar’s eight o’clock, the side of the aircraft Beason was sitting on and in Johar’s blind spot. “Betcha can’t do a belly check in a loop.” Again, Johar had lost sight of Pontowski. “He knows we’re here,” Pontowski explained to Emil, “but he can’t resist a peek to be sure. Watch.”
As expected, Johar flew a half-loop and rolled upright the moment he reached the top of the loop. Again, Johar snap-rolled. Pontowski rolled with him, still camped at his eight o’clock.
“Where is he?” Johar shouted over the intercom. Beason’s head twisted to the left and his panic turned into pure fear when he saw Pontowski in tight formation, rolling with them. Beason had flown acrobatics, but never anything like this. A cooler head would have said, “Bandit camped at our eight o’clock.” But words totally failed him.
“Merde!” Johar shouted. He rolled his Marchetti to the left, doing a belly check to that side. But Pontowski had anticipated that maneuver and rolled with him, holding his position, still in Johar’s blind spot. Beason was vaguely aware of the warm feeling in his crotch as he lost control of his bladder. But the fight was far from over. The engines on both aircraft screamed in protest as the pilots kept them at full boost and dived for the ground.
“Sucker!” Pontowski shouted as he followed Johar. Much to his delight, he discovered he had even more over-take than before. He set up for a high-to-low attack followed by a high-speed overshoot. At 300 feet above the ground, Pontowski deliberately overshot Johar and nudged his nose over. He was hoping Johar would see it and do the opposite. He did. The Iraqi pulled up to reduce his speed and to add to Pontowski’s overshoot problem. But Pontowski was already pulling on the stick and rolling into Johar, countering the overshoot. He had to get rid of the speed generated by the dive and the bellowing engine. Johar instinctively turned into Pontowski as they entered a series of climbing crisscrossing nose-to-nose turns and overshoots. “We’re in a scissors,” Pontowski explained to Emil. He was thoroughly enjoying himself. “Now we gotta see who can fly the slowest and get behind the other guy.” Emil laughed.
But all was not equal light and joy in Johar’s cockpit. “Knock it off!” Beason screamed. Johar ignored him as he again turned into Pontowski. Johar’s stall-warning horn was blaring as their airspeed decayed. But Beason’s screaming drowned it out. Suddenly, at 2,000 feet above the ground, Johar’s Marchetti departed controlled flight and snapped inverted, entering an upside-down spin.
Pontowski zoomed clear and radioed, “Knock it off and recover.”
Getting out of an inverted spin is tricky and requires a series of actions best described as unnatural acts. Fortunately, Johar was an accomplished pilot, knew what to do, and had enough altitude to recover. But Beason decided to vote and cast his ballot by doing what appeared normal. He stepped on the rudder pedal opposite the rotation and pushed the stick forward in the sequence required to recover from an upright spin. The result was to raise the Marchetti’s nose and put them into a fully developed inverted spin.
By the second full turn, Pontowski knew the Marchetti was in trouble and yelled the recovery procedure over the radio. “Step on the pedal that has resistance! Back pressure on the stick!” He watched the Marchetti enter the third turn and tasted bile in the back of his mouth. His instincts told him what his mind rejected: Adwan and Beason were dead.
The Marchetti smashed into the ground upside down at the 2,000-feet-remaining mark on Runway 12 Left, well inside the aerial demonstration box.
Pontowski banged his fist against the canopy rail. “God damn it to hell!”
Emil touched his arm, trying to calm him. “It was combat, my friend.”
“This is peacetime,” was all Pontowski could think of.