“It’s not that,” said Zen.
“Perhaps you should explain, Jeff. Are you feeling jealous?”
“Not in the least.”
They’d been over it before, twice as a matter of fact, neither time very satisfactorily. Jeff believed in the concept of ANTARES; he was the only person left on the base who had gone through the program, and in fact still had the old-style chip implant in the side of his skull. He had always assumed he would be involved in the next stage of the project, always assumed it would eventually be green-lighted again after the Maraklov business died down.
But he had reservations, objections he couldn’t quite put into words. His recent nightmare for one. The way he felt when he woke from it — as if a part of him he didn’t completely trust or like had taken control of him.
There was no way to put those vague feelings into rational arguments. They sounded like reasons to continue studying ANTARES. They were, in fact.
“We’ve made numerous improvements,” said Geraldo. She spoke as if she were making the case for the first time. “We’re light-years ahead of where the project was when DreamStar was canceled. Fresh eyes — fresh minds — a new start. Kevin Madrone will be a perfect subject.”
“I’m sure he will.”
“So we have your approval?”
What was it that bugged him? Kevin or ANTARES?
Shit. The way Geraldo was looking at him, he could tell she thought it was jealousy — that he looked at Kevin as a potential rival on the Flighthawk program.
“I think Captain Madrone is the obvious choice,” said Zen. “And I’ll put that in writing.”
“Very good,” said Geraldo, standing. “We’ll start this morning.”
Chapter 18
Was it the fact that he wasn’t used to flying something so big? Or the fact that he wasn’t used to flying with a copilot?
Or maybe he just felt odd flying a plane named after a Navy battleship.
Then again, it was better than Cheshire’s suggestion—”Rosebud,” ostensibly for the sled in Citizen Kane.
“Crosswind,” prompted Major Cheshire from the copilot’s station.
Colonel Bastian told the computer to make the crosswind correction, probably a half second before the computer would have taken over from him. He was near the edge of his localizer course, off center and coming in a bit too fast. He nudged the throttle glide slightly. The speed and engine readings flashed on the HUD, all green.
Was that temp on three nudging into yellow?
Just land.
Just land.
Dog blew a laboriously long breath from his lungs as he edged the stick ever so gently to move the big plane back into the sweet spot as it approached the landing. If he’d been flying an Eagle, he would have simply —
Irrelevant, he told himself.
“In the green,” said Cheshire. “You’re looking good. Temps are all normal.”
The concrete seemed to expand as he approached. He could feel the heat wafting upward, gentle hands taking hold of him as he settled down.
Then all hell broke lose. The plane jerked suddenly to the side: a dozen warning buzzers went off. Cheshire shouted something at him.
He had no lateral control. The computer had begun to compensate. Stick dead.
No, he had stick. No rudder.
No tail?
He forced the plane down, felt a jolt as the wheels on the right undercarriage hit the ground. He could feel himself sliding to the right.
“Steer! You still have steering!” shouted Cheshire over the interphone.
“Okay,” he managed. “Okay.”
The plane straightened out. Their speed knocked down to twenty, then fifteen, then ten knots. Firmly in control now, Dog permitted his eyes to move to the left-hand multi-use display, which was slaved to the emergency status nodes.
Clean.
Clean?
“What the hell happened?” asked Bastian.
“You were doing such a good job I decided to complicate things,” said Cheshire. “You just landed without a tail.”
“Jesus.”
“Well, he would have done a better job,” said Cheshire, clearly enjoying herself. “Still, you did okay. I didn’t take off the entire tail, just one of the stabilizers.”
Actually, Cheshire had directed the plane’s advanced flight computer to simulate the loss of one of the stabilizers. The flight profile was among several the major had preprogrammed into the flight computer as part of the advanced training Bastian had persuaded her to give him.
“You’re worse than Rap,” Dog told her.
“Thank you, Colonel.”
“What would you have done if I crashed?”
“Oh, you wouldn’t have crashed,” she said. “We were always within specs. The computer has tested the profile on its own.”
“You can’t really fly without a tail,” said Dog, who didn’t trust the simulator modules in the flight computer, no matter how sophisticated they actually were. He turned back to the windshield. The SUV designated to shepherd them toward the maintenance area was just now approaching from his left, a little behind schedule.
“Sure, you can. If you’re good. You could.”
“Ha.”
“You’re better than you think, Colonel.”
“I mean, the plane would auger in without a stabilizer.”
“Over my desk there’s a photograph of a B-52 that landed without a tail in Vietnam,” said Cheshire. “And another that was shot nearly in half through the fuselage. Then there’s the one with three quarters of its wing missing.”
Dog grunted. He finally realized he’d been suckered into a sales job.
“Colonel, you might want to relax your grip on the yoke,” said Cheshire. “You look like you’re going to snap it off.”
“Right.” He trundled the plane to the edge of the runway, where three support vehicles had joined the SUV.
Missouri — better known as “Mo” — was testing a modified version of the PW4074 turbofan, and carried one apiece on the inside engine pylons. The PW4074 turbofans, highly efficient engines originally developed by Pratt & Whitney for Boeing’s 777, were to be quickly checked by the ground crew. Assuming they were okay, the bomber would take off for a second tier of tests, then repeat the process for a third.
Dreamland’s specialists had tweaked the systems to achieve somewhat more thrust; nowhere near as thirsty as the J57’s that came stock on early B-52’s, the jets were considerably more powerful. The Megafortress engineers were still diddling with the computer models and specs to determine what exactly their optimum arrangement might be. While the conventional wisdom was that one new engine could sit in place of two old ones on each pylon, the Dreamland whiz kids were fond of defying common wisdom. The vast airframe of the B-52 gave flight to all manner of fantasies. Computer models had been devised showing the plane with six and eight power plants. One odd design even called for two of the engines to be mounted at the rear, somewhat like a 727.
The goal was to improve low-level speed without decreasing overall unrefueled range. Stock, a B-52 could clock roughly 365 knots at sea level with the old power plants. The Megafortress, with its much cleaner airframe, notched roughly 425 nautical miles an hour. The engineers wanted 475, which was well beyond the venerable and trusty J57’s.
Fifty knots didn’t seem like much, but it would exponentially reduce the detection envelope for a Megafortress on a low-level attack mission. In practical terms, it would allow an EB-52 to evade all but the most sophisticated defense radars, and to get close enough to air-launch torpedoes against a surface ship, one of the design goals remaining to be achieved.