“How did it go?” Robert asks.
“Not too bad,” I say pulling the folders out once again and setting them on the nav table.
Nicole’s and Brianna’s eyes grow wide with disbelief. See, whereas Robert had an idea of what I did and what I could do, I did not share those parts of life much with the girls. I guess it is part of a father’s protection of having daughters. The thought that I could bring something back when a force could not is completely foreign to them. Not the concept, but that it I had those skills. They knew I was okay in the woods and knowledgeable about the outdoors but not in this way.
“What do you say we get this thing cranked up and get out of here?” I say.
“Sounds good to me,” Robert answers.
“I thought of a name,” Little Robert pipes up as he and his mother Kathy climb into the cockpit and take their seats on the bunk with our rather large canine friend in tow. Kenneth joins them on their perch.
“Oh yeah, what is it?” I ask looking back over my shoulder.
“Do you mind if we call him Mike? That was my dad’s name,” he answers with his eyes beginning to water up.
“I think that would be a great name,” I respond. Mike hops up into the cockpit and sits down on the steel cockpit floor next to Bri and behind me.
“Sir,” Kenneth says timidly getting my attention.
“Call me Jack,” I say turning to look at him over my shoulder.
“I feel out of place and want to help,” he says, alternating his looks between the floor and me.
“Don’t worry about it Kenneth, there will be plenty to do when we get back,” I say trying to alleviate some of his concern.
Bri reaches up and turns the various switches as we proceed through the startup checklist and sequence. Robert calls out that the inboard prop is turning on his side — the number three engine — as we begin our startup, the first signal of our impending departure from here and the beginning of our last leg home. It seems like months since we were there yet it has been less than a week. One more surge and then we’ll be home. Not to the comforts of home as we would have thought about a scant week ago but I am ready to be out of the aircraft and stop this constant moving about.
The outboard engine starts up successfully and I tell Nic and Michelle to wrap things up with the start cart, noting their entry back in the aircraft before starting the engines on my side. Everything looks good as the four engines roar and vibrate in synchronization. I think this will be our last visit to the south and east in a good long while as I am sure the nuclear power plants are in full scale melt down right now. Most of the plants are located in the eastern half of what used to be the United States beginning just about in the middle of the continent. A vast majority of them line the entire eastern seaboard. It is a lucky thing that the prevailing weather is west to east although I do wonder if it could spread across the entire world in sufficient quantities to be a danger to us on the west coast. Not much we really could do if it did except to try and find a safer location.
“You have the aircraft,” I say to Robert after completing the checks.
“What!?” He asks looking over from his seat.
“I said you have the aircraft. Take us to Dobbins. You are the pilot-in-command for this hop. I’m just your co-pilot so tell me what you want done,” I say answering his incredulous question.
We start rolling forward and out to the taxiway. I can tell he is nervous by the way he corrects with sharp, jerky motions.
“Easy and relax. Small corrections and anticipate,” I say in response to his control inputs.
He nods and I notice the corrections become much more fluid. Pulling up to the runway, he stops the aircraft and looks out checking for anything coming in. Pushing the throttles up, we start rolling and turn to align with the centerline. The engines roar louder as the throttles are advanced and we pick up speed. Robert’s corrections are right on as we rotate; first the nose wheel lifts off followed a short moment later by the mains. He goes through the clean-up and levels off quickly. I see his head moving side to side as he tries to pick up Dobbins and the runway. I have it in sight already but wait to say anything wanting him to be in complete control.
“Oh,” I hear him say to himself. Evidently he has found the runway.
“Hard to find sometimes aren’t they?” I ask knowing exactly what he is going through and feeling.
“Yeah,” he responds. His mind is on a thousand things and having a conversation is not on the top of his list.
He begins going through the checks and I can tell he is a little behind the aircraft, trying to maneuver for final, get the checks done, and get the aircraft configured for landing. This is evidenced by the fact that the runway is growing larger in our screen yet we are not close to being configured to land. I can tell he wants to begin descending but we are not ready for it. He does edge down a little lower though; more a subconscious action than from any conscious decision, knowing we need to descend in order to land. He gets further behind and frustrated as he tries to speed things up to get configured but only manages to actually slow down the process by his anxiousness.
The runway disappears under our nose and he looks to the side at me. I do not say a thing as I want him to figure this out and come up with a solution on his own. It’s not like I will let us get into an unsafe situation. I let that happen before and I will not do that again. The memory surfaces of one time I let a student go too far. We were doing a high angle, slow speed maneuver and I allowed the student to get too slow before reacting. The jet flipped over on its back and began spinning toward the ground. My shoulder harness did not latch and keep me in my seat as it should. I found myself pinned against the top of the canopy with the world spinning below me through the canopy’s top. The blue sky that was supposed to be seen through the top of the canopy was now on the wrong side of the aircraft. The student panicked and let go of the stick. That was the absolute worst thing he could have done. I looked down at the floorboard, which was now up, and noticed the control stick free-floating. Looking back outside, the world began to spin faster. We were now in an accelerated, inverted spin; a completely unrecoverable situation in that aircraft.
We started the maneuver at 25,000 feet and moments later, looking at the altimeter, I saw it rapidly wind through 10,000 feet. We were going down like a brick. 10,000 feet was the minimum safe altitude for bailout for that type of ejection seat in an uncontrolled maneuver and I began to issue the command to bailout. As the first word escaped my mouth, I realized there was no way I would make it out being pinned against the canopy. I would be obliterated with the canopy blowing off and then the seat smacking up against me at close to 35G’s. I thought about issuing the command anyway to let the student escape, but I also instantly realized that, with the way we were going down, the canopy wouldn’t clear the aircraft correctly. He would just end up smacking into it at a high rate of speed and at an awkward angle. I continued to look at the world below me spinning and coming up fast. I remember there was not a hint of fear inside but just trying to reason through the situation. Not a thought went through my mind of hitting the ground; and we would hit hard.
I reached down and hooked my ankle around the mid part of the control stick and pulled it sharply back with my leg. The aircraft immediately righted itself, slamming me hard down into my seat. Not only that, but we also had flying airspeed. And, we were in level flight. At 2,000 feet. Yeah, WTF right!? I rammed the throttles into afterburner and stood the aircraft on its tail pointing skyward. It was then that I noticed the radios squawking loudly in my ear from the control center monitoring our practice area, telling me that I was off altitude. Really!? No kidding, I thought. I merely ‘rogered’ the call and told them I was on my way back up to altitude. The investigation teams did not believe me when they arrived. They kept asking me how I recovered and I kept telling them.