I snugged down my shoulder straps and pulled the helmet into place. The helmet hugged my head and muffled most of the outside world. I connected the oxygen hose, twisting it until it clicked into place, and clipped it to my flight harness. I let the face mask hang open until we were airborne and the oxygen started to flow. For the moment, the canopy stood open, letting in the breeze from the high silver overcast sky. Petrol and tar and the resinous funk of rubber.
“All right.” Parker’s voice crackled in my ear. “Ready to start the number two engine?”
“I’m ready.”
“All danger areas clear?”
I leaned to my left to look toward the back of the aircraft. Only the hanger stood behind us, and it was far enough back to be clear. Then I strained against the shoulder harness and checked behind us on the right. “All clear.”
In front of me, Parker went through the same motions. All I could really see was the dome of his helmet as he settled back in his seat and nodded. “Let’s signal for air. Hands clear?” In demonstration, he lifted his hands over his head, one fist pressed against the middle of his other palm. It wouldn’t do to accidentally hurt our crew chief by bumping something.
“My hands are clear.” They were clear, but my pulse was steadily speeding up. I took a slow breath to calm down. If I got this excited about a jet, a rocket would do me in.
Outside the jet, our ground crew ran back to feed air in to assist the engine ignition. From inside the craft, the whoosh of air rose to a steady whine.
“Thirty number two. There’s 14% rpm. Ready tach. Throttle to idle.”
The throttle matched the movement he was doing in the front and moved up. I wouldn’t do anything until he switched control over to me, but I could pretend that my actions were powering the jet. At least for a little while.
Parker kept up a steady monologue, letting me know what he was doing. “Fuel flow is two hundred. Oil pressure is indicating. EGT rising.”
So was my blood pressure. He was actually going to take me up in the jet.
“Seven seventy peak. Engine instruments look good. Hydraulics look good. Caution lights are out. Crossover is good.” He paused, his helmet turned a little as if waiting for a response.
There’s this weird thing in flying that makes it almost like a religion. Pilots do call-and-response as a liturgy of our own. “My engine instruments are good. Hydraulics check good. Caution lights are out.”
“Clear left?”
I checked again. “Clear.”
“Okay. Let’s divert air to number one. Hands clear?” Parker lifted his hands over his head.
“My hands are clear.”
Outside, the ground crew ran to switch the hose to the number two engine. Again, I had to marvel at the difference between Parker the teacher and Parker the asshole. His voice through all of this was calm and patient.
“Ready to start number one?”
“Ready.” My voice, on the other hand, might have cracked a little. It was all I could do not to cackle with glee as the aircraft came alive beneath us. We went through the same checks for the number one engine, and by the end of it, I had almost matched the calmness of Parker’s voice.
“Throttle gate is engaged. Okay … let’s disconnect air.” He lifted his hands over his head. “Hands clear?”
“My hands are clear.”
They were clear of all instruments and, somewhat remarkably, not shaking. All of my nerves seemed to be vibrating, but it didn’t show in my hands. Jets are infinitely easier than crowds, and much, much more alluring.
When the ground crew pulled the hose away from the engine, Parker resumed his litany. “Battery switch checks out. Good start.”
We went through the pre-taxi checks and nav checks with the same call-and-response. Then we got to “Time to pull the canopy and seat pins.”
“Canopy and seat pins pulled.” The bright orange plastic came out easily. I lifted them both over my head to demonstrate that I’d done it before stowing them in the pocket by my left knee.
“Chocks clear.” Outside, the crew followed his hand signals.
We began to taxi.
A plane on the ground is an ungainly thing. It jostled me against my shoulder straps, but I followed along with Parker as we went through the rest of the nav and comm checklists during taxi.
“Arms clear.” He lowered the canopies and cut off the breeze from the outside.
My God. Even in the rear seat, the plane had such a wide field of vision. What must it have been like in front?
The tower came across our radio. “Talon One One, Tower. You are cleared for takeoff.”
Parker’s helmet turned a little, as if he could look over his shoulder to see me. “You ready?”
“Confirmed, ready.”
He nodded and replied to the tower. “Talon One One. Cleared for takeoff.”
Parker brought the jet up to full military power and lit the afterburner. The jet jolted like someone had kicked me in the pants. He released the brakes and popped the burners.
The engine whine rose in pitch as the jet rolled forward, forcing me back into my seat. It wasn’t like a prop plane, where the force is almost gentle. This thundered through me, dragging my back into the seat.
She lifted off the runway so smoothly, I almost clapped as the ground fell away. But this was a training flight, not a tourist ride, so my delight stayed inside.
I watched the gauges and the world outside. It was like the air had become liquid and flowed around us. How can you feel heavy and light at the same time? The G-force of takeoff pressed me into my seat, but the air held me up.
God. This was a beautiful plane. My love for it probably broke all the rules about worshipping graven images.
“York.” Parker banked to the south and pressed me farther into my seat.
“Sir?” He wasn’t going to offer to let me take the stick, was he? Not yet.
“I … have a problem and I need a favor.”
“Come again?”
“You heard me.” The asshole Parker returned for a moment and then he sighed. There’s an intimacy to the sound of another pilot in your ear. “Look … Look. You and Malouf are the only two who know about the thing with my leg.”
“I…” Where was this going? “I haven’t told anyone.”
“I know.” He sighed again. “Thank you.”
“What…” Everything about this conversation confused me. He couldn’t have said this on the ground? For that matter, why hadn’t Malouf reported him? “May I ask what’s going on?”
Above the canopy, the clouds sank toward us, changing from a featureless expanse of silver gray to crenellations of cotton. Parker took us up into them and the wisps brushed past, feathering away as we ripped through.
The jet punched out of the upper level of clouds into blue sky.
“God.”
It was not profanity. It had been so long since I had seen clear blue … It ached, that blue. The unobscured sun flared across the clouds and brought tears to my eyes, even with my visor.
“Yeah…” Parker sighed again. “This? This is amazing, but space … I need to see a doctor. My leg goes pins and needles and then randomly, just stops working. They’ll ground me if they even suspect something is wrong.”
“So go to a doctor who’s not a flight surgeon.”
Parker gave the bitterest laugh I’d heard from him. “You think I haven’t tried. I’m the first man into space. I can’t go anywhere without reporters following me. I can’t sneeze, I can’t play ball with my sons, I can’t even visit my—”
He stopped talking, leaving only the hiss of oxygen, the sound of my own breathing, and the rush of air around us.
“Can’t visit your…?”
“Can’t visit my doctor.” Pretty sure that hadn’t been what he was going to say. “If I certify you on the T-38, will you let me use the flights to mask my visits to a doctor?”