Buck Rogers- A Life in the Future

by Martin Caidin

Buck Rogers

  and some new numbers for the radar transponder.

  "We just keep right on trucking," Tim said aloud. "Approach says we have a clear path to Wittman, and we're number one to sit down."

  "With all that traffic down there at the convention? There must be twenty thousand planes there for the big fly-in bash," came the reply. "Apparently the sight of the infamous Buck Rogers manhandling this very expensive Boeing onto Mother Earth is part of today's air show."

  The "infamous Buck Rogers"—the name Anthony Rogers used for his flying acts with a World War One fighter plane— ignored the dig. "Put your eyeballs into high gear," he told Hawk-ings. "There's a lot of stuff made of wood and canvas and plastic flying around here, and I don't trust radar to pick it all up. We're sharing this sky with a few thousand amateurs, remember."

  "How could I forget? Speaking of wood and canvas, you've got three in formation, dead ahead. Seaplanes, from the looks of them."

  "Got 'em," Rogers said quietly.

  His radio frequency was already on the numbers for Wittman Tower. It was a madhouse down there. This was the annual convention of the Experimental Aircraft Association, and pilots flew in from all over the world for the celebration, including several thousand planes that were built in garages and barns by enthusiasts with lots of enthusiasm but distressingly little experience flying among so many other aircraft.

  "Wittman Tower, Transcon Six Three Niner, Seven Four Seven Heavy, long final."

  A familiar voice came back. "That's a rog, Transcon. Everybody's out of your way." He recognized Harry Novogrodski on the radio. Good old Harry. He and Buck used to fly crop dusters together when they were both barely old enough to shave. "Have a tall cold one waiting for me," Rogers answered.

  "You can count on it. Buck." That ended the frivolous talking. From this point on, with the field now in sight. Buck Rogers, world-famed stunt pilot and showman, was again Captain Anthony Rogers, and he was totally professional. He and Tim Hawkings were once more the same well-oiled team. Flaps, slats, power settings, gear, speed, angle, and rate of descent—it all came together in a superb blending of two pilots and their behe-

  A Life in the Future

  moth flying machine. Rogers brought her down with his silken touch, riding the turbulent air with the confidence born of long experience. As they crossed the runway threshold, Tim called out the numbers for speed and altitude, and Rogers let her float down so smoothly he seemed to be painting their tires onto the runway.

  Rogers leaned back to relax while Tim taxied the huge jetliner slowly between the rows and rows of airplanes. Tens of thousands of people watched the 747 wings glide over their heads, waving wildly at the pilots and the passengers, whose faces were glued to the cabin windows. Finally Tim parked in his allotted space, and he went through the shutdown checklist with Rogers. They sat quietly in the cockpit while service teams hooked up external power plugs to the jetliner, keeping cool air flowing through the machine. More service teams rolled high platform stairways to the door, and more than five hundred people, counting crew, began their departure.

  "Ever have the feeling we're really an ocean liner with wings?" Tim Hawkings asked his pilot. "You see all those people and their luggage flowing out of this thing?"

  "That's why we're here," Rogers answered, "right in the middle of the biggest, best, flashiest, most exciting aviation air show in the world. I heard they've got planes here from sixty-three countries."

  Tim pointed to his right. "There's something I never thought I'd see," he said slowly, surprise still registering on his face. "Those are MiG-29s and a bunch of Sukhoi 27s—the Russian jet precision teams. They'll fly one day, then our Thunderbirds will put on a show, then the Russians again, and after that the Canadian Snowbirds . . . damnedest gathering I've ever seen. But, you know. Buck—I mean, Captain Rogers—what they really came to see are the mock dogfights."

  Rogers laughed. "They're nostalgia junkies," he said. "And I agree with them. They want to see real flying, not the feet-on-the-floor stuff we do with the jets and fly-by-wire computer systems. Most of the airline boys can't even fly the old planes. 'What's a rudder for?' I hope I never hear that question again."

  "Well," Tim drawled, "you know what the future holds for us. The next generation of airliners will be so automated that the cockpit will have one pilot and a dog."

  Buck Rogers

  'Teah, sure," Rogers laughed. "Why the dog?"

  "No, I mean it," Tim persisted. "The pilot will be there to feed the dog, and the dog is there to bite the pilot if he so much as touches the controls."

  "When that day comes," Rogers told him coldly, "I'll hang up this uniform and go back to flying air shows and crop-dusting exclusively."

  Tim unbuckled his harness and climbed slowly from his seat. "Starting tomorrow. Buck Rogers, daredevil ace from World War One, or whatever hat you're going to wear, you should feel right at home. You are doing the dogfight stuff, right?"

  "You got it," Rogers told him. "It's like a coming-out party for me. Mike Shellane—you know him?—well, he's built the most beautiful Fokker D-7 replica you ever saw. Tomorrow I'll be the Big Bad Boche out to slaughter the innocent British and American pilots."

  Tim rested a hand on his friend's shoulder. "Just promise me you'll remember that a lot of the guys flying against you do some pretty dumb things sometimes. You're the master at this, the pro. But to them it's a game, and they get too careless for my liking."

  "I promise I'll be good," Rogers said with a laugh.

  He had his own private agenda for the mock battles of the next day. He was going to screw his opponents right into the ground. Well, almost.

  Besides, that was tomorrow. Tonight he'd be at the official welcoming party and reception for the air-show pilots and teams. He especially wanted to see his old friend, Vern, and his world-beating aerobatic performance in a Czech Zlin. Vern came as close as possible to turning the swift little monoplane inside-out, grinning all the way. He'd copped the international aerobatic championship three times running, and an air-show performance was duck soup for him. After that, the crazy ex-marine from Texas, Gower, would pull off his usual daredevil parachute jumps and scare hell out of the crowd. Most of all, he looked forward to his longtime flying buddy, the madcap Major Karl von Strasser, flying his ugly brute of a German trimotor bomber from the Second World War, the greatly modified Ju-52 they all called "Iron Annie." Karl had an absolutely foolhardy act. The bomber was incredibly strong, all angled iron and corrugated metal, its

  A Life in the Future

  fixed-gear legs built up with high-strength steel. After he took off, ground crews would roll tall trees in big tubs onto the runway, and Karl would start down in a steep dive to build up speed. At the last moment, he'd pull out and smash into the trees. The upper branches were loaded with small explosive charges and bags of black powder, so when the Junkers smashed into the trees, a huge fireball flashed and black smoke erupted into the air. The act was a show-stopper, but only the pilots knew just how dangerous it was.

  But that was tomorrow, he reminded himself again. Now someone was waiting for him at the welcoming party, someone he hadn't seen in weeks. He missed Angelina Barzoni more than he thought possible. She flew as a captain for American Airlines, but she was also a match for any air-show flyer in the world. To Buck, she was the only true love of his life. Tomorrow, after Buck "shot down" the last of his opponents in the mock battles and taxied before the crowd, the show announcer would tell the world that Buck Rogers and Angelina Barzoni were engaged to be married. Three more weeks—that was all he'd have to wait before they both could break away from their airline jobs. They'd be married aboard a Transcon 747 winging westward across the Pacific for a long honeymoon in Japan, Tahiti, and New Zealand.

  Buck descended slowly down the stairway. A stunning girl in a bright scarlet-and-green jumpsuit met him halfway, threw her arms about him, and kissed him wildly as the watching crowd roared its approval.

  Angelina neve
r did anything halfway. . . .

  Chapter 2

  One of the greatest pleasures of an air-show gathering Hke the annual Experimental Aircraft Association bash was that the best pilots in the world could shed the routines of their daily lives and just let it all hang out. Emerging from the blizzard of government and company regulations that at times proved stifling and always frustrating, the pilots put aside their jobs as the chauffeurs of large aerial buses with hordes of passengers. Thoughts of demanding commercial schedules and wearying routes were banished. Men and women in perfectly creased, starched uniforms shed these outer skins for snazzy flight suits and leather helmets. Staid jetliner captains shucked their company attire and dressed in coveralls and straw hats for zany flying farmer routines. Other pilots changed their names and strapped on parachutes for adventurous leaps from perfectly good airplanes, rolling and twisting and swan-diving earthward at breathless speeds, often grabbing hands and legs in colorful star and circle patterns of human bodies as the world rushed up toward them. The thrill was in the wonder of free-fall and then the final seconds when the pilot hauled on his D-ring and snapped open his chute pack, which started inflating the square chute that would bring him earthward with all the grace and control of a giant bird. If the chute failed to open or came out in a

  A Life in the Future

  useless twirling snarl, he could experience the real thrill of the moment. He had scant seconds remaining to either untangle the flapping mess or cut himself away from the partially opened chute, fall free, and then deploy his reserve chute.

  If that failed, he could always smile and wave gaily to the crowd right up to that sickening moment when his body smashed into the unjdelding earth or concrete and he was instantly transformed from a functional human being into a greasy spot. One thing was certain. Up to the final moment, and especially at the last split second of fall, he held the rapt attention of the entire crowd.

  Some of the fl3ring acts, even when flown by men and women of superb skill, could never be less than extremely dangerous. Tumbling a plane through violent aerobatics, which always seemed on the edge of disaster, was actually duck soup for veteran flyers in machines stressed to survive the punishment of fourteen times the force of gravity.

  It was a bit dicier for the jet aerobatic teams when they roared through their dazzling routines in spectacular tight formation, wingtips less than four feet apart. On this day a new element was added. The Thunderbirds were out to bury the Russians, and the Red Stars were only too happy to oblige with their powerful MiGs and Sukhois. The Canadians flew dainty little jet trainers, the Italians smeared the sky with large formations trailing red, green and white smoke, the U.S. Air Force showed up in ghostly bat-shaped B-2 bombers, and the Russians countered by flying a sleek Blackjack jet bomber escorting a huge Antonov An-225, their six-engined cloud smasher that weighed eight hundred tons as it barreled down the runway with the Russian Buran space shuttle hooked atop its fuselage.

  These were razzle-dazzle acts the crowds had seen for many years. Slowly but surely, the call came for direct competition between pilots in mock combat. Buck Rogers and his fellow pilots recognized that appeal lay in nostalgia for the old days, when men were made of iron and their airplanes had two wings of the finest spruce, powered with clattering engines and wooden propellers, twisting in spiraling death duels.

  That was one of the keys to the success of bringing back the old barnstorming acts. These planes flew low, and they were slow compared to the heavy jet planes with their sharply swept

  Buck Rogers

  wings and booming engines. The performance of the jets was thrilling, but it got old quickly because their speed gave the crowd only a brief look as they rushed by. An airplane that topped out of its loop at twenty thousand feet was merely an unimpressive small dot in the sky, often lost to view in the glare of the sun.

  But the World War One fighters, evoking the names and glory of Richthofen, Rickenbacker, Lufberry, Nungesser, Bishop, and other air aces, stayed so low to the ground that spectators could see the pilots, study their facial expressions, identify with the wind tearing at their skin and clothes. It was a ringside seat for the Great Event, and the huge audiences had made little-known pilots into famed gladiators.

  And their biggest hero was Buck Rogers, grandstanding as fellow wingman to Richthofen and Boelcke, the great aces of the war of 1914-1918.

  Buck Rogers made his appearance in the right-hand seat of an ancient World War One truck, without top or doors, riding on thin rubber tires, clattering and backfiring with crowd-pleasing blasts of fire and smoke from its exhaust. Wheezing down the long runway gave everyone time to push his way to the closest viewing spaces for the final battle of the day. Buck rolled close to the gleaming Fokker D-7—or at least what looked like the famous 1917 fighter plane of the kaiser's air force.

  Throughout the frame and wings, lightweight metal alloys made the replica Fokker an aircraft with much greater strength than its predecessor of decades before. The rectangular engine compartment housed a modern engine of four hundred horsepower and a propeller designed by computer to squeeze every ounce of power from its Bullhead engine. Even the wings, which looked remarkably like those of the original, had been computer-modified not only to provide greater lift, but also to make the new D-7 even more maneuverable than its ancestor.

  Buck would need every last one of these improvements. Soon he would be airborne and rushing into the mock but serious clash with Blacky Dillard, who had fought in the skies through several small wars in Central America and who had eight kills to his credit. Blacky would meet him head-on at the controls of a Spad 13 fighter, French-built but flown by America's top aces in the long-ago war.

  A Life in the Future

  It would be the speed of the French fighter against the agihty and superior climbing ability of the Fokker, but in the end the outcome would be decided by the skill and cunning of the two dueling airmen.

  This was a battle more than a million people would be watching from unique ringside seats. Both the Fokker and the Spad had miniature video cameras where the machine guns were usually mounted. The cameras transmitted what they "saw," duplicating what the pilots would see through their gunsights, and that image was in turn displayed on huge television screens located throughout the spectator area. Awed onlookers could look upward when the two fighters tangled in classic battle, and at a glance could seem to join each of the pilots in his plane. Adding to the realism, when either pilot pulled on his trigger, propane "guns" would fire with bursts of flame, broadcasting the simulated staccato bark of Vickers and Spandau machine guns over loudspeakers. Each pilot had a lip microphone; the audience would hear each man as if he were talking to himself in battle, right down to the grunts and rapid breathing as they pulled high gravity forces in their maneuvers.

  The dogfight resembled a human pinball game. Laser sights in each fighter, continually checked by computer, would register bullet strikes against each opposing plane. If a machine-gun burst sent a spray of electronic bullets into an engine or the opposing pilot, the hits would register on the multiple television screens. The computer would also decide a kill.

  One final fillip set the stage for the aerial show. Each fighter carried a container of vegetable oil. They could simulate oil leaks or smoke from flames by means of a pump, which shot the nonflammable oil into the hot exhaust to produce thick smoke.

  The two men shook hands before climbing into their fighters. Blacky grinned at Buck. "Watch yourself up there, mate. You're lucky this isn't the real thing."

  Buck spoke in his best ersatz German. "English swine. You are confused. I'm confused," Buck laughed. "I call you an English dog, but you are actually an American flying a French airplane, neinT''

  "What did the German pilots say to each other before they took off on a mission?" Blacky asked. "I mean, the real stuff"

  "Hals und beinbruch," Buck answered. "It means 'break your

  Buck Rogers

  neck and your leg.' A good-luck
wish."

  "See you upstairs," Blacky said and climbed into the Spad.

  The two fighter planes taxied down the long runway directly before the crowd. Tumultuous cheering rose above the rumbling snarl of engines. Television cameras with long lenses on high stands offered tight close-ups of the pilots as they went through the final checks of their aircraft. The television screens showed Blacky in his usual unemotional preparation for flight as if it were the real thing. The crowd howled with laughter as the cameras turned to Buck in the Fokker. The propeller blast whipped his bright red scarf wildly behind him, accenting the leather flying helmet. Buck pulled his goggles down over his eyes and took a few moments to light a large cigar clenched in his teeth. He looked up into the cameras and grinned. The crowd loved it. Mr. Adventure himself, out for a great time.

  A ground controller alongside the grass runway held up a yellow flag, then brought it down sharply, the signal for Blacky to take off first. Blacky knew how to razzle-dazzle an audience. He poured the coal to his engine, shoved the stick forward, stood on his brakes and immediately eased back on the stick. The Spad's tail rose until the fighter was level with the ground, the tail suspended in the air. Finally Blacky released the brakes, and the fighter shot forward and was airborne in a sudden burst of speed.

  Buck watched the Spad make a steep climbing turn, leveling off at seven hundred feet. This was the altitude agreed upon for the classic one-on-one battle. Blacky would start his run northward over the grass runway while Buck flew head-on. At the last moment, each pilot would break sharply to the right, and from that moment on, it was each man for himself

  Buck started his takeoff roll to the cheers and roar of the crowd. The Fokker rose swiftly above the runway, then leveled off, scant feet above the ground, as it built up speed. Instead of making the same climbing turn, Buck rammed the Fokker forward as fast as it would go. Abruptly he horsed back on the stick, and the fighter zoomed skyward, coming up beneath the Spad, laser sights coming to bear on the surprised Blacky.