by Lee Baldwin
That’s as much as we can do in the barn, so we get on the tractor and start to roll. I watch behind as the Mustang follows obediently, nose high. She has this small air scoop under the prop spinner that looks to me like a laughing cartoon mouth. I can feel the spirit of this proud relic leering down at us on the dusty tractor, as though saying, What are you pretenders about to do?
With minimal use of lights, we tow the plane across the road and onto the hard dirt surface. The moon is behind cloud, I don’t know if that’s good or bad. I’d sure like to see the strip better. Even in the quiet nighttime dark, I have the creepy feeling we’re shouting at the world for attention, and are being watched. The white line we’d laid down points out into blackness.
I’m in the cockpit buckled up tight. Thermal undies, coveralls, down jacket, boots, two parachutes, motorcycle helmet, all making me feel hot, clumsy and uncoordinated. Not confidence inspiring. A red darkroom light illuminates the cockpit. On my laptop is the startup sequence Wade and I had worked out. We assume our priming in the barn does not have to be repeated. Canopy still open, using hand signals as well as the walkie-talkies, I raise the starter switch cover and hold the switch at START. My fingers tremble.
A high-pitched whine is quickly replaced by the sound of the starter, straining to move the big prop. The whole plane jumps. I count six blade passes, then switch the magnetos to BOTH. Flick the fuel boost pump switch at the left of the starter, then the electric primer to the right. I bring the mixture lever to the RUN position.
The whole airframe twists and shudders. A few loud bangs from the manifolds, then a fuel-scented roar and the blades become a blur out front. Orange flame jetting from the twelve exhaust manifolds lights up the wings. She smooths out.
Unbefuckinglievable.
The oil pressure needle jumps and starts to rise. If it’s not at least 50 pounds within the first half-minute I’ll shut her down. There would be no point in continuing. An engine without oil pressure will not survive takeoff.
Wade is standing down below with a fire extinguisher. All kinds of black smoke I smell rather than see is belching out both sides of the long nose, blowing past the cockpit on the tornado from that prop. I sit here letting it idle at 1200 RPM until the oil temperature hits 40 degrees C.
Following what’s next on my screen, I make sure coolant and oil switches are set to AUTOMATIC, and move the mixture control to RUN. Move the prop control forward to the INCREASE RPM position. This part would go better if I had two right arms.
I hold the stick back to keep the tail wheel locked straight, check that flaps are in the UP position and oil and coolant shutters are open. I release the parking brake and the taxi roll is on. Engine RPM at 1200, I maintain my clearance to the white line on the left of the strip. When the line becomes double I’ve only got 100 yards of runway so I slow, release the tail wheel, and press the left brake. The wheels skitter on the dirt as she pivots around. Heading back toward Wade I leave the tail wheel free, try some S-turns using rudder.
An electric thrill runs through me, replacing the dread I’ve felt the last two weeks. This thing is alive! Just as when flying with Sean, she’s wonderfully responsive to the controls. Now I can’t wait to get her off the ground and do some flying. Man, I wish the moon was out.
I do a fair job of swinging the Mustang around at the other end. I see Wade standing there, clothes flapping in the prop wash. With her nose pointed at the far end of the runway, it’s time for the engine checks. If these don’t go right, we might still wind up towing her back to the barn. I ease up the manifold pressure, tach rises to 2300 RPM. Magneto checks show no serious drop when I switch from left to right and back to BOTH. Simmonds regulator, supercharger, switches for carb air, radiator air, a dozen more things from the checklist. They all go well, but my breathing is still high in my chest.
I drop the RPM to idle. Set the flaps to 15 degrees and watch them move into position. There’s nothing more to do now, except advance the throttle to full manifold pressure. I pull my headset away from one ear. Damn, that engine is loud! With the walkie-talkie, I yell at Wade.
“Hey man you rule. This is huge.”
“It sounds great,” he yells over the radio. We can hardly hear one another above the engine. “You take care little brother.”
“Talk to you at dawn.” I switch the handset off, toss it to the ground. I crank the canopy closed and make sure it’s locked. Dude, it sure is hard to move in this cramped cockpit with all the gear I have on.
I check rudder trim for about the fifth time. Needs to be set at 6 degrees right for takeoff. Stick aft of neutral to lock the tail wheel. Forcing myself to inhale, I ease the throttle up until the manifold pressure gauge shows 40 inches boost. The airframe trembles.
I release the brakes.
Damn thing tries to leap out from under me! Quickly I increase boost to 55 inches and the roar is deafening as she begins to roll. At that moment the high winter moon finds a hole in the clouds and the dirt strip appears in faint silver light. I anticipate the nose wanting to swing left and add some right rudder to keep her straight. It’s too much. When I back off the rudder, the Mustang fishtails a bit. As I fight to catch it, the acceleration is so strong my seat harness feels loose. Airspeed shows 70 MPH already, and the tail is ready to fly. I ease the stick forward and the fuselage comes level. For the first time I can see ahead and I’m lined up OK with the runway and the chalk line. At 95 MPH it’s rolling straight and true on the main wheels.
But wait I am slowing down!
Engine RPM is dropping. With this crescendo of noise and action in the cockpit, white line whipping by to my left, I have no time to process this at all. I reach for the throttle and find it’s crept back toward idle. I shove it forward fast. Bad move. The abrupt engine torque tries to twist the plane over and one wing goes airborne so I have no choice but to ease back on the stick to get her off the ground where it’s safe to roll level.
I have no idea where the white line is anymore, or the runway. Or the telephone lines. I’m off the dirt at 115 MPH. I nudge a little more back pressure on the stick, hoping it’s not too soon, and with great relief I feel a mighty hand beneath me lift the plane upward into the dark. I pull back a bit harder and feel my body get heavier, gritting my teeth as she rises, expecting the worst. Those power lines are somewhere out there, waiting.
But nothing comes. Indicated airspeed 170. I throttle back to 46 inches boost and the RPM drops to 2700. Just like the books all said! I set the flaps to zero. Unlock the landing gear lever and pull it toward me. Whirring sounds and unfamiliar thumps underneath the ship. The ride smooths out, gets quieter, speed picks up to 225. Frantically I scan the instrument panel looking for anything out of place but there’s nothing. Good God what a feeling. This thing is flying!
I am wishing I could say something to Wade right now. I can imagine him whooping and hollering back there with tears in his eyes, practically shitting himself as his airplane, the one he worked on the last five years, becomes a darker shadow where night-clouds chase a winter moon. I am somewhere between ecstatic and scared out of my wits to be flying her, in all her din and uproar. Mostly I am beyond busy, looking back and forth between my laptop and the instrument panel, checking dials and readings and control settings over and over.
Outside the canopy there’s moonlit farmland and a scattering of distant lights. Watching the GPS strapped to my knee, I turn the ship toward my first waypoint. Steady in the turn, my mind has a chance to replay the last few seconds of takeoff. What did I do wrong? Oh, of course. Had to be throttle creep. The friction setting on the throttle quadrant had let it slip back toward idle. A little thing like that, and I almost lost the ship in the first 20 seconds. Three hours to fly. What the hell else will wait to bite me?
But I survived my first power takeoff.
I tighten the friction lock until the throttle stays in position. My job now is to hit the correct altitude so I can follow the terrain to my first waypoint. Whatever navigation
gear the Mustang has, I’m using something far simpler and better, the GPS. Using sectional maps covering from here to Gallup, I had laid in a series of waypoints and altitudes that will carry me on a terrain-hugging course, avoiding major traffic lanes all the way to an empty desert north of Gallup.
Basically I’ll fly south toward Fresno, down the San Joaquin Valley, over the mountains well south of Tehachapi, low over the country north of Interstate 40, often following railroad tracks at 200 feet. To further fool any snoopy radar, I’m planning 60 miles of my route through the Grand Canyon, below the rim. I look at the small GPS unit on my knee and wonder at the leap of faith it took to trust my life and this historic aircraft to a little chunk of plastic and circuit boards that cost less than 80 bucks at Best Buy. Life of the modern airplane smuggler.
I get relaxed enough to think. Something Sean had said on my joyride comes to me. It’s been said that Reichsmarschall Hermann Göring, commander of the German Luftwaffe during WWII, remarked, “When I saw Mustangs over Berlin, I knew the war was over.” It’s a fact that the Mustang helped ensure Allied air superiority in Europe by 1944, the year my dad was born. Dad! How I’d love for you to see me flying this.
By the time I’ve covered 300 miles, the moon is behind me. Her light fills the cockpit, illuminates the silver wings I ride on. My eyes continually scan the panel. Engine coolant in range, oil temperature and pressure in range, RPM steady at 2250, indicated airspeed 322 miles an hour. My ears are ringing behind this V-12 engine, but she sounds fine far as I can tell. The engine note has been consistent since I leveled off, not a stumble. I can only imagine how the real World War II Mustang pilots must have felt, returning after eight-hour missions that often included a lot of shooting, being shot at, and demanding aerobatic moves. Many of them were teens and twenty-somethings when they got started. Unstoppable youth. I’d like to meet a real Mustang pilot someday. A dying breed of real warriors.
I’d ridden in a perfectly-restored B-17 bomber years ago. The four radial engines on the wings set up such a racket that the only possibility of conversation inside the ship was headsets and intercom. I had imagined being a 19-year-old kid at 22,000 feet above the lights of some German city at night, such as Dresden, watching a thicket of artillery explosions around him as the bombardier guides them on a precisely straight and predictable course to the release point. Sitting ducks to all the firepower below. I’d imagined going down in one of those things after it was crippled by flak, a cramped straitjacket of screaming metal, nearly impossible to get out of. War. What a monstrous sin.
For a few moments I take my mind off the airplane, change hands on the stick so I can flex my fingers inside the heavy glove. Now I’m happy for the bulky clothing that seems to take up half the cockpit. The temperature out there must be near zero.
One second, everything is going along all normal. Next instant, my world tilts on its axis. Doesn’t seem like much, just this one ruby indicator light on the panel. What had Wade called it? The rear radar warning light. Here I am, over an expanse of low cloud that’s typical of Nevada this time of year, which means that down on the deck it’s dense fog.
The ruby glow holds steady, which means only one thing. There’s another aircraft on my butt. I crane my head around, looking behind as much as I am able. Nothing in the dark sky. I bank sharply to the left, the light goes out. Turn back to my GPS course. Light’s out. Hold my breath. No, dammit, it’s on again, shining fierce and steady from its place on the panel full of other lights, switches, dials, indicators. If it’s an aircraft, then they have visual on me, or radar. And I can’t see them. I lower the nose and advance the throttle, increasing speed. The light stays on. The cloud bank is coming closer. I see from the GPS I have enough altitude, just then the light goes out. I level off, a few hundred feet above the clouds.
I watch the panel, the light stays dark. I’m just starting to breathe easy when I become aware of a presence outside the canopy. There off my port wing floats a sinister dark shape, red position light shining steadily. A row of six blue flames along the nose. Someone stalking me!
My mind goes on full turbocharger mode. Who is here? Mick? The Air Force? My new parole officer? Who the hell can be out there? I know I’ve probably lit up radar scopes somewhere along the way but I’ve been so low much of the time I would be hard to follow. Except by another aircraft.
My first reaction is to bank hard away from the dark shape beside me. I increase speed slightly, which gets me busy changing rudder and elevator trim to keep her flying clean. Banked 70 degrees and pulling around 5 Gs, I’m aiming for a 360-degree turn that will shake them and put me back on course. Who is out there?
Well, apparently it’s a damn good pilot. Before I’m a quarter of the way through the turn, the fricking red light comes on steady. Shit oh dear! Back on my desired heading now, the light’s still solid. I sigh. Learning evasive maneuvers in the dark with an unfamiliar aircraft is out of the question, so I have only one viable option. I hope it doesn’t lead to disaster.
I lower the nose and enter the cloud. Now this really is the shits. Without the ability to see a horizon, human senses can’t tell if a plane is right side up, turning, diving, or what. The GPS can show my speed over ground, position and altitude, but it knows nothing about the Mustang’s attitude, whether it’s flying wings level or not. But built into every one of these warplanes is a wonderful device called an artificial horizon.
I use it now.
Keep my heading with the GPS, keep her level with the instruments. I hate this I hate it and hate it. Every sense is screaming to let me out of this damn blanket so I can see the horizon, the moon, the sky. But I fix my mind on the GPS trace, the artificial horizon, and oh God the altimeter! I clamp down on my spinning brain, which is telling me I’m in a steep bank again. I set my sights on twenty minutes. Just that much. Stay hidden for that long, they won’t be able to find me again. The ruby light stays dark.
My mind drifts again, following the instruments by reflex. Somewhere in the last few days I’d told Tharcia and the twins about my former plan to drop out of sight. What it meant, why I wanted that. How long I had longed for a new life, a clean life. And that suddenly, finding a new life was the last thing I needed.
The twins got their shorts in a complete twist, what about the grow, the jewels? What about us, you blockhead! I hadn’t realized how hurt they would be. But Tharcia’s reaction was a model of serene confidence. She simply said, “That’s not what you are thinking anymore, Stuka. It isn’t.” Looking into her eyes, all I could do was shake my head in time with hers. No.
“I will find you,” she informed me.
But immersed in unending cloud my mind somehow finds its center, and I stop being afraid. I think back, knowing I could have died five or six times in the last two weeks. I did not. Why? Simple answer, it ain’t time yet. Montana, enforcer88, Drake, Mick, the almost-bungled takeoff tonight, any of those could have finished me. There comes a vision of my life stretching out ahead, long beyond this night, spent with people I love. It ain’t my time yet.
Two hours later I’m flying in clear air, alone above New Mexico. Daylight creeps toward me over the desert, hills and valleys take form below. Following the GPS, I hold a straight course as I approach the final waypoint, watching for the marker. There it is! Stretched across the empty desert, a long trail of pink smoke points toward sunrise.
The landing area is just as Wade described it, just as it looked in the satellite images. I circle back, line up on the smoke and follow it in. For the hell of it, knowing this is my only chance ever, I up the manifold pressure to 55 inches and bring her in low across the valley floor at about 390 MPH, enjoying the blur of speed close to the ground. As I draw closer I make out some shapes: a man, a motorcycle, a pair of fuel drums. Am I mistaken, or is the man standing at attention, holding a rigid salute as I make my pass?
Man, motorcycle, fuel. Well, okay, just like the plan said. All that remains is for a pilot who has never before flown a powe
r plane to now land one. As in, set down a rare and valuable war relic without erasing it from history.
Is it going to be that simple? I have landed gliders many times, and this is a landing. When I landed with Sean, he was taking care of all the checklist crap, rudder trim, and other controls. I find myself wishing I could talk to Wade, about how things are doing where he is. But the cockpit noise and all the tasks ahead of me put that out of reach. An edge of orange sun flames a distant sawtooth of snowcapped peaks.
I pull up the landing checklist on my laptop.
I’d practiced several landing sequences during the flight, using the flaps, all the touchdown steps, feeling the incipient stall in a nose-up attitude. The Mustang definitely talks to you approaching stall, but is stable and predictable. The only thing I hadn’t tested is the landing gear. No way would I risk a gear malfunction mid-flight.
I take a deep breath and let it out slow. I see from the direction of the pink smoke that I’ll be able to bring it in straight upwind on the ancient lakebed. Lined up from about four miles out, I set prop and throttle and slow to 150 MPH, pull the gear lever toward me to unlock it then shove it into the DOWN position and lock it. Thumps and bumps, more slipstream noise. The indicator tells me that tailwheel and mains are down and locked. Airspeed is low enough to dial in full flaps. They’re hydraulic and take about 15 seconds to extend. I can see them move from the cockpit.
No rush. I can take time to get this right. There are 50 gallons of fuel left on board. The trick is, according to the P-51 pilot’s manual, to hold her off in the 3-point attitude just above the runway, let her lose speed and settle in. I pick my aim point near the smoke trail.
Well, the first time I don’t like it so much. I feel the stall coming when I am still fifteen feet up, so I apply power and do a wide slow circle. I am ready for the engine torque this time and there’s no excitement. This circuit takes a while because the manual says not to make any turns until the flaps are up. What do I know? So I follow the book, which also says raise the gear for go-arounds but I am not about to take any chances with the hydraulics and am flying slow enough.